Square Appointments Review

Pros

• Easy to use
• Excellent mobile app
• Free for individuals
• Includes a free online store

Cons

• Limited customization
• Some integrations missing

Overview

Square Appointments is scheduling and online customer booking software that can be added for free (for one user) with every Square account. Automatic appointment reminders are included with the free plan, while the paid plan includes multi-staff appointments and split tipping so customers can book more than one service.

Square Appointments Pricing

There are three plans, each of which offers a complete suite of scheduling features ranging from $0 - $69/month

The lower-tiered plans cap the maximum number of staff who can access the account, and the higher-tiered plans offer a slight discount on Square’s credit card processing.

The free plan offers some generous features, including:

• Square assistant
• Automated reminders
• Square Online
• Instagram integrations
• SEO tools
• Team management
• Time tracking
• Permissions
• Sales history
• Low-stock alerts

That should be enough to get your small booking business off the ground and may even be all a larger establishment needs as well. But if you’re looking for some more advanced features, Pro offers:

• Multiple locations
• No-show protection
• Daily appointment limit
• Google calendar sync

The Premium package unlocks even more at a still relatively low price point, and, among other things, you get access to:

• Resource management
• Custom permissions
• Sales vs. Labor reporting
• Commission tracking

Square Appointment pricing is competitive with many other booking software platforms. However, most other booking software with free plans has some feature limitations. By contrast, Square Appointments has a fully-featured free plan for individuals. If you’re operating from multiple locations, you’ll need to at least sign up for the Plus plan, and if you need detailed reporting and commission tracking, Premium will be the way to go.

It’s also worth noting that if you already have a Square-powered business in need of booking software that can accommodate multiple employees, the price for Square Appointments will likely be worth it — and not just for the seamless payment integration. You can also sign up for a 30-day free trial to get a sense of whether Square Appointments is worth the price of admission.

Square Appointments Is Best Suited For…

Virtually any-sized business that requires complex scheduling, like salons or spas, could likely benefit from Square Appointments.

It can organize schedules from across multiple locations, comes with Square’s simple payment processing, and has access to Square’s app store for added integrations. Square Appointments is one of the few POS software options specifically designed for these unique industries, and while it may not be the most robust appointment-based product, its low cost and simplicity help it stand out.

Square Appointments Features

Square Appointment features are undeniably strong and receive high marks in our ratings system, even if they are a little bit basic in terms of appearance and options for visual customization.

• Integrated Payments & POS: Square Appointments integrates with Square payment processing and functions seamlessly alongside the Square POS system and the entire Square suite of business products. That’s a huge plus if you already use Square’s payment processing, inventory management, staff management, or other products. You can check out customers right from the Square Appointments app. Since Square allows unlimited devices, you could potentially have a main POS at the counter and check out customers from their seats using your phone or an iPad. Checking out customers and collecting their payments after their appointment couldn’t be easier. Add any retail items to their total and swipe, dip, or tap their credit card (you can also accept cash or check). The first time you accept a customer’s credit card, you can store their card for future use.
  

  

• Tipping: You can choose whether to offer preset tip suggestions in percentages or whole amounts. The Smart Tips option provides tip suggestions in whole amounts for transactions of less than $10 and percentage-based tips for larger amounts. Customers can now add a tip when prepaying for their appointment, which removes the need for any in-person checkout or tipping transactions — though you can still allow the option to tip in-person if you so choose.

• Online Booking Site: On the customer’s end, your free online booking site automatically displays your services and availability, and it allows them to book or reschedule appointments. It also integrates with Google, Facebook, and Instagram, allowing new customers to instantly book an appointment from their social media apps or right from Google. Booking from the client’s perspective is extremely simple: They simply select a type of appointment or specific service, choose an available time slot, and enter their contact information.
• Square Assistant: This is a newer feature in Square Appointments that handles confirmations and rescheduling via automatic responses to customers. Using this digital messenger, customers can reschedule appointments any time of day or night. Responding to your customers, canceling appointments, rescheduling appointments, and updating your calendar all take up time and resources, and Square Assistant saves you those resources.
  

  

