Square Invoices: How they work, pricing, and getting paid

What is Square Invoices?

Square Invoices lets you request payment for goods or services by sending digital invoices, estimates, or recurring invoices. You can create and manage them in the Square Dashboard, the Square Invoices app, or the Square Point of Sale app, and invoicing is included on every Square plan, with no limit on how many you send.

You send an invoice by email, text message, or a link you share yourself. Your customer pays on a payment page hosted by Square, using any of the methods you turned on for that invoice: credit or debit card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, Cash App Pay, ACH bank transfer, Afterpay, or a Square gift card. When it's paid, Square emails you, and the money is deposited to your linked bank account on your deposit schedule.

What you get depends on your plan. These are the main invoicing features and how they compare, from Square's pricing page:

Square's support articles list the features marked No under Square Free for Square Invoices Plus subscribers too. That's an older subscription, covered in the pricing section below.

How much does Square Invoices cost?

Invoicing itself is included on every Square plan. What you pay is the plan's monthly fee, if any, plus a processing fee each time a customer pays. Square's plans are Free at $0 a month, Plus at $49 per location per month, and Premium at $149 per location per month. These rates are from Square's pricing page as of October 2026 and can change. For the invoice payment types below, Plus and Premium charge the same fees. The pricing page also lists extra fees that may apply, such as 1.5% on cards issued outside the United States.

Here's what that looks like in dollars. On a $1,000 invoice paid by card, the fee is $33.30 on Free and $29.30 on Plus or Premium. A $300 invoice paid by bank transfer costs $3.00 in fees, against $10.20 by card on Free and $9.00 on Plus or Premium. Square's support article adds that sellers with a Square Checking account pay $0 in processing fees on bank transfers.

If the lower card rate is your only reason to upgrade, the math is simple. Plus cuts the card rate by 0.4 percentage points, which saves $4 on every $1,000 you collect by card through invoices or online, so it covers its own $49 monthly fee (charged for each location you run) at about $12,250 a month in those payments. Its other features, like batch invoices and payment schedules, are a bonus on top.

If you mainly want those extra invoicing features, Square's support articles also name an older subscription, Square Invoices Plus, that includes them. Square announced it in 2021 at $20 a month. It isn't on Square's main pricing page. Square's support center describes its individually priced subscriptions as legacy and says it is consolidating plans into Free, Plus, and Premium, so check Pricing & subscriptions in your Square Dashboard settings before you plan around that price.

How to send an invoice in Square

Square's own walkthrough is in its support article on creating and sending invoices. The short version:

1. Open Invoices

   In the Square Dashboard, go to Invoices and click Create invoice. Square's instructions call the menu Orders & payments, Invoices & Payments, or Payments. The Square Invoices and Point of Sale apps walk you through the same steps.

2. Add the customer and due date

   Pick an existing customer or add a new one. You can add up to nine recipients. Choose one-time or recurring, set the due date, and add an optional message.

3. Add what you're billing for

   Enter a custom amount or pick items from your catalog, then add any discounts, taxes, shipping fees, or service charges. You can also request a deposit as a percentage or an amount. With Square Plus, Square Premium, or Square Invoices Plus you can split the balance into milestone payments.

4. Choose how your customer can pay

   Tick the payment methods you'll accept: card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, Cash App Pay, ACH bank transfer, Afterpay, or Square gift cards. You can allow partial payments and let customers save a card on file for later invoices. Afterpay doesn't support recurring invoices or payment schedules.

5. Pick delivery and reminders, then send

   Deliver by email, text message, or a link you share yourself. With email you can add up to eight more recipients and schedule automatic reminders. Automatic reminders and extra recipients aren't supported for text message delivery. Then send the invoice, schedule it, or save it as a draft.

If you send similar invoices often, a Square Plus, Square Premium, or Square Invoices Plus subscription lets you save the settings as a template. Our guide to Square invoice templates covers how.

What happens when a Square invoice is overdue

Square gives you a few tools for late invoices, and it helps to know where they stop.

Reminders you schedule

On every plan you can schedule automatic payment reminders to go out before, on, or after the due date. Square's developer documentation adds a few details. An invoice can have several reminders, and a reminder is skipped if the invoice has been paid by then. Scheduled reminders are emailed, and Square doesn't send them for invoices delivered by text message. Beyond the reminders you schedule, that documentation says Square takes no explicit action when an invoice payment becomes overdue.

No late fees

Square's support center is direct about this: "Late fees cannot be charged for Square Invoices." That makes timely reminders and follow-up your main lever.

Automatic payments that fail

If an invoice is set to charge a card or bank account on file automatically and the charge fails, Square's developer documentation says it emails the customer the invoice with a link to pay, turns automatic payment off for that invoice, and notifies you. For a recurring invoice series, Square's support center says it won't automatically attempt to re-process a declined payment, and it notifies the customer right away by the same method you used to share the invoice. Square Subscriptions are a separate product from invoices.

Square doesn't always know why a card was declined. Its support center says Square isn't informed of the exact reason, and its developer documentation says the reason isn't included in the webhook or on the payment when an automatic payment fails. Square recommends the customer contact their card-issuing bank. For what each Square error code means, and how Square handles failed subscription payments, see our guide to Square decline codes.

Invoices Square cancels

For your protection, Square can occasionally cancel an invoice if a customer makes too many failed attempts to pay it. You can duplicate a canceled invoice and send it again, and Square recommends the customer also call their card issuer to authorize the transaction. Square's developer documentation also lists cancellation due to suspicious activity among the events it emails sellers about.

