New: Square Subscriptions now Available on Square Point of Sale

[#1]

Hi Sellers!

Now you can offer subscriptions or memberships directly through your Square Point of Sale!  This is a great way to cross-sell your customers at check-out with relevant subscription products your business offers. Conversely, you can also cancel an existing subscription or membership through your Point of Sale. Additionally, you can use Subscriptions add-on on your Point of Sale to easily look up whether a customer has an active subscription or membership with your business.

How it works

When a customer is at your Square Point of Sale, you can offer to subscribe them to an existing subscription or membership plan with your business. You will be able to pick the subscription plan through the Point of Sale and then add the customer either as an existing customer or create a new one. After that, your customer will be billed automatically for the subscription through the chosen payment method (Eg. Card on File or Invoice).

How to get started

In order to start using Subscriptions on your Square Point of Sale, you will first need to install the free Subscriptions add-on through the Add-on Library located in your Square Point of Sale app. Find out more about how to install and manage add-ons to Square Point of Sale.

You will also need to create subscription plans through Square Dashboard (you cannot currently create subscription plans through the Point of Sale). Once they are created, they will be automatically available with the installed Subscriptions add-on on your Square Point of Sale. Find out more on how to create subscription plans through your Square Dashboard.

What does it cost?

Installing the Subscriptions add-on is free and there are no monthly fees to offer subscriptions to your customers. You will only pay processing fees of 2.9% plus 30¢

[thebrainlair]

Will this new add-on include physical products? 

[jean_sq]

Hi @thebrainlair! Currently the point of sale integration does not sync with inventory. We are looking to launch that capability in early 2023. Let me know if you have any other questions. Thank you!

[Pugetsoundcoffe]

Can subscription offers be added to our Weebly website? If no, what other platform? The lack of this option is forcing me to leave.

[JUYBoutique20]

This is great.  I can't wait till the capabilities are rolled out for physical products.

[DLRosenberg]

ME TOO! It's going to be amazing.

[jean_sq]

Hi @Pugetsoundcoffe, the best way for you to embed a subscription on a weebly website is to generate "buy button" code that can be embedded directly on your website. This help article (and the video) talks about using Square Online Checkout Links and embedding them on your website.

At the beginning of next year, we will also have an integration between Subscriptions and Square Online (Weebly) so that you can more easily connect a subscription to any item in your catalog and include that on your website.

Feel free to reach out if you have more questions!

[sugarlab]

I keep meaning to look into subscriptions for the bakery. Or maybe a drink subscription to the folks in our Harbor Village...oooh. You have my brain spinning. 

[HillGardens742]

If you are shipping your subscription does the software add shipping cost automatically or do I need to figure it into the cost? 

[TobaccoLeaf]

This subscription is a good start but does not take into account creating subscriptions with specific cancelation guidelines and also if we want customers to charge monthly to a gift card this cannot be done yet. You also cannot add multiple items to a subscription.

[AngeloTheLegend]

What the the SUBSCRIPTION RENEWAL time frames, weekly, monthly and annually? Can they be custom, such as 90 days?

[jean_sq]

@HillGardens742 You will need to include the shipping costs into the subscription cost.

[jean_sq]

@TobaccoLeaf Yes, all true. I'd love to learn more about what you mean by "specific cancelation guidelines" - do you mean having a minimum commitment period (eg. cannot cancel before 6 months) for a subscription/membership? I'll make sure to add allowing customers to charge their monthly subscription fee to a gift card to our product backlog. Lastly, we are currently working on the feature to allow multiple items to a subscription - watch for that in early 2023. Thank you for the feedback!

[jean_sq]

@AngeloTheLegend you can choose from :

Weekly, Every other week, monthly, quarterly, twice a year, annually.

I'm sorry but you cannot have custom renewal time frames (eg, 90 days)

[AngeloTheLegend]

I have many Senior Citizen clients who are not good about signing up for things ONLINE. Is there away my staff could enroll them in a Subscription on our end if the customer provides the Credit Card info?

[AngeloTheLegend]

Thanks for the good info! I currently renew my customers yearly. In a tough economy I would like to offer a monthly option that would reduce my income from a $225 swipe to an $18.75 swipe. However I would need 400% more enrollments (which could be possible with the lower entry cost) to maintain my monthly sales goal.

[AngeloTheLegend]

I am thinking of more and more valid questions for you. Is there a DEMO we could see of what the customers would see on enrollment. From the customers point of view?

[AngeloTheLegend]

I tried setting up a NEW Subscription under account and I see there is a button that can provide me a LINK. I assume we would send that link to customers. I am wondering can that link be pasted into a WEBSTORE?

[Arie]

Hey @AngeloTheLegend,

You can create a subscription link in your dashboard, which you can view just like your customer would. You'll find this guide useful in getting started with subscription links. And yes, you can send the link to your customers, share it on social media or post it wherever you like. 

[jean_sq]

Hi @AngeloTheLegend , yes, you can create subscriptions manually through Dashboard! I'd recommend checking out our getting started article which shows how to create subscription plans and then add subscribers manually through Dashboard.