• Mobile App: Square Appointments is available as a standalone app for iOS and Android. Both apps are highly reviewed on their respective platforms and provide a seamless experience whether you’re accessing Appointments from a web browser or the mobile app. The ability to take mobile payments is a game-changer for any independent service professional who wants to accept credit cards and not just cash or check.
• Commission Tracking: Square Appointments now allows commission tracking. This feature lets you assign a commission to each sale or service provided. The commission rate is adjustable per employee. The feature also allows you to assign commissions for retail sales.
• Resource Tracking: This feature lets you create resources — such as rooms, beds, chairs, stations, etc. — and assign them to your services as needed. When those services are booked, the resources are booked as well, making sure you don’t book more services than there are sufficient resources available at any given time.
• Square Contracts: Use this integration to email digital contracts to your customers after they book an appointment. You can create custom contracts or use Square’s contract templates. Once the customer digitally signs the contract, you’ll be able to see that they signed it on their customer profile.
• Team Management: Square offers free timekeeping and basic employee management tools as part of its feature set. If you need advanced features, you can upgrade to Square Advanced Access for $35/month.
• Customer Directory: Square users should take advantage of this SaaS’s intricate customer management tools to track loyalty, satisfaction, and feedback. This feature is free with your Square account.
• Square Marketing:  Send customers coupons, welcomes, and announcements to clientele based on criteria, such as the frequency of their visits. Your template selection is limited, and you can edit the elements of the template, but it’s limited to adding and subtracting elements, swapping out images, and changing text.
• Square Invoices: If you want to allow your customers to pay for their appointments later online (rather than in-person at the appointment), this is the feature that will suit you perfectly. Square invoices are free to send; you just pay 2.9% + $0.30 per invoice when customers pay with credit or debit online.
• Square Appointments Integrations & Add-Ons: As feature-rich as Square is, it’s also quite expandable. As a result, all software that’s compatible with Square is compatible with Square Appointments as well. However, depending on the program, the software may only interact with the Appointments feature in a limited way or not at all if the software performs an unrelated function. In any case, some of the more popular Square integrations include:
  • Vend
  • Wix
  • TouchBistro
  • WooCommerce
  • BigCommerce
  • Lavu
  • 3dcart
  • Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice
  • QuickBooks Online
  • Xero
  • Stitch Labs
  • Google Calendar
  • And many others

  Square Appointments also integrates with all of Square’s other add-ons, including Square Marketing, Square Team Management, Square Payroll, Square Invoices, Square Loyalty, and others.

  It’s also worth noting that Square integrates with other popular booking software programs, such as Acuity, Appointy, Bookeo, Booxi, and others. Square users may also want to investigate these options to see if they may prefer to use one of those programs with — or instead of —  Square Appointments.

Ease Of Use

Square is already one of the best point of sale companies for small businesses, and a big reason for that is its simplicity. Square Appointments is no exception as you can see if you check out our in-depth ratings. Running a busy salon or spa can be daunting and complicated, but Square’s interface helps simplify things on the front end and back end. If you’re a small business just starting out, you can be selling in a matter of minutes after downloading the Square app.

Once you’re up and running, you can quickly add or import your inventory, and you can set up your own website, customizing it to fit your style and appeal to your customers. You can sync your Google calendar within the app and set up Square Assistant, a simple automated tool that can interact with your clients for things like appointment reminders.

Payment Processing With Square Appointments

If you’re planning to take payments through your booking software, you’ll be able to leverage Square’s considerable expertise in that area. Though Square is the only payment processor you can use with Square Appointments, the seamless integration is a big plus for Square users.

There’s no additional monthly fee for using the payment processing services, but Square charges 2.6% + $0.15 per transaction if you’re on the free plan, and 2.5% + $0.10 per transaction for Plus and Premium subscribers.

Online payments across all three tiers have the same fee at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, as d0 manually keyed in payments at 3.5% + $0.15 per transaction.

Of course, if you use a different credit card processor and are happy with it, you’ll probably pass up Square Appointments for a different booking software program that integrates with your preferred processor.

Square Appointments Customer Service & Support

Square offers its merchants, including those using Square Appointments, a few options for customer service. It isn’t always super easy to reach a live person, but overall, Square’s support channels are respectable.

• Phone Support: Available Monday through Friday from 6 AM to 6 PM, you can call to speak to a human. However, it can sometimes be difficult to reach a human, and you may be sent to its live chat feature.
• Support Center: Like most online support centers for software, there is a lot to sort through here, especially since one knowledgebase services all of Square’s numerous products. Fortunately, performing a simple search for “appointments” brings up plenty of material to help you suss out any issues you might be experiencing.
• Square’s Support Robot: This is automated chat support that, while not as good as real live chat support, can help direct you to the right resources.

Square Appointments also offers customer support to your customers in the form of Square Assistant. Granted, this is automated support that wouldn’t be able to handle nuanced requests, but it’s free, and it’s 24/7. Your customers can mostly use it to cancel and reschedule appointments — which is probably all they would need to use it for anyway.

Note that while customers can change appointments in Square Assistant (if you enable this feature), you, as the business owner, will not be able to view the conversations between your customer and Square Assistant.

Square Appointments Contract & Commitment

Square allows you to purchase its services on a month-to-month basis, so there is never any long-term obligation, and you can also set up a free trial.

How Easy Is It To Cancel Your Agreement With Square Appointments?

Square makes it easy to cancel at any time within the app, and it just takes a few clicks. With its month-to-month plans, you don’t have to worry about any early termination fees either.

