If you run an independent café, you have probably looked at Square. It is one of the best-known names in small-business payments, its card readers are everywhere, and its Free plan means you can start selling without a monthly software bill. Café QR is a newer, UK-built cloud EPOS aimed at the same kind of venue: cafés, small restaurants, bars, takeaways and food trucks.
This article compares the two on the things that actually move your monthly costs and your working day: software fees, card fees, kitchen screens, QR ordering, hardware and what happens when the Wi-Fi drops. All Square figures below were checked on Square's UK pricing pages at time of writing (October 2026). Prices change, so check before you sign up.
How the two are built
Square is a payments company first. You buy Square hardware (or use the app on a phone or tablet), take cards through Square, and add software on top. Square for Restaurants has three plans: Free, Plus and Premium. Many features, such as loyalty, marketing, kiosk and inventory, are paid add-ons.
Café QR is software first. It runs in a browser on tablets, phones or laptops you already own. Card payments go through your own Stripe account, and Café QR takes no fee on top of Stripe's. The plans bundle the till, kitchen display, QR table ordering and other tools into a fixed price per venue.
That difference shapes almost everything else in the comparison.
Pricing at a glance
Square for Restaurants (UK), at time of writing:
- Free: £0 a month
- Plus: £69 per location a month, with a 30-day free trial
- Premium: custom pricing, for businesses processing over £200,000 a year
- In-person card rate: 1.75% on Free and Plus
- Online card rate: 1.4% + 25p for UK cards
- Kitchen Display System: £15 per device a month on Free; unlimited on Plus
- Kiosk: £35 per device a month
- Loyalty: from £25 per location a month; Marketing from £9
- Inventory (MarketMan): £79 per location a month on Plus
- No long-term contract
Café QR:
- Order & Pay: £9.99 per venue a month (QR ordering, kitchen screen, menu and allergens)
- Order & Pay + Delivery: £14.99
- POS: £39 (till, card readers, tabs and floor plan, bookings, kiosk, cash-up, food safety tools, 10 staff logins)
- Multi-site: £59 for the first venue, then £29 per extra venue (adds stock and recipes, Xero and QuickBooks export)
- £0 setup, 0% commission, no contract, first month free with no card needed
- Card fees are Stripe's own; Stripe lists 1.5% + 20p online for standard UK cards and in-person rates from 1.4% + 10p
You can see the full plan breakdown on Café QR's pricing page.
Comparison table
| Square for Restaurants (UK) | Café QR | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry software price | £0 (Free plan) | £9.99 (Order & Pay) |
| Full till plan | £0 Free / £69 Plus per location | £39 per venue (POS) |
| In-person card fee | 1.75% | Stripe's rate, from 1.4% + 10p |
| Kitchen display | £15 per device on Free; unlimited on Plus | Included on every plan |
| QR order and pay at table | Scan to Pay on Plus and Premium only | Included on every plan |
| Self-order kiosk | £35 per device a month | Included on POS plan |
| Loyalty | From £25 per location a month | CRM and loyalty included |
| Stock and recipes | MarketMan £79 per location on Plus | Multi-site plan or £12 add-on |
| Own hardware range | Yes: Reader £19, Stand £99, Terminal £149, Register £699 (+VAT, list prices) | No; runs on existing devices, Stripe readers |
| Offline card payments | Yes, on supported hardware, with time limits | No; cash only offline |
| Contract | None | None |
Where Square is stronger
It would be unfair to pretend Square has no advantages. It has several that matter.
A genuine £0 starting point. If you are opening a small coffee stand and just need to take cards, Square's Free plan costs nothing per month. You pay only the card fee on what you sell.
The card fee suits small tickets. Square charges a flat 1.75% in person, with no fixed pence per transaction. On a £3.50 flat white that is about 6p. Stripe's in-person rate includes a fixed 10p, so on the same coffee you pay roughly 15p. For a café selling hundreds of low-value drinks a day, that gap adds up, and it can outweigh Café QR's lower software price. Do the sums on your own average transaction before deciding.
