Pros & Cons
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- Excellent payroll processing
- Close integrations with related Square apps
- Clean and simple user experience
- Helpful setup guide and support resources
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- Not the best value by itself
- Supports few earnings types
- Minimal customizability
- Limited report options
Square Payroll Specs
| 1099s | |
| Free Trial | |
| HR Add-Ons | |
| Mobile Admin Access | App |
| Submits Federal, State, Local, and Payroll Taxes | |
| Time Tracking | |
| W-2s |
Square Payroll functions just fine as a standalone payroll service for both hourly and salaried workers, though you need to use it in concert with other Square apps, such as Square POS, Team Management, and Shifts, to get the most out of it. We like the app's variety of support options and usability. The latest version benefits from a better payroll preview, comprehensive support for federal and state payroll tax exemptions, faster access to next-day payroll, flexible payday scheduling, and improved history page performance. That said, it offers few reports, lacks customization options, and has limited earnings types. It falls short of our Editors' Choice winner, Gusto, which provides payroll managers with a best-in-class user experience and a smart, robust blend of AI-assisted payroll and HR tools.
Pricing: Among the Most Affordable Payroll Services
Square Payroll costs $35 per month, plus $6 per worker per month. A contractor-only option costs $6 per person per month. Those prices are roughly comparable with those of the more full-featured Patriot Software Full Service Payroll, which costs $37 per month, plus $5 per worker. A free trial and an interactive payroll demo of Square Payroll are available so you can get a feel for the experience before buying.
Other payroll apps are more expensive. For instance, Gusto's mid-level Plus tier costs $80 per month, plus $12 per employee per month. Intuit QuickBooks Workforce (formerly QuickBooks Payroll) is expensive, too, coming in at $88 per month, plus $10 per employee per month for its Premium version. Both charge additional fees for some tools and services. Of course, these apps are far more feature-rich and flexible than Square Payroll, offering excellent HR tools in addition to payroll.
Interface and Ease of Use: Simple, Fast, and Easy to Navigate
Square Payroll isn’t the most visually appealing site I've tried (Gusto takes that honor), but its intuitive interface and navigation tools help you log in, do your work, and get out. This brevity suits a payroll app that caters to hourly workers and integrates tightly with related apps—in this case, Square POS and others in the Square ecosystem. The site feels snappy and shouldn't have any trouble handling particularly large employee pools.
You can’t automatically import historical data from another payroll application like you can with ADP RUN and others, but you can create history reports on competing sites or work from pay stubs to ensure that your previous payroll data is in the system (Square Payroll has a help article that covers this). A helpful setup guide eases the onboarding process, and specialists are available to assist you with setting everything up.
Two new functions can aid in setup. Square Payroll comprehensively supports federal and state payroll tax exemptions for W-2 employees with F-1, J-1, or M-1 visas, as well as Social Security, Medicare, Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA), and State Unemployment Tax Act (SUTA). You can also work with CorpNet, a third-party partner, to register with relevant states (for a fee).
Despite the simple setup process, you might still have questions. In that case, you can turn to the site's surprisingly robust support tools. You can search a help database to get specific answers to questions or browse common topics. The Support Center has a great library of setup guides, resources, and video tutorials. Phone support is available, too. An AI-driven chatbot can respond to questions such as, “How much were my payroll taxes in March 2026?” by providing step-by-step instructions. Square AI is still in beta, however, and can answer questions only about customers, disputes, sales, and staff.
Square Integrations: Pair It With Point of Sale and Much More
As mentioned, Square Payroll is just one of the many Square apps available. Others cover related business issues, such as appointments, e-commerce, payment processing, and shift scheduling. You can use Square Payroll on its own, in conjunction with other Square apps, and with accounting apps such as QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Zoho Books. It also integrates with time tracking and scheduling apps, such as Homebase and When I Work. No other service I tested is part of such a comprehensive business management ecosystem.
Square Payroll also pairs with Cash App, a mobile payment app similar to Venmo. Block, Inc., the parent company of the Square platform, owns Cash App. Account holders receive account and routing numbers (and a free linked debit card). If Square Payroll employers send compensation directly to those Cash App accounts, it may arrive one or two days early.