Square Appointments Reviews

Overall, Square Appointments enjoys an overwhelmingly positive reputation online.

Negative Square Appointments Reviews & Complaints

As Square Appointments lives inside the broader Square framework, it’s a bit harder to isolate reviews of its functionality, e.g., in terms of customer support or payment processing, which apply to the entire Square framework. It’s difficult to find many purely negative reviews about Square Appointments specifically, but most of the negative or mixed reviews mention one or more of the following limitations:

• Limited Customization Options: If you want to customize every aspect of your booking website’s appearance and workflow, this program does not provide the nuanced controls to perform such customizations.
• Somewhat Basic Features: Some users feel Square Appointments is overly simple and wish it had a more expansive feature-set, such as more finite client management or the ability to book classes.
• App Integrations: A few customers noted that they wished there were more apps specifically designed to work with Square Appointments.

Positive Square Appointments Reviews & Testimonials

Square Appointments is a well-liked program, garnering an impressive 4.3/5 stars on G2 Crowd. The latest version of the Square Appointments app has also been well-received at 4.9/5 stars on the App Store and 4.4/5 stars on Google Play.

• Free For Individuals: Many customers praise Appointments for being a fully-featured free booking software solution for individuals.
• Integrated Functionality: Most reviewers who also take advantage of the payment processing systems and other features that Square offers consider Appointments to be a good value.
• Easy To Use: Considering just how much Square can do, it’s remarkably easy to use and super fast to set up.
• Portable: Square was initially designed for mobile devices, so just about everything it offers is available on the go as an app or a peripheral.

Alternatives To Square Appointments

While Square Appointments provides excellent free software with the ability to scale up to more robust plans as needed, there are other good programs for timekeeping and scheduling as well. Here’s a look at how Square stacks up to some other similar products.

Square VS Honeybook

Square VS Honeybook is a close contest depending on what your business needs. While Square has a free option, Honeybook’s upper tiers are slightly cheaper and have similar advanced features. Honeybook stands out from Square with its templates and level of customization as well.

Both Square and Honeybook offer similar feature sets. At the highest level, Honeybook comes with some nice bonuses like priority support and a custom onboarding specialist. It also has a dedicated account manager and claims that advanced reporting will be available soon. Its higher tiers also have integrations with programs like Calendly, Zapier, and QuickBooks.

While Square is ultimately cheaper for small businesses, if you plan on using a wider variety of appointment services and don’t mind signing up on a year-to-year basis, Honeybook might be the way to go.

Square VS Vagaro

Square VS Vagaro is another close contest, with Vagaro ultimately offering a deeper array of features. However, many of those features can be purchased as add-ons which might drive the price up quickly.

This includes booking through social media accounts, 1000 free email marketing messages per month, and 24/7 customer support. You can turn Vagaro into an appointments powerhouse, adding payment processing and additional marketing, but some of Vagaro’s best features need to be purchased separately. Additional storage and security, online store, and website builder are all $10/month. If you only need a few of these add-ons, Vagaro is cost-effective, but if you’re trying to round out a full slate of software, Square will ultimately be more affordable.

Final Verdict

As part of a larger, integrated merchant services platform, Square Appointments can provide established small businesses with just about everything they need to book and manage appointments online, as well as accept payments as a mobile POS, with the bonus of working harmoniously with all the other numerous Square products.

On a less substantive note, Square brings a high degree of polish to its products. If you like clean, visually pleasing UIs, you’ll like what Square has to offer. Square’s hardware is unique and intuitive as well, with the Square Terminal handheld card processor and its all-in-one POS system Square Register.

Square Appointments accommodates both self-employed users who only need to manage their appointments as well as larger teams that need to manage appointments across multiple staff members and locations. If you already use Square’s free POS, Square Appointments may work out perfectly for you. Businesses using Square Appointments to manage multiple employees’ booking schedules will even receive a small discount on Square’s processing fee.

On the other hand, businesses looking for advanced booking software with more customization, multiple payment processing options, or intricate functionality may find Square Appointments too limited or overly basic and may want to check out some of the other best POS systems on the market.

Service-Based POS Review Methodology

We evaluate and test each software system that we review at Merchant Maverick, placing special emphasis on certain key software characteristics in order to generate our granular product ratings.

For service-based POS software in particular, we have a 68-point rubric we use to evaluate the system in terms of its pricing, ease of use, features, and user reviews. These points are based on attributes relevant to the appointment or service-based POS niche—such as the availability of features like online scheduling, subscription services, calendar functionality, and marketing tools.

Our rating system also takes into account attributes that are desirable for POS systems and cloud-based software in general, such as the availability of monthly pricing plans, free trials, and transparent software contracts.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Square Appointments	Visit Site

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Square Appointments for yourself.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Square Appointments	Visit Site

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Square Appointments for yourself.