The Square Online alternative with the app, QR ordering and loyalty in the price.
On headline price Square wins: Square Online’s Free plan is £0 a month and its 1.4% + 25p online card rate is lower than Aexir’s 2.5% + 30p. What the Free plan does not give a takeaway is a branded native app, QR code ordering, loyalty, a site without Square branding, or control of courier delivery zones. Aexir includes those at a flat monthly fee at published prices, £30 to £50 a month ex VAT, menu rebuilt for you. Square figures from squareup.com/gb, checked on 20 October 2026.
What Square costs in the UK, from its own pages.
Square Online is Square’s website and web ordering product; Square for Restaurants is its restaurant till. A Square Online alternative for a UK takeaway is an ordering platform that adds what Square’s free tier leaves out (a branded native app, QR ordering, loyalty and your own delivery zones) at a published monthly price. These are the three numbers that matter, checked on 20 October 2026.
Square Online Free is genuinely free to run
No monthly fee. It includes the website builder, pickup, delivery by your own staff, customer accounts, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Clearpay and Square Pay, with 1.4% + 25p per UK card and 2.5% + 25p per non-UK card on each online order. A custom domain, removal of Square branding, QR code ordering, order status texts, preorders and time-based categories all sit on Plus (squareup.com/gb/en/online-store/plans).
What the paid tiers cost
Square Online Plus is £20 a month and Premium £64, both billed annually; the monthly-billed price is not published. Square for Restaurants Plus, the paid till plan, is £69 a month per location, and Square Loyalty is a separate £25, £45 or £65 per location per month by loyalty visits. No page says whether these are ex or inc VAT; the only VAT wording on Square’s UK pricing pages is on hardware (£99 + VAT for Square Stand).
Square’s online card rate is lower than Aexir’s
Square charges 1.4% + 25p per UK card online on Free and Plus, and 1.4% + 15p on Premium; Aexir charges a published 2.5% + 30p. On a £20 order that is about 53p to Square against 80p to Aexir, 27p an order in Square’s favour. The rest of this page is about what sits around that number.
Square Online vs Aexir, feature by feature.
What each platform includes at its published price, what is an add-on or a higher tier, and what Square’s UK pages do not say.
| Feature | Square Online | Aexir |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | Square Online Free £0; Plus £20 and Premium £64 a month, billed annually (monthly-billed price not published; VAT treatment not stated). Square for Restaurants till: Free £0; Plus £69 a month per location | ✓ Web £30, Starter £30, Plus £40, Pro £50 a month ex VAT. Every feature on your plan is included in that price; additional locations £1 a day each |
| Branded iOS and Android app | Not listed on Square’s UK pages; customers can save a custom site icon to their home screen and order in the browser | ✓ Included on Starter (£30), Plus and Pro, under your own name on the App Store and Google Play |
| Ordering website | Included on every plan with a website builder; Free plan sites carry Square branding and cannot connect a custom domain (both need Plus) | ✓ Branded ordering website on Web, Plus and Pro |
| Card payments online | 1.4% + 25p per UK card and 2.5% + 25p per non-UK card on Free and Plus; 1.4% + 15p and 2.5% + 15p on Premium. Lower than Aexir on every order | ✓ Stripe with Apple Pay and Google Pay, 2.5% + 30p per transaction, published |
| QR order and pay at the table | Plus plan and above (£20 a month billed annually); not on Free | ✓ Included on Starter, Plus and Pro |
| Loyalty | Square Loyalty add-on: £25, £45 or £65 per location per month by loyalty visits (0 to 500, 501 to 1,500, 1,501 and over); 30-day free trial | ✓ Stamp tiers, points, offers and promo codes included |
| Push notifications and marketing | Square Marketing add-on from £9 a month; order status text alerts need Plus | ✓ Push notification campaigns to your app customers included |
| Till and back office | Square for Restaurants Free (£0) excludes the Square Point of Sale mobile app, item-split bills, floor plans, shift and close-of-day reports and live sales reporting; Plus (£69 a month per location) adds them | ✓ POS on the Go, a full till and back office in any browser, on Web and Pro |
