The short version: Square Online's free plan is genuinely free to have, but it charges 3.3% plus 30 cents on online card payments, while Square's paid plans charge 2.9% plus 30 cents. That extra 0.4% is the price of the free plan. Square Plus is $49 a month per location and Premium is $149 per location, both with a 30-day trial. Homegrown is $10 a month billed annually or $12.50 monthly, 0% commission, 2.9% plus $0.30, with a 7-day trial and sales tax calculated and remitted in all 50 states. On cost alone, Square Free is slightly cheaper than Homegrown until roughly $2,500 a month in online sales, and slightly more expensive after that. Which means for most vendors this decision is not really about price.
All figures below came off Square's own pricing and fee pages and Homegrown's signup page in July 2026.
Square is a payments company that grew an online store around its card reader. Homegrown is a storefront built for people who sell food locally. That origin shows up in what each one is good at.
Square is strongest at the register. Its in-person rates are the best numbers on this page: 2.6% plus 15 cents on the free plan, dropping to 2.4% plus 15 cents on Premium. If most of your sales happen face to face at a market booth, Square's hardware and rates are hard to argue with.
Homegrown is strongest at the link. It is built around a storefront customers order from ahead of time, with pickup at each place you actually sell, local delivery with a route, and the tax paperwork handled.
The practical differences:
Our full Square alternative breakdown covers where those differences bite hardest for food vendors specifically.
Same four disclosures on every plan.
| Homegrown | Square Free | Square Plus | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subscription | $10/mo billed annually, or $12.50/mo billed monthly | $0/mo per location | $49/mo per location |
| Free trial | 7-day free trial, nothing charged until day eight | No trial needed, the plan is free | 30-day free trial |
| Platform fee | $0, 0% commission | $0 | $0 |
| Card processing | 2.9% + $0.30 online | 3.3% + 30¢ online, 2.6% + 15¢ in person | 2.9% + 30¢ online, 2.5% + 15¢ in person |
The row that decides most of this comparison is the last one. Square's free plan does not remove a cost, it moves it. You stop paying a subscription and start paying an extra 0.4% on every online order, which is a genuinely reasonable trade at low volume and a bad one at high volume.
Square Premium is $149 a month per location and brings the online rate to 2.9% plus 30 cents with 2.4% plus 15 cents in person, plus 24/7 support. There are also device add-ons: the kitchen display app runs $20 to $30 a month per device and the kiosk app $30 to $50 a month per device, depending on plan.
For context on why these rates sit where they do, the Federal Reserve publishes average interchange fees by payment card network under Regulation II. Interchange is the wholesale cost underneath every rate on this page, and it is why the spread between platforms is measured in fractions of a percent rather than in whole numbers.
The comparison between Square Free and Homegrown comes down to one equation: is 0.4% of your online sales more or less than $10 a month?
Worked at two volumes, using a $20 average order.
At $1,000 a month, 50 online orders
At $4,000 a month, 200 online orders
Those are small numbers in both directions, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. Square Plus is a different story: at $1,000 a month it costs $93.00 against Homegrown's $54.00, because you are paying $49 for the privilege of the lower rate before the lower rate has saved you anything. Square Plus only pays for itself against Square Free once you are doing serious online volume.
There is one wrinkle worth flagging before moving on. Square's per-location pricing means the comparison changes shape if you sell in more than one place. A vendor at three Saturday markets who wants each one tracked separately is looking at $147 a month on Square Plus, against $10 on a platform that charges per account and lets you add as many pickup locations as you have. That is not a rounding difference, and it is the single largest cost gap in this whole comparison for anyone selling at multiple sites. If you sell in one place, ignore it entirely. If you sell in three, it is probably the deciding number, and it is worth pricing both against your real setup rather than against a single-location example.
So if the money is close, what decides it?
Six things, none of which are the subscription price.
If you already take orders informally and are weighing whether any platform is worth it, our guide to adding online ordering to an existing market business covers the step before this decision.
Being straight about it, Square is the right answer for a lot of vendors.
Square is also simply a larger, more mature product with more surface area. If you need inventory management, staff accounts, loyalty, and a register in one place, that is a real argument and no $10 storefront replaces it. Our fuller look at Square for local food vendors covers where it fits.
The sales tax point is worth pausing on, because it is easy to underrate until you have done it twice. The SBA's guidance on managing your business finances treats tax compliance as an ongoing operational cost rather than a one-time setup, which matches reality for anyone selling in more than one jurisdiction. A platform that calculates rates is doing half the job. A platform that files and remits is doing the whole thing.
Homegrown does not do:
Square Online does not do:
Read both lists against your actual week. The platform missing something you do weekly is the wrong platform, whatever else it does well.
The cost difference is small enough that a real trial beats a spreadsheet.
One caution on step two, because it is the step people get wrong. Use your online sales in that calculation, not your total. Square's extra 0.4% only applies to card-not-present transactions, so a vendor doing $4,000 a month where $3,500 of it is taps at a market booth has online sales of $500, and the free plan is comfortably cheaper for them. Splitting the number correctly is the difference between a real comparison and a misleading one, and it is the sort of detail that gets flattened out of most articles on this topic. If your point of sale reports do not separate the two cleanly, a month of tagging orders by hand is worth it before you move anything.
If you want the wider field rather than a head-to-head, our best e-commerce platforms for local vendors comparison lines up more options using the same fee disclosure as the table above.
The plan is free to have. It is not free to use. Square Free charges 3.3% plus 30 cents on online card payments, against 2.9% plus 30 cents on its paid plans. That 0.4% difference is what the free plan costs you, and it scales with your sales.
$10 a month billed annually, or $12.50 billed monthly, with 0% commission and 2.9% plus $0.30 card processing. The trial is 7 days and nothing is charged until day eight.
At roughly $2,500 a month in online sales, where 0.4% of your volume equals the $10 subscription. Below that Square Free is cheaper by a few dollars a month. Above it Homegrown is cheaper, and the gap widens.
Only if the 0.4% rate reduction saves you more than $49, which takes about $12,250 a month in online sales, or if you need what else is on the plan: staff management, marketing tools, and lower in-person rates. Do not buy Square Plus for the online rate alone at small volume.
Square, for the in-person transaction itself. Its card-present rate of 2.6% plus 15 cents on the free plan is the best number in this comparison, and its hardware is purpose-built. Homegrown's strength is the pre-order that happens before market day, not the tap at the booth.
Square provides tax settings and calculation, but filing and remitting returns is on you. Homegrown calculates, files, and remits in all 50 states, including handling states that exempt qualifying food.
Yes on paid plans. Square Plus is $49 a month per location and Premium is $149 per location. If you sell at three markets and want them tracked separately, price that accordingly. Homegrown charges one subscription regardless of how many pickup locations you set up.
If most of your money comes across a counter, use Square. Its in-person rates and hardware are the best part of the product and nothing here beats them.
If most of your money comes from people ordering ahead for pickup or delivery, the fee difference is close to a wash and the decision comes down to what the software does for you: pickup scheduling at several locations, delivery with a route, a marketplace listing, a hidden home address, and sales tax filed on your behalf. Those are the reasons to move, not a few dollars a month.
The honest test is a week of real orders rather than a spreadsheet. You can put your products on a storefront during a 7-day trial, share the link with your regulars, and see whether ordering ahead changes how they buy before anything is charged. If it does not, you have your answer and it cost you nothing.
