Square Defends New Pricing Model Amid Growing Merchant Costs

Square is defending its decision to boost costs for smaller transactions.

The company announced on Tuesday (Sept. 24) that it will now charge 2.6 percent plus a 10-cent fee. For example, the fee on a $10 transaction will rise to 36 cents from 27.5 cents. Costs for transactions starting at roughly $67 will go down.

“We are making this change to better align our rates with industrywide transaction costs,” the company said, according to Bloomberg. Square added that its costs often exceeded the 2.75 percent rate it had been charging merchants, and the fixed 10-cent fee will offset those costs. In addition, the new pricing structure “takes into account the full cost of operating our business and all market forces.”

For new customers, Square’s change went into effect on Tuesday, while existing customers will get hit with the extra fee beginning on Nov. 1.

“Current Square merchants with low average tickets may fuss over higher costs, but per-transaction fees are typical of alternatives,” noted David Ritter, financials analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

In addition to changing its pricing, Square is also trying to find ways to make business easier for its merchants. Just last week the company announced a new, free tool to help businesses file for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) called the EIN Assistant.

The tool’s purpose is to simplify the difficult EIN acquisition process to create a separate tax infrastructure for the business. In layman’s terms, an EIN is like a business’ Social Security number; the IRS uses it to help identify businesses when it comes to tax issues.

“About 20 (percent) of businesses will have employees and require an EIN to pay them and their payroll taxes, while hundreds of thousands of other sole proprietors will choose to incorporate with an EIN to professionalize their business and separate it from their personal identity,” Square said in a release.