| Kitchen display | Square KDS £15 a month per device on the Restaurants Free plan; unlimited on Plus and Premium | ✓ Not sold separately: orders arrive in POS on the Go and receipts print from the till |
| Delivery with your own drivers | Included on every plan; zones by postcode or radius | ✓ Included, with delivery zones you set yourself per branch |
| Courier delivery | On-demand couriers on all plans through Square’s delivery partner (Stuart on its UK marketing pages, Nash in its UK help article); fee per order varies by distance and order size, passable to the customer; delivery areas are managed by the partner and you cannot set or restrict them | ✓ Delivery drivers dispatched per order, or your own drivers with your own zones |
| Support | Phone and chat, Monday to Friday 09:00 to 17:00, on all three Square Online plans | ✓ WhatsApp and email with the Aexir team |
| Contract and trial | Free plans carry no monthly fee; Plus and Premium are quoted billed annually; Square for Restaurants Plus has a 30-day free trial | ✓ Billed monthly at the published prices on aexir.com/pricing |
| Setup | A website builder you set up yourself | ✓ Setup handled by the Aexir team, including your menu build |
| Additional locations | Square for Restaurants Plus and Square Loyalty are priced per location | ✓ £1 a day each |
Square figures are taken from Square’s UK pages on 20 October 2026: squareup.com/gb/en/online-store/plans, /online-store/restaurants, /point-of-sale/restaurants/pricing, /pricing and /software/loyalty, its UK help article on delivery options (squareup.com/help/gb/en/article/7436) and its On-Demand Delivery Pricing Policy (squareup.com/gb/en/legal/general/odd-pricing). Aexir figures are from aexir.com/pricing. Confirm current terms with any provider before you sign.
What you get on Aexir.
The whole direct channel under your name, at one published monthly price.
Your own branded app
iOS and Android apps under your restaurant’s name on the App Store and Google Play, on Starter, Plus and Pro.
Ordering website
A branded ordering site at yourname.aexir.com, built and hosted for you, on Web, Plus and Pro.
Delivery your way
Courier dispatch per order through integrated networks including Uber Direct, or your own drivers, with your own delivery zones set per branch in POS on the Go.
QR table ordering
Customers scan, order and pay from the table. Useful for cafes and dine-in without extra staff.
Loyalty and push
Stamp tiers, points, offers and promo codes, plus push notification campaigns you send yourself on a quiet night.
POS on the Go
A full till and back office in any browser: live menu changes, stock counts, refunds, order history and a sales dashboard, on Web and Pro.
See the full feature tour or run your own numbers through the savings calculator.
Switching from Square Online to Aexir.
Four steps, and you only do the first one on your own.
Add up what Square actually costs you
From your last three months of Square reports, add the online card fees, any Square Online Plus or Premium subscription, and any Square for Restaurants Plus, Loyalty, KDS or Marketing charges. Divide by your order count; with your average order value, that is what you compare against a flat fee.
- ✓If you are on an annually billed Square Online plan, check when the paid term ends before you give notice
- ✓Take a copy of your menu, prices and customer list before you change anything
Send us your menu
Export or screenshot your Square Online menu, or just send the link. The Aexir team rebuilds it, with sizes, extras and photos, as part of setup.
- ✓Prices, sizes and extras are checked back with you before anything goes live
- ✓Delivery areas, opening hours and collection times set up with you
Approve, then we publish
You see the ordering site and, on the app plans, the app build before customers do. Typical go-live is under 30 days, with app store review inside that.
- ✓Branded website at yourname.aexir.com
- ✓Apps under your own name on the App Store and Google Play
Run both, then close Square Online
Keep Square Online live while regulars move across. Repoint your QR codes, website button and social links, tell your customers, then close the Square Online site on the terms of your own plan.
- ✓Order direct print kit (window sticker, table tents, bag stickers) is free at aexir.com/order-direct-kit
Other Square Online alternatives, compared.
