Switching platforms
Square POS alternatives, and how to choose between them
Square solved a real problem elegantly: it made card acceptance something a small shop could switch on in an afternoon, by bundling the software, the processing and the hardware into one signup. Where that bundle fits, it is very hard to beat, and this page will not pretend otherwise.
People look for an alternative for two reasons. The first is availability — Square operates in a published list of countries, and if yours is not on it, there is no comparison to make, only a replacement to find. The second is shape: the bundle that makes setup easy also ties your software to one processor, your counter to particular hardware, and your growth to a product designed around card-led retail.
What follows compares the models rather than the feature lists, and says plainly which buyer should stay put. Anything said about Square describes its publicly documented structure; rates, hardware and country availability change, so confirm those on its own site.
What you get
What this gives you
Check availability before anything else
Square publishes the countries it operates in. Outside them you cannot open an account at all, which turns a comparison into a shortlist of what you can actually buy.
The processor and the software are one purchase
Simple, and genuinely good where card is how people pay. It also means changing processor means changing software, and a rate you cannot negotiate separately from the product.
Hardware you buy from the vendor
Proprietary readers and stands are a clean experience and a real capital cost per till. Ask what a second counter costs on a busy weekend before you standardise on it.
Wallets are the gap in card-led design
Where most customers pay from a phone wallet rather than a card, a card-first bundle is optimised for the smaller half of your takings.
The online side is a separate product
Most counter-first vendors sell the online store as another module or another subscription. Price the whole shape you need, not the till.
Free is a category, not a bargain
There are capable free tills. They earn their money on add-on modules, per-employee pricing or payment margin — so compare the configuration you will actually run in a year.
Why people look past Square
Availability is the blunt one. Square operates in a specific set of markets and states them publicly. A retailer outside that list is not choosing between Square and something else; they are choosing among the products that will actually sell to them, which is a different exercise and a much shorter list.
The second reason is the bundle itself. Tying the software to the processor is what made Square easy, and it is also what makes it rigid. If your processing costs become a material line — and at volume they do — you cannot renegotiate them without also changing the system your staff know. Where processing is a separate contract, you can shop it every year without touching the counter.
The third is shape. Square's design assumes a card is the default instrument and the shop is the primary channel. A business where most payments arrive from phone wallets, or where the online store matters as much as the counter, is asking the product to do the thing it was not built around. It will do it. It will just never be the part it is best at.
What changes when the processor is not the vendor
You gain leverage and you take on a decision. Unbundled, the software vendor competes on software and the processor competes on rate, and you can replace either without replacing the other. That is worth real money as you grow, and it is why larger retailers almost never run a bundled stack.
The cost is that you now have to choose a processor, which the bundle did for you. For most small retailers that is one afternoon and a comparison of published rates, and it is the same afternoon whether you do it now or in three years when the bundle's rate has become the largest line in your card costs.
There is a second-order gain worth naming. When the software is not funded by payment margin, it has no reason to steer you towards one instrument. Cash, wallet, card, bank transfer and on-account all land in the same ledger and are reported the same way, because none of them is the vendor's revenue line.
How to compare, in the order that matters
Start with what you can buy. Availability in your market, and whether the payment rails your customers actually use are supported natively or through an adapter. Everything else is irrelevant if this fails.
Then the counter under pressure. Run a Saturday-shaped test during a trial: several tills, a queue, a return, a split payment, and the internet switched off in the middle. This is the single most informative hour you will spend, and it cannot be simulated by reading a comparison table — including this one.
Then the total cost of the shape you need, over a year. Software per location, per user or per till, the online store if it is a separate module, the payment rate against your real volume, and hardware. Free tills and bundled tills both look cheapest at this step, and frequently are not once the configuration is realistic.
Only then the feature list. By this point you will have eliminated most of it anyway, and a feature comparison between two products that both survived the first three tests is a much easier decision than one made at the start.
- Can I open an account in my market at all?
- Are my customers' payment rails native, or reached through an adapter?
- What happens at a busy counter with no internet?
- What does a second till cost me — in software and in hardware?
- Is the online store included, extra, or absent?
- Can I change processor without changing software?
- Can I export my products, customers and transactions if I leave?
Who should stay exactly where they are
A single-location shop in a Square market, where nearly all payments are card, with no online store and no plan for one, is well served. Switching would cost weeks to solve problems that business does not have.
A hospitality venue already running on bundled hardware that staff know, with tips, splits and table service configured the way it wants them, is also well served. Reconfiguring a working front of house is a genuine operational risk and should be done for a genuine operational reason.
The buyer this page is for is the one who cannot sign up, or who has outgrown the bundle: several locations, payments arriving on rails the bundle treats as secondary, an online store that matters, and a growing suspicion that the processing rate is no longer competitive but is no longer separable either.