Employee Records: Not as Detailed as They Could Be
You must create thorough worker profiles to ensure a successful payroll run, but, like most competitors, Square Payroll lets you invite contractors and employees to enter their own data, such as contact and W-4 details. This saves you some work and helps prevent errors.
Employee records aren't as detailed as those in ADP RUN, but they do let you track benefits, such as paid time off (PTO) and sick leave (fixed amount or hours worked). Square Payroll is not a benefits broker like OnPay and others, but you can set up health insurance through Vestwell. You can create profiles for other benefits you offer; Square Payroll supports 403(b) retirement plans, HSAs and FSAs, and IRAs. Employee records also contain personal details, such as jobs and wages, payroll tax information and W-2s, and uploaded documents.
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Because Square Payroll integrates so smoothly with Square POS and the company’s labor management apps, it builds in flexibility for hourly workers. For example, you can pay employees different rates for multiple jobs. That said, it lacks some of the depth competitors offer, including the ability to create custom earnings types.
Running Payroll: An Excellent Process From Start to Finish
Square Payroll gives you multiple options for entering hours as you begin a pay run, though not as many as QuickBooks Workforce. You can track and import hours from Square POS and Square Shift, though doing so incurs additional fees in most cases. However, it’s free to bring in hours from the Square Team app. It's also possible to enter hours manually or import them from a supported third-party time tracking application.
Pay run pages are a challenge for every payroll app since they include so much information. Some competitors find ways to avoid making the page content too small to read. Square Payroll’s pages are spacious and readable unless you want to display all earnings type columns. If you do that, you have to scroll to the bottom of the table, then scroll horizontally to see all the columns. Many sites, like ADP RUN, operate this way.
You can’t consult employee records from this page without losing what you've already entered, either. You have to relaunch payroll after viewing an employee profile. Other sites allow you to access payroll and employee records simultaneously—and even make changes.
Once you resolve any problems (the app highlights these in various colors) and enter or import all your hours, the next page displays all adjustments to employees’ gross pay (benefits deductions, company contributions, post-tax deductions, reimbursements, and taxes) and calculates their net pay. You can make limited changes here, if necessary, but they will apply only to the current pay run.
The last page you see before submitting payroll summarizes totals for company contributions, employee taxes, and gross pay. You can also see each employee’s comprehensive paycheck details. Square Payroll displays totals for scheduled debits and who will make them (such as IRS and Square taxes and direct deposit), along with a list of the payments you handle (such as benefits deductions and manual checks). You can see breakdowns of many of these individual numbers. This is a very thorough payroll preview.
The final page in the payroll sequence essentially repeats what appears on the previous one. It includes links to download pay stubs, export to a CSV file, and print checks. If you need to pay contractors or run an off-cycle payroll, you can do so separately. Square Payroll handles payroll processing quite capably. I like the sequence of actions and data it presents.
Reports: Relatively Few Options and Not Prevalent
Payroll websites all offer preformatted reports, though some offer more and more flexible ones than others. Square Payroll has just a few that relate to payroll. You can export Company Totals, Employee Totals, or Paycheck Details as Excel files and Pay Stubs as PDFs, but you can’t just view them on the site like you can with competitors. You can customize only the pay date range and team members. And finding them can be difficult. You don't access reports through a Reports link in the toolbar; you have to go to History > Payroll Reports.
Mobile Experience: You Can Do Most Payroll Tasks From Your Phone
Square Payroll’s mobile apps work well. You can log into Square’s Teams app (available for Android and iOS) to manage time cards and schedules, run payroll, see payroll histories, view employee records, and work with benefits and tax forms. It also includes an announcements page and team chat functionality. Managers can schedule shifts, and workers can post their availability. In other words, the mobile app handles most of what the browser-based version does.
Employees can log in with their credentials to access benefits information, check the upcoming pay schedule, clock in and out, edit some profile details, and view pay stubs and estimated earnings.
Security: Is Square Payroll Safe to Use?
Block, Inc. says it engineers all Square products for security from the ground up and that its proprietary system ensures that no unencrypted payment data reaches you. The company claims to stress-test its systems and commits to the highest standards of information security governance. Public bounty researchers help evaluate the platform's security. The service requires multi-factor authentication.