The platforms UK restaurants shortlist most often, with prices quoted only where the provider publishes them.
| Platform | Published pricing | Branded native app | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aexir | Web £30, Starter £30, Plus £40, Pro £50 a month ex VAT; additional locations £1 a day each; card payments 2.5% + 30p (aexir.com/pricing) | Starter, Plus and Pro | A flat monthly fee at published prices. Menu rebuilt for you at setup. Built for UK restaurants and takeaways. |
| Square Online | Free £0; Plus £20 and Premium £64 a month, billed annually (monthly-billed price not published; VAT treatment not stated). Online cards 1.4% + 25p per UK card, 1.4% + 15p on Premium. Square for Restaurants till Plus £69 a month per location; Loyalty £25 to £65 per location a month (squareup.com/gb, 20 October 2026) | Not listed on Square’s UK pages; a home-screen site icon instead | QR code ordering, a custom domain and removal of Square branding need Plus; courier delivery zones are set by the delivery partner, not you. |
| Storekit | Starter £0; Grow £99; Pro £199 (setup from £199), per location per month ex VAT; Enterprise from £995 per brand a month. Native app is a £99 a month add-on on Pro, included on Enterprise (storekit.com/pricing, 15 October 2026) | Add-on at £99 a month on Pro; included on Enterprise | A flat per-order card rate on every plan; the pricing page shows the rates only as "Low rates" to "Our lowest rates". |
| Flipdish | Online ordering: Website from £49 a month billed annually; Website & Mobile App from £79 billed annually, £99 monthly (that page does not state VAT treatment). POS plus ordering (Essential) from £119 a month per site billed annually, £139 monthly, ex VAT (flipdish.com/gb/pricing and /gb/pricing-online-ordering, 15 October 2026) | Website & Mobile App plan and Essential package | Card and per-order rates are not on the pricing pages (set in each Client Agreement). Standard term is 12 months, auto-renewing, with 3 months’ written notice (T&Cs updated 26 August 2026). |
| Slerp | Pricing page is password protected. Slerp’s own AI information page states "from £125 to £250 per site per month, depending on whether a branded native app is included", plus a £500 onboarding fee waived if live within 30 days (slerp.com/ai-info-page, 15 October 2026) | Higher tier; built at no cost on a 12 or 24 month term | A platform fee per order that "varies by plan and by order type" is not published; Slerp Pay card processing is 1.5% + 20p on UK standard cards (support.slerp.com). |
| OrderYOYO | No pricing page. Commission on each order, "the more orders you take, the less commission you pay", invoiced weekly, no charges until you receive orders; rates not published (orderyoyo.com, 15 October 2026) | Included | Partner terms, notice periods and card rates are not published. Get your rate and your exit terms in writing before signing. |
| Foodhub | By quote. Published on its own comparison page: online card transaction fee 3.4% + 20p, initial setup fee £99 to £125, commission shown only as "Low". EPOS rental, the online ordering subscription, PDQ terminal rental and the minimum term are not published (foodhubforbusiness.com/foodhub-competitor/ and its product pages, 20 October 2026) | Branded website and iOS/Android app offered; price by quote | Also a consumer marketplace (foodhub.co.uk). Its partner page says listing is free for EPOS partners and on a rental subscription for marketplace-only partners. Get rental, term and exit terms in writing. |
| Epos Now | The Complete Solution from £299 upfront (countdown offer) plus a 12-month subscription at £54 a month (pricing page) or £58 a month (Countertop 2 page), VAT not stated; Online Ordering 2.00% + 10p per delivery order; Order & Pay "Completely Commission free", no monthly fee published (eposnow.com/uk, 20 October 2026) | Not offered; QR and link web ordering (Order & Pay) | A till first: 12-month auto-renewing licence and support plan, 36-month care plan, in-person card rates of 1.2% to 1.7% depending on the page. The ordering apps need an Epos Now account. |
| Deliverect | Restaurants (aggregator middleware): Small £79, Medium £119, Large £199 a month, by order volume (350, 750 and 1,500 orders a month); average set-up fee £249; overage above the tier not published; VAT treatment not stated. Direct (own-channel ordering), Dispatch, Pulse and Enterprise on quote only (deliverect.com/en-gb/pricing, 20 October 2026) | Direct: "Branded website & app", price on quote | Built to feed Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat orders into a third-party POS; an own channel only if you add Direct. Subscriptions auto-renew with 15 to 90 days’ notice and fees are non-refundable (Terms of Service, January 2026). |
| GloriaFood | Free core plan with paid add-ons in US dollars; closes on 30 April 2027 (gloriafood.com, 12 October 2026) | Premium feature, price not listed | Retiring. Aexir runs a switch offer for GloriaFood restaurants: see aexir.com/gloriafood-alternative. |
Figures come from each provider's own pricing pages on the dates shown. “Not published” means the public pages do not state it. Confirm current terms with each provider before signing.