Expired payment links

Invoice payment links expire 90 days after they're created. After that, the customer can request a new invoice from the expired page, and Square sends it to the email address or phone number on the original. If a customer says the link doesn't work, that's the first thing to check.

How to follow up on an unpaid Square invoice

Beyond the reminders you scheduled, Square's developer documentation says it takes no explicit action on an overdue invoice, so the follow-up is on you. A routine that works:

1. Find the invoice

   In the Square Dashboard, open Invoices. Square says it tracks invoice status in real time, so you can see what's paid, unpaid, and overdue. If the list is long, search by customer name, email, invoice ID, title, or line item.

2. Send a reminder

   Click the three-dot menu next to the invoice and choose to send a reminder. The same menu lets you edit an unpaid invoice, take a payment, mark it as paid, or cancel it.

3. Check what's blocking payment

   Make sure the customer's email is right, that the invoice wasn't sent by text (Square doesn't send scheduled reminders for those), and that the payment link hasn't expired. If a card keeps failing, Square recommends the customer contact their card-issuing bank, and offering another payment method is also worth trying. If Square canceled the invoice, duplicate it and send it again.

4. Follow up like a person

   If the invoice is still unpaid after Square's reminders, write to the customer yourself with the amount, the due date, and the payment link. Our guide to following up on unpaid invoices has a schedule and three email templates you can copy.

How to automate Square invoice reminders

Square sends the reminders you schedule. Beyond that, its developer documentation says it takes no explicit action when an invoice payment becomes overdue. Recoura picks up from there. Connect your Square account and it works like this:

• See what's overdue. Connect Square through OAuth, with no passwords or API keys. A free dashboard shows which invoices are past due and, once an invoice has been past due for a few days, how much money is at risk.
• Give Square's reminders time first. Automatic reminders wait a few days after the due date before they start, so any reminders you scheduled in Square have time to run first.
• Send reminders in your name. Send one yourself or turn on automatic reminders, up to five, on a schedule you set. Each email goes out under your business's name, and you can add your logo, colors, and wording. It links to the invoice's Square payment page.
• Check before every send. Before a reminder goes out, Recoura checks with Square that the invoice is still unpaid. If it has been paid, refunded, or canceled, nothing is sent, and reminders stop as soon as it's paid.
• Your customer pays Square. Recoura never charges a card or handles the money. The customer pays on Square's page, and the payment goes to your Square account.

The dashboard is free. Sending reminders is part of Recoura's paid plans, which ask Square for a few extra permissions. For how Square's own recovery compares with Stripe's, see why Stripe and Square's retries fall short. Square shows its own permissions screen when you connect, and our guide to connecting your Stripe or Square account walks through how the connection works. If you send invoices from somewhere other than Stripe or Square, Recoura's Invoice reminders works from a photo or PDF of the invoice.

Square Invoices FAQ

Is Square Invoices free, and what does it cost?

Invoicing is included on every Square plan, including Free at $0 a month, and you can send unlimited invoices. You pay a processing fee when a customer pays. On the Free plan that's 3.3% + 30¢ for a card paid through an invoice and 1% (with a $1 minimum) for a bank transfer. Plus ($49 per location per month) and Premium ($149 per location per month) lower that card rate to 2.9% + 30¢ and cap bank transfer fees at $10. Square's support articles also name an older Square Invoices Plus subscription, which Square announced in 2021 at $20 a month but doesn't list on its main pricing page.

Can I charge late fees on a Square invoice?

No. Square's support center says late fees cannot be charged for Square Invoices. Reminders and follow-up are the tools Square gives you for late payments, so schedule payment reminders when you create the invoice and follow up yourself if it's still unpaid.

Does Square send invoice reminders automatically?

If you set them up. On every plan you can schedule automatic payment reminders to go out before, on, or after the due date, and Square skips a reminder if the invoice has been paid by then. Scheduled reminders are emailed, and Square doesn't send them for invoices delivered by text message.

How do I send a reminder for an unpaid Square invoice?

In the Square Dashboard, open Invoices, click the three-dot menu next to the invoice, and choose to send a reminder. If the customer says the payment link doesn't work, it may have expired. Invoice payment links expire 90 days after they're created. After that, the customer can request a new invoice from the expired page, and Square sends it to the email address or phone number on the original.

What happens when a card on file is declined on a Square invoice?

For an invoice set to charge automatically, Square emails the customer the invoice with a link to pay, turns automatic payment off for that invoice, and notifies you. Square says it isn't informed of the exact reason a card was declined, so it recommends the customer contact their card-issuing bank. For a recurring invoice series (not Square Subscriptions, which is a separate product), Square's support center says it won't automatically attempt to re-process a declined payment.

Why did Square cancel my invoice?

If you didn't cancel it, check with your team first. Square can also cancel an invoice, for example when a customer makes too many failed attempts to pay it, and its developer documentation mentions cancellation for suspicious activity. You can duplicate a canceled invoice and send it again, and Square recommends the customer also call their card issuer to authorize the transaction.

How do I see which Square invoices are overdue?

Square tracks invoice status in real time, so you can see what's paid, unpaid, and overdue. Start from Invoices in the Square Dashboard, and use the search bar to find a specific customer or invoice. To see every overdue invoice and the money at risk in one place, connect Square to Recoura, whose paid plans also send the reminders for you.