[jean_sq]

Hi @AngeloTheLegend, there is not currently a demo, but it's pretty easy to set up a subscription plan and generate a pay link and email it to yourself. Then you can walk through exactly what an end customer would experience. Hope this helps!

[jean_sq]

Hi @AngeloTheLegend, from any subscription plan, you can generate "Buy Button" embed code (which is the HTML code) that can then embed on your website. 

From your plans page in Square Dashboard, click the link icon on the subscription plan you wish to share and then choose “Share Checkout link”

Upon clicking that link, you will be presented with a pop-up window with many share options. For embedding on a website, you would choose to create a “Buy Button”, then copy the resulting embed code and paste on your website.

[Stacelyn24]

Subscriptions here we come!!!  I'm so excited to try out this feature.  We're a natural nail salon so I was wondering if I should do a subscription/membership around our services, retail, or both?  What do you guys think?

[DLRosenberg]

It is so incredibly frustrating when something that we've been asking for.. for so long.. isn't fully functional. I have NO IDEA how to get this out to my customers.... I need to create a a page on our e-commerce site (through square) and I feel like instead of it integrating like it should - I have to figure out. a work around- and frankly... it's exhausting. All I want to do is sell. When we sell and increase our sales, Square makes money. I don't get it.

[DLRosenberg]

This still doesn't really make full sense... the one place our customers go is our square e-commerce shop and yet that is the one place they can't find out about the subscription.. I don't get why we'd want to only use an email or social media and not all the things...

[jean_sq]

Hi Dina, you can also generate "buy button" embed code that you can include on your website. 

From your Subscription plans page in Square Dashboard, you can generate “Buy Button” code that you can embed on your website. From your plans page in Square Dashboard, click the link icon on the subscription plan you wish to share and then choose “Share Checkout link”

Upon clicking that link, you will be presented with a pop-up window with many share options. For embedding on a website, you would choose to create a “Buy Button”, copy the resulting embed code, and include it in the HTML code section of your website where you want it to appear.

Feel free to drop me a message if you need more help!

[DLRosenberg]

I am aware of that- now I have to hire my web guy to create a story page and embed that button- instead of being able to add a subscription to my website like any other product. Instead of being able to get this launched & up and running tomorrow (we've been waiting on subscription functionality since 2020).. I need to do all this other work that takes me away from doing the thing that makes me (and Square) money.. Selling.

[BernadetteA]

Hi @DLRosenberg Did you create your website with the Square Online editor? There is an option to add an Embed Code Section which only requires you to copy/paste the code that you generate from your Square dashboard. You can always reach out to our support team if you need assistance with this.

[DLRosenberg]

My web guy did the site.. the issue is I want photos and descriptions- more than just a button- it needs to look compelling.

[BernadetteA]

That definitely makes sense. I can understand if you are not comfortable with the editing options, or do not have the time to edit the site yourself. Square Online was created with our Sellers in mind, though. We try to make the editing process as easy and efficient as possible. 😊

I'm pretty confident you could design a nice looking page to fit your current site (with minimal effort) if you are unable to reach your web designer, or if they are busy. Do you want to post a link to your website here? Other sellers may have some suggestions for you, plus we can link you to some help articles - some of which have video walk throughs. 

[TobaccoLeaf]

Hey @jean_sq 

Yes, exactly we need the cancellation period to be 1 year for our model. Adding funds monthly (charged to the card on file) to the gift card on a customer's account would allow for much greater flexibility in managing their subscription. This way even if they do stop subscribing they can continue to access funds on their gift card. 

Because you can save both a card on file and a gift card on file we can link the two. Digital gift cards should be easy for devs to attach a card to the customer's account and easy for the store owners to manage across multiple locations.

We'd like to charge a subscription monthly for a 1-year term and also have a subscription for the maintenance. If we can do this for each customer it will dramatically increase our sales and reduce manual entry.

[Pintuna]

@jean_sq it looks like we can add a gift card to "Card on File" for a customer. Would there be a 3.5% + 15c charge even for a purchase using a gift card on file?

[Submatic]

Hi @DLRosenberg I may be able to help with a solution that provides what you are looking for.  I founded a company called Submatic (submatic.io) to help businesses leverage subscriptions and membership. 

We integrate with Square and support a range of subscription options.  With our software you can easily set up a custom subscription sign up page like these: Gadela Winery or Martinsville Soapworks Or it can be embedded within your website like this: https://rumourswine.com/wine-club/

If you're interested in learning more you can reach out to me here through the forums or submit your info on our website and I'll reach out, thanks!

[Pintuna]

Hi @DLRosenberg, check out the subscription offering of one of our customers - Cafe Kubal Bottomless Coffee.

Pintuna Membership App is fully integrated with Square Subscriptions.

• Single form to offer multiple plans
• Customers receive digital membership cards that can be added to Apple / Google wallets 
• Automate subscription based discounts 

...and much more.

Happy to demo the solution to see if it would meet your needs. You can reach us by email or through this forum.