Compare
A bundled stack and an unbundled one
How each model is put together — not a rate card. Processing rates, hardware prices and market availability change and belong on the vendor's own site.
| What you are comparing | Square | sell.ke |
|---|---|---|
| What you are buying | Software, processing and hardware as one | Software; processing stays your contract |
| Where you can buy it | A published list of countries | Not geographically limited; rails and tax rules are |
| Changing processor | Means changing system | Independent of the software |
| Hardware | Vendor readers and stands | A phone, tablet or laptop; standard printers and scanners |
| Cost of a second till | Another reader, and possibly another licence | Nothing — no per-terminal licence |
| Wallet payments | Secondary to card by design | A first-class rail alongside card and cash |
| Online store | A separate product in the family | Included from the Basic plan, same catalogue |
| Offline at the counter | Card offline mode with documented limits | Full offline selling, reconciled on reconnect |
| Accounting | Export or an integration | Double-entry, from the Growth plan |
| Best for | Card-led shops in its markets | Shops on mixed rails, or outside those markets |
Square is a trademark of Block, Inc., which is not affiliated with sell.ke. Rows describe each product's publicly documented model; rates, hardware, availability and features change and should be checked with the vendor directly.
Questions
Square POS alternatives — questions
Is Square available in my country?
Square publishes the countries it operates in, and the list is short — a handful of markets in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the British Isles. If yours is not among them you cannot open an account, and no amount of comparison changes that. Check the current list on Square's own site rather than on any third-party page, including this one, because it is exactly the kind of fact that changes without anyone updating the article that quoted it.
What is the best free alternative to Square?
There are capable free tills, and for one counter with a simple product list a free tier may genuinely be all you need — we would rather say that than sell you something. Read how each one earns its money before you commit: usually it is paid add-on modules, per-employee pricing above a small headcount, or a margin on payments. Price the configuration you expect to be running in a year, not the one you start with, because the gap between those two is where free stops being free.
Can I keep my existing hardware if I switch?
It depends on how proprietary it is. Card readers tied to a specific processor generally cannot move, because the reader is part of that processor's chain. Peripherals usually can: standard 80mm thermal receipt printers over Bluetooth or USB, handheld barcode scanners and cash drawers the printer opens all work with sell.ke, as does a phone, tablet or laptop you already own. The practical answer is that you keep the commodity hardware and replace the parts that were only ever rented to you.
How do card processing rates compare once the software is separate?
That becomes a question you ask processors rather than a number set by your software vendor, which is the point of unbundling. Published rates vary by market, by card type and by volume, and they are negotiable at scale in a way a bundled rate is not. Work out your annual card volume, get two or three quotes against it, and compare the total against what a bundle charges for the same volume — for a growing business the difference is frequently larger than the entire software subscription.
Do I need a merchant account to use sell.ke?
Not to start selling. Cash, bank transfer and on-account sales need nothing but the till, and mobile money needs your existing wallet or merchant number rather than a new relationship. A card facility is a separate arrangement with a processor in your market, set up when you want it, and it does not gate the rest of the system — the counter, stock, the online store and reporting all work while you sort it out.
How much does sell.ke cost?
Plans run from USD 12/month for a single-location till to USD 115/month for unlimited scale, with the online store on your own domain included from USD 23/month. In Kenya the same plans are KES 1,499 to KES 14,999/month, billed in shillings. Every plan starts with a 14-day trial and no card, and there is no per-terminal licence and no commission on your sales. There is no hardware to buy either — sell.ke runs on a phone, tablet or laptop you already own.
Which countries does sell.ke work in?
The software is not geographically limited — the counter, inventory, the storefront, reporting and accounting work anywhere, in multiple currencies. What is market-specific is two things: the payment rails available to you, and your country's tax-invoicing rules. We currently run with merchants in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ghana and Nigeria, and the deepest local payment and compliance integrations are in Kenya. If you are outside those markets, ask before you sign up and we will tell you precisely what would and would not be connected for you.
What hardware do I need?
None to start. sell.ke runs in a browser and as an Android app, so a phone, tablet or laptop you already own is a working till on day one — the phone camera reads barcodes. When volume justifies it, add an 80mm thermal receipt printer (Bluetooth or USB), a handheld scanner and a cash drawer the printer opens. There is no proprietary terminal to buy and no per-terminal licence, so a second till on a busy Saturday costs nothing.
Does it keep working when the internet drops?
The counter does. Offline mode keeps taking sales, printing receipts and reserving stock while the connection is down, then reconciles everything when it returns — so a bad afternoon costs you connectivity, not revenue or a gap in the record. The parts that are inherently online stay online: card and mobile-money authorisation, tax-authority submission, and the storefront itself all need a live link.
Read next
The other pages that answer the question you are probably about to ask.
Loyverse alternatives
A free till is often enough. Here is the point where it stops being.
Shopify alternatives with mobile money
What changes when the wallet, not the card, is how your customers pay.
Best POS for a small business
How to judge one honestly, and the trap that catches most first-time buyers.
POS systems explained
What a point of sale system is, what it replaces, and how to choose one.
POS hardware
Receipt printer, scanner, drawer — what you need, what you don't, and in what order.
How to take card & mobile payments
What you need to take each payment type, and what each one actually costs.
Go deeper on a feature
Selling at the counter
Split payments, held orders, manager-gated discounts and a drawer count that reconciles.
Getting paid the Kenyan way
STK push at the counter, paybill and till confirmation, M-Pesa on the website — on your own shortcode.
Branches, staff and control
Shared catalogue, separate stock, transfers that are movements, and permissions per branch.
Try it on your own products
Fourteen days, no card. Import your product list or let Amina build it from a photo of your price list, and run it alongside whatever you use now.