# Square Payroll > Payroll for Square sellers, with timecards from Square POS Square Payroll is Block's payroll service for US businesses, run from the Square Dashboard or the Square Team App. Full-service payroll files federal and state payroll taxes and takes hours, tips and overtime from Square's point of sale and team tools. A cheaper contractor-only plan pays 1099 contractors without the tax filings. - **Category:** Payroll - **Made by:** Block, Inc. - **Website:** https://squareup.com/us/en/payroll - **Runs on:** Web, iOS, Android - **Facts last checked:** Oct 17, 2026 ## Pricing Square Payroll is a paid product, starting at $6 per person paid / month, contractor-only payroll. - **Pricing model:** Paid - **Free plan:** None. - **Free trial:** None listed. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Contractor-only payroll | $6 per person paid / month, contractors only | Pay contractors from the Square Dashboard by direct deposit, check or Cash App, with 1099s delivered digitally. No tax filings or auto payroll. | | Full-service payroll | $35 per month, plus $6 per person paid | Unlimited and auto payroll, federal and state tax filings, multistate payroll, scheduling, tip import, labor-cost reports and next-day deposit. | Read from https://squareup.com/us/en/payroll/pricing on Oct 17, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Square Payroll before buying. ## Key features - **Full-service payroll:** Unlimited pay runs, auto payroll, off-cycle payments and multiple pay rates, with no long-term contract. - **Payroll tax filing:** Calculates, withholds and files federal payroll taxes and state taxes, including state unemployment, for each state or locality you pay in. - **Timecards, tips and overtime:** Imports hours from Square POS or the Team App, tracks direct tips, calculates overtime and schedules staff up to 10 days out. - **Pay by deposit, check or Cash App:** Next-day or two-day direct deposit, paper checks, or Cash App, where team members can get paid instantly. - **Square Team App:** Owners run payroll and manage the team from a phone, and employees onboard themselves and see their pay stubs. - **Reports and QuickBooks:** Custom reports on paychecks, employee and company totals, labor-cost reports, and a QuickBooks Online integration. ## Good for - Restaurants, shops and salons already taking payments with Square - Businesses with tipped hourly staff - Owners who pay only contractors and want a per-person price ## Worth knowing - Contractor-only payroll leaves out tax filings, auto payroll, off-cycle payments, multistate payroll and garnishments. - Mailed paper W-2s and 1099s cost $3 per form a year; workers' comp, health insurance and 401(k) are paid add-ons. - Scheduling, tip import, overtime and labor-cost reports come only with full-service payroll. - It runs US payroll, filing federal and state taxes, and is sold on Square's US site. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.4 out of 4**, graded Oct 17, 2026. If you already take payments with Square, this is the obvious payroll: hours and tips come straight in from the till, and staff can be paid into Cash App. It's $65 a month for five people. Away from Square it's a plain payroll service with no HR tools. - **Value for money: B.** Full-service payroll is $35 a month plus $6 a person, $65 for five, inside the cheapest quarter of this category. Paying only contractors is $6 a person, $30 for five, though that plan files no taxes. - **Free plan and trial: F.** No free plan or trial on record. There is no long-term contract, so you pay month by month, but you pay from the start. - **Features: C.** Payroll done fully, with tax filing for each state you pay in, tips and hours pulled from Square POS, overtime and scheduling. It's a smaller job, though: no HR tools, and health insurance and 401(k) are paid add-ons. - **Ease of use: A.** 4.7 from about 41,000 App Store ratings for the Square Team app, where owners run payroll and staff onboard themselves. If you're on Square already, the hours are already there. - **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web, iPhone and Android, with Square Point of Sale, Cash App and QuickBooks Online. No desktop app, and it's sold on Square's US site only. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Square's own pages on 17 October 2026, and its App Store rating. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among payroll services - Square Payroll's GPA of 2.4 is higher than 6 of the 18 other payroll services we grade, and level with 9. - It stands best on ease of use (A, above 9 of 18) and worst on free plan and trial (F, above 0). - Its paid plans start at $6 a month for each person, against a middle price of $29 for the category: 0 of the 13 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 3.0 out of 4, and no tool on the category's chart scores higher without costing more. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/payroll ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** To replace Square Payroll you would be making payroll taxes worked out and filed with the government for you. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. It costs $72 a year. - You could make: Time tracking and reports: an app builder makes these well. - You could not: Payroll taxes worked out and filed with the government for you. - You could not: A real app for iOS and Android. Something home-made would be a web page. - You could not: It is priced for each person, which means accounts and billing for a team. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## What people say - **App Store rating of the iPhone and iPad app:** 4.7 out of 5 from 41,157 ratings in the United States, read Oct 17, 2026. This is the store's rating of the app, not a score from ToolGPA. Source: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1435368303 ## Works with Square Point of Sale, Cash App, QuickBooks Online **Tags:** Payroll, Time tracking, Reports ## Alternatives - [Gusto](https://toolgpa.com/tools/gusto): Payroll and HR for small businesses, with apps for owners and staff. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/gusto-vs-square-payroll) - [OnPay](https://toolgpa.com/tools/onpay): US payroll with published prices, plus HR and time add-ons. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/onpay-vs-square-payroll) - [QuickBooks Workforce](https://toolgpa.com/tools/quickbooks-payroll): Intuit's payroll and HR service, sold alone or with QuickBooks. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/quickbooks-payroll-vs-square-payroll) - [Patriot Payroll](https://toolgpa.com/tools/patriot-payroll): Low-cost online payroll for small US businesses. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/patriot-payroll-vs-square-payroll) - [Roll by ADP](https://toolgpa.com/tools/roll-by-adp): Chat-based payroll app for very small US businesses. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/roll-by-adp-vs-square-payroll) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 17, 2026: - https://squareup.com/us/en/payroll/pricing - https://squareup.com/us/en/payroll - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/square-team/id1435368303 - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.squareup.payroll.team&gl=US&hl=en Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/square-payroll Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).