Square (opens in new tab) is a payment processing giant founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey. Before starting Square, Dorsey co-founded Twitter, the popular social media platform (opens in new tab) platform.
The company offers a range of payment processing services for small, medium and large businesses, including POS systems (opens in new tab) and an online payment gateway. Square Appointments is being marketed as part of the company’s POS systems as it allows businesses to simplify scheduling with customers and handle payments.
In 2021, Square Inc, the parent company, was renamed Block Inc. However, it continued to use its old name for existing products.
Square appointments: subscriptions and prices
Any business can sign up for Square Appointments’ free plan. However, this subscription lacks many functionalities compared to the paid subscriptions. Therefore, you need to upgrade to a higher version to take full advantage of the app.
The app has two paid plans; Plus and Premium. The former costs $29 per month per location and the latter costs $69 per month per location. Custom plans are also available for businesses processing more than $250K per year, which includes every feature in Premium in addition to a dedicated account manager and discounted bundling on some other Square services, e.g. invoices and payroll.
You can take advantage of the 30-day free trial to test each plan before making a final decision.
Square Appointments: Features
The first step to using Square Appointments is to create an account. To do this, you need a valid email address that you can verify. You must also provide specific details about your business, such as a physical address and the industry you are in.
After you create an account, you will have access to a personalized Square dashboard. You can manage all your subscriptions to Square services from this dashboard, not just the appointment tool. Therefore, it can be quite confusing to find your way through it, especially for new users.
You can easily manage appointments from the web-based interface or mobile app. The main way to do that is by create a dedicated online booking website for your business. Square offers in-app tools for this, including design templates for you to choose from. However, the variety of templates is limited.
After selecting the templates, you can also choose custom colors, layout and pages to differentiate your booking website as much as possible. Then deploy it when you’re done! Your booking website is assigned a unique subdomain associated with Square’s official domain name, ie company name.SquareUp.com. Customers can visit your unique address and schedule appointments with you directly.
If you have a personal website for your business, you can also embed the appointment tool in it so that customers can book directly. This feature is compatible with websites powered by popular content management systems, such as Squarespace (opens in new tab)Wix (opens in new tab)WordPress (opens in new tab)and more.
After a customer has made an appointment with your company, you can send it automated email and text reminders to make sure they don’t miss it. You can also set an enforceable reimbursement policy for last-minute cancellations and no-shows.
Square is primarily a payment processing product, so businesses can use the Appointments app to take payments from customers. You can accept payments online or purchase Square-branded point-of-sale hardware and accept payments from customers’ credit or debit cards.
Regarding payments, Square offers a unique feature for businesses called Postpay. It’s a “buy now, pay later” product that allows your customers to split their purchases into four interest-free installments over six weeks. Enabling Afterpay can increase your sales, especially for companies that offer expensive services.
Another notable feature is the Square Assistant. It is an automated tool powered by artificial intelligence that answers customers on your behalf to confirm, cancel or reschedule appointments 24/7.
Square appointments: interface and usage
The app has a pretty neat interface that makes it easy to navigate. We encountered no significant problems during our testing.
Square appointments: support
Square offers live customer support via email, phone, live chat and social media, which is commendable. However, we have observed a pattern of complaints that the company’s customer support is often inadequate and needs significant improvement.
You can also access detailed articles and guides for the Square Appointments app in the official Help Center.
Square agreements: the competition
Popular alternatives to Square Appointments are Setmore (opens in new tab)SimplyBook (opens in new tab)and Dial time. Square’s main advantage over these rivals is its extensive payment features.
Square agreements: final verdict
We consider Square Appointments to be a decent app for businesses to take appointments from their clients without any hassle. As a plus, it offers many ways for businesses to receive payments with ease. However, we noticed some drawbacks such as expensive.
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