A Square Alternative for Stores With Employees

The short answer

If your store has employees, the price that matters is not the plan with the lowest monthly fee. It is the plan plus everything you add so the team can be scheduled, clocked in, credited for sales and paid. On Square, those team tools sit in paid plans and a separate payroll product. MazalPOS puts schedules, a staff phone app, commissions and payroll totals in one system, priced per location: Essentials at $99 per month and Growth at $169 per month, with 14 days free and no card.

Square is a strong system, and for some stores it is the right one. This guide shows what each one charges for a team, with prices taken from Square’s own pages on October 18, 2026, and says plainly where Square wins.

What Square charges for team features

Square’s pricing page for retail lists three main plans: Square Free at $0, Square Plus at $49 and Square Premium at $149, each charged for each location every month. Square’s comparison table marks these staff features as included in Square Plus and Square Premium, and not in Square Free:

• Timecards with break and overtime
• Clock in and out with passcodes or badges
• Shift scheduling, time off, and trades
• Team chats and file sharing
• Tip pooling and commissions tracking
• New hire onboarding and custom permission sets

Payroll is a separate product. Square’s payroll pricing page lists full-service payroll at $35 each month plus $6 for each person paid, and contractor-only payroll at $6 for each person paid. Full-service payroll includes direct deposit and automated payroll tax filings. Card processing is charged on top of all of this: in person, Square lists 2.6% + 15¢ on Square Free, 2.5% + 15¢ on Square Plus and 2.4% + 15¢ on Square Premium.

An example: one store, eight employees

Take one retail location with eight people on payroll that wants schedules, timecards and commissions tracking on Square. That is Square Plus at $49, plus Square Payroll at $35 and 8 × $6 = $48, for $132 each month before card processing.

The same location on MazalPOS Growth is $169 each month. That includes schedules and time off in the MazalTeam app, clock-in, commissions on every sale, payroll totals for each pay period, the online store on the same inventory, and Affirm and Purchasing Power financing. If you do not need the online store, payroll or financing, Essentials at $99 per month includes the register, inventory, customers, reports, the staff app with schedules, and payments.

So Square can cost less in this example, and its payroll product also pays your team and files payroll taxes. MazalPOS adds up the hours and commission for each pay period so the numbers are ready, and puts the online store and financing in the same price. Card processing is a separate line on both systems, so compare it on its own quote. Whatever you choose, keep accurate time records: the U.S. Department of Labor requires employers to record hours worked each workday and workweek for non-exempt employees.

What MazalPOS includes for one price

• Register on an iPad or any computer, offline-first, so a dropped signal never stops a sale.
• MazalTeam staff app on every plan: clock in, hours, sales, commission, schedules and time-off requests.
• Commissions on Growth: when a goal is reached, the reached rate applies to the whole day.
• Payroll totals on Growth, for the 1st to the 15th and the 16th to the end of the month.
• Online store on Growth, on the same inventory as the register, with shipping and in-store pickup.
• Payments: cards, cash, pay links (3% fee on pay-by-link), deposits on the customer’s balance, and Affirm and Purchasing Power financing on Growth.
• Reports: profit and loss, sales, staff and products, live from your phone.

Where Square is the better choice

• You want to start at $0. Square Free has no monthly fee. MazalPOS is a paid plan after 14 days free.
• You book appointments. Square includes booking tools. MazalPOS has no appointment booking.
• You want payroll run for you. Square Payroll pays employees and files payroll taxes. MazalPOS totals the hours and commission.
• You want hardware from the same company. Square sells its own hardware, with options from $59 on its pricing page.
• You sell alone. Most of what MazalPOS adds is for stores with a team.

Where MazalPOS is the better choice

• Your team lives on the floor. Every employee sees their own schedule, hours, sales and commission on their phone, and asks for days off there.
• You pay on goals. Reaching a goal sets the rate for the whole day, so staff can check their own pay without a calculator.
• You sell online too. The online store and the register share one stock count, and financing works in the store and online.
• You want one price per location. Schedules, the staff app, commissions, payroll totals and the online store are in the plan, not separate apps.
• You want help from people. Real people answer, 6 days a week, and features your business asks for can be built for you on the Custom plan.

Switching from Square

We move your customers, products, staff, sales history, hours and payroll from your old system for free, and setup takes one day. You keep selling while we work. Read how to switch POS systems without losing data, see how employee scheduling, commissions and payroll work in MazalPOS, or compare plans on the pricing page. Built for small retail stores, mall kiosks and carts, electronics stores and boutiques.

Common questions

Written by the MazalPOS team. We build and support the register, online store and staff app that stores from Las Vegas to Honolulu run on. Questions about this guide? Talk to a real person.