For how a till fits around online orders, read our guide to UK restaurant POS systems at aexir.com/blog/restaurant-pos-system-uk-2026-guide. For QR ordering without a plan upgrade, see aexir.com/blog/qr-table-ordering-uk-guide and the QR menu maker at aexir.com/qr-menu-maker. For the wider UK field, including Foodhub, read the provider comparison at aexir.com/blog/best-restaurant-ordering-app-providers-uk.
Related comparisons: Storekit alternative, Flipdish alternative, Slerp alternative, OrderYOYO alternative, Foodhub alternative, Epos Now alternative, Deliverect alternative, GloriaFood alternative, All comparisons.
The straight answers.
What owners ask us when they are comparing Square, answered from Square’s own UK pages.
The maths: Square’s card rate against Aexir’s flat fee
A takeaway doing 300 online orders a month at £20 each. Card fees: Square at 1.4% + 25p is 53p an order, £159 a month; Aexir at 2.5% + 30p is 80p, £240. On Square Online Free with your own drivers nothing else is due, so against Aexir Pro at £50 Square is £131 a month cheaper. Match the features (QR ordering on Square Online Plus at £20 billed annually, Square Loyalty at £25, the mobile POS app and close-of-day reports on Square for Restaurants Plus at £69) and Square’s software is £114, so the totals are £273 against £290, still £17 in Square’s favour. The crossover is where Square’s monthly software minus £50 equals your order count times 27p (at a £20 ticket), about 237 orders with that stack: above it Square is cheaper, below it Aexir. Neither Square total includes a branded native app, because Square’s UK pages do not sell one, or a menu built for you. Run your numbers in the savings calculator.
When Square is the better fit
A cafe or counter-service shop where most sales are in person: Square for Restaurants Free with Square Online Free is a strong, genuinely free way to add click and collect, at a lower online card rate than Aexir. A business that already owns Square hardware, wants the till, online orders, kiosks and loyalty on one dashboard, wants a full website rather than an ordering page, or has no drivers and needs on-demand couriers on a free plan: Square is built for that. A high-volume takeaway that does not want an app: Square’s card rate will beat Aexir’s flat fee on cost alone. Aexir is the better fit for a delivery-heavy takeaway that wants its own app, QR ordering, loyalty and a browser till from one supplier, with setup done for it, at a flat published price.
Five things Square’s UK pages do not tell you
One: the monthly-billed price of Square Online Plus and Premium; the plans page shows only "billed annually" figures, and a Square community moderator (January 2025) says a monthly option exists "for a slightly higher fee" with no amount. Two: whether the £20, £64 and £69 software prices are ex or inc VAT; no VAT wording appears beside them. Three: the amount of the Square Dispatch Fee on courier orders; the On-Demand Delivery Pricing Policy (updated 9 July 2025) publishes courier fee bands but no dispatch fee figure. Four: who the courier partner is; the UK marketing pages say Stuart, the UK help article says Nash. Five: whether Deliveroo and Uber Eats orders reach the till; Square’s pages do not say, and Mobile Transaction’s UK review (5 April 2026) says this needs a separate Deliverect subscription. Get them in writing.
Square Online alternative: your questions.
Yes, for the software. On 20 October 2026 Square’s UK plans page lists the Free plan at £0 with no monthly fees, including a website, pickup, delivery by your own staff, customer accounts, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Clearpay and Square Pay. Card processing applies to every online order: 1.4% + 25p per UK card and 2.5% + 25p per non-UK card. The Free site carries Square branding and cannot use your own domain; QR code ordering, order status texts, preorders and time-based menus need Plus at £20 a month billed annually; loyalty is a separate add-on from £25 a month per location.