Hardware and offline payments. Square designs its own readers, stands, terminals and registers, and they work together out of the box. Its supported hardware can also take card payments offline for a limited period (Square sets the limits, and contactless does not work offline). Café QR cannot take card payments without a connection; only cash and your own payment types work offline.
Brand and ecosystem. Square is a large, established company with banking, invoicing, team tools and an app marketplace. If you want one supplier for everything, that is a real benefit.
Where Café QR is stronger
Fewer add-on bills. On Square, a café that wants a kitchen screen, a kiosk and loyalty on the Free plan pays £15 + £35 + £25 a month before card fees, and still has no Scan to Pay. On Café QR's £39 POS plan, the kitchen display system, kiosk, table bookings and loyalty are already included.
QR table ordering on every plan. Square's Scan to Pay needs Plus at £69 per location. Café QR includes QR table ordering from the £9.99 plan, which suits cafés that want customers to order and pay from their seat without switching till.
You keep your own payment account. Payments go into your own Stripe account. Café QR takes 0% on orders, including online and delivery orders, so you are not locked to one payments provider's hardware.
Hospitality-specific extras. Food safety records (HACCP and Safer Food Better Business), cash-up reports, and a Claude AI connector that lets you ask plain-English questions about your sales are included rather than sold separately.
No new hardware needed. If you already have an iPad or Android tablet, you can start without buying anything. Stripe card readers are extra if you want them.
Café QR's own limitations are worth stating plainly: no card payments offline, no cash-drawer kick yet, and stock and recipes need the Multi-site plan or a paid add-on.
A worked example
Take a café with £10,000 a month in card takings and an average card transaction of £8 (1,250 transactions). Software and card fees only, before hardware:
- Square Free: £175 card fees + £0 software = £175 (add £15 if you want one kitchen screen)
- Square Plus: £175 + £69 = £244
- Café QR POS: Stripe fees of about £140 + £125 (fixed 10p × 1,250) = £265, + £39 = about £304
On pure card-taking, Square comes out cheaper here, mainly because of Stripe's fixed per-transaction fee. The picture changes once you add the features you would pay Square extra for. Square Free plus one kitchen screen, a kiosk and loyalty comes to about £250, without QR ordering. Square Plus with a kiosk and loyalty is about £304, without inventory.
The honest answer is that the card fee usually matters more than the subscription, and the result depends on your average spend and the features you need. Plug your own numbers in before you choose.
Who should pick which
Square is likely the better fit if:
- You mainly want to take card payments, with few extras
- Your average transaction is small and you sell a high volume of drinks
- Card payments must keep working through internet outages
- You want branded, all-in-one hardware from a single supplier
- You already use Square for banking, invoicing or another business
Café QR is likely the better fit if:
- You want a kitchen screen, QR table ordering, bookings and a kiosk without separate monthly add-ons
- You would rather run on tablets you already own
- You want card payments in your own Stripe account, with no platform commission on online or delivery orders
- You want food safety records and cash-up in the same system as your till
- You run table service where customers ordering from their seat saves staff time
If you are moving from Square, Café QR's side-by-side Square comparison covers catalogue import and running the two together during a switch.
Conclusion
Square and Café QR are aimed at the same café owner but solve the problem differently. Square gives you a free starting plan, its own hardware, offline card payments and a low flat card rate that suits small tickets. Café QR gives you more hospitality features in one fixed price, QR ordering on every plan, and payments in your own Stripe account, but it cannot take cards offline and Stripe's fixed fee bites on small transactions.
Neither is the right answer for every café. Write down your monthly card takings, your average transaction and the features you actually use, then price both. Both offer a free starting point (Square's Free plan and Café QR's one-month trial), so you can test each one during a real service before committing.
Square figures were taken from squareup.com/gb at time of writing (October 2026). Café QR figures are from cafeqr.app. Check current pricing with each provider before you decide.