From Square’s UK pages on 20 October 2026: Square Online Free £0; Plus £20 a month billed annually; Premium £64 a month billed annually with a lower card rate of 1.4% + 15p per UK card; monthly-billed prices not published. Square for Restaurants, the till, is Free at £0 or Plus at £69 a month per location, with Premium on custom pricing above £200,000 a year processed. Add-ons (squareup.com/gb/en/pricing): Loyalty from £25 a month, Marketing from £9, Advanced Access from £20 per location, KDS from £15 per device, Kiosk £35 per device. No software price states VAT treatment. Square’s UK online rate moved from 1.9% to 1.4% + 25p on 17 November 2022.
Not on its UK pages. The UK plans page offers a "custom site icon" so customers can add an icon of your business to their phone’s home screen, and ordering runs in the browser. No white-label iOS or Android app is listed on the UK plans, restaurants or pricing pages on 20 October 2026. Aexir builds a native app under your restaurant’s name on the App Store and Google Play on Starter (£30), Plus (£40) and Pro (£50).
QR code ordering is a Plus feature on Square’s UK plans page, so the entry price is £20 a month billed annually (monthly price not published; VAT treatment not stated) plus 1.4% + 25p per UK card on each order. The UK restaurants page describes printing custom QR codes per table for dine-in. On Aexir, QR table ordering is included on Starter, Plus and Pro, and you can make table codes for any menu link with the QR menu maker at aexir.com/qr-menu-maker.
For your own drivers, yes: Square’s UK help article on delivery options says in-house zones can be defined by postcode or radius. For on-demand couriers, no: the same article says delivery areas are managed by Nash and that you cannot set or restrict delivery zones. The courier fee varies by distance, order size and availability and can be passed to the customer; Square’s On-Demand Delivery Pricing Policy (updated 9 July 2025) lists courier fee bands from £4.50 to £9.69 for up to 5 km and £7.38 to £17.49 for 5 to 8 km, London at the upper end, with card processing on top. Square’s UK marketing pages name Stuart as the partner; the help article names Nash. On Aexir you set your own zones per branch, and delivery drivers can be dispatched per order.
Square Loyalty is priced per location per calendar month by loyalty visits: £25 for 0 to 500 visits, £45 for 501 to 1,500 and £65 for 1,501 and over, with a 30-day free trial (squareup.com/gb/en/software/loyalty, 20 October 2026). A loyalty visit is counted when a customer enrols, earns a point or redeems a reward, so a takeaway with a few hundred regulars ordering weekly can move into the £45 band. The page does not state VAT treatment. On Aexir, loyalty (stamp tiers, points, offers and promo codes) and push notification campaigns are included in the plan price; for programme ideas, see aexir.com/blog/restaurant-loyalty-programme-ideas-uk.
On card fees, Square, on every order: 53p against 80p on a £20 order, 67p against £1.05 on a £30 order. On software, add each side’s monthly cost for the features you want (Square Online Free £0, Plus £20 billed annually, Loyalty £25 to £65 and Square for Restaurants Plus £69 per location; Aexir £30, £40 or £50 ex VAT with everything on the plan included) to its order count times its per-order fee. At 300 orders of £20 that is £159 for Square Online Free, £273 for a feature-matched Square stack and £290 for Aexir Pro, so Square is cheaper at that volume; the Aexir figure includes a branded native app and a menu built for you. The calculator at aexir.com/savings runs your own numbers.
Square is a large, well-known provider with a genuinely free tier. Its Trustpilot UK page (uk.trustpilot.com/review/squareup.com/gb) showed 3.9 out of 5 from 3,729 reviews on 20 October 2026; that covers all of Square’s UK products, so read recent reviews from food businesses yourself. Switching: the Aexir team rebuilds your menu from your Square Online site, checks prices with you, and typically goes live within 30 days. Aexir is a flat monthly fee at published prices, Web £30, Starter £30, Plus £40, Pro £50 a month ex VAT, with cards through Stripe at a published 2.5% + 30p and additional locations at £1 a day each.
Get the app, the QR codes and the loyalty in one price.
From £30 a month ex VAT, app included. Book a callback, bring your Square reports, and we will run your real order count and ticket size through the same maths.