Card fees · Australia

Square fees in Australia

Square's published Australian rates

GST treatment not stated

Square's published AU fee schedule does not state whether its core processing rates include GST. It states GST treatment only for Afterpay (6% + 30c, excluding GST). Zeller and Stripe explicitly state their headline rates include GST, and Tyro states it for Payment Links. We show Square's rates exactly as published and do not gross them up, because inventing a GST-inclusive figure would misstate a competitor's price.

Monthly and fixed costs

Square's free plan carries no monthly software fee; paid plans and add-ons are extra and are not modelled here.

Negotiating. Square states its sales team can arrange custom transaction rates for larger sellers.

Where these numbers come from

Square Support Centre (AU): Learn about Square fees (observed 2026-10-04) · Square AU pricing (observed 2026-10-04)

The GST basis Square never states

Square's published AU fee schedule does not state whether its core processing rates include GST. It states GST treatment only for Afterpay (6% + 30c, excluding GST). Zeller and Stripe explicitly state their headline rates include GST, and Tyro states it for Payment Links. We show Square's rates exactly as published and do not gross them up, because inventing a GST-inclusive figure would misstate a competitor's price.

This matters more than it sounds. A rate quoted excluding GST and a rate quoted including GST are about ten percent apart on the same money, so putting Square's 1.6% beside a rate the other three state as GST-inclusive is not a like-for-like reading. We show Square's figure exactly as Square publishes it and label the basis as not stated, rather than grossing it up and misquoting a competitor's price. If the difference is material to your decision, the number to get in writing from Square is whether the processing rate on your account is inclusive or exclusive of GST.

The one place Square does commit to a basis is Afterpay, which its schedule states excluding GST. That is in the other-charges table above.

Your hardware decides whether the older rate reaches you

The signup-date split above is not applied evenly across Square's range. By Square's own description, Square Terminal and Square Register sit at 1.6% for every seller regardless of when they joined. The date only decides the rate on Square Reader, Square Stand, Tap to Pay on iPhone and Tap to Pay on Android. So a long-standing Square seller taking payments on a countertop Terminal is on the current rate already, while the same seller tapping on a phone may not be.

That makes this a question worth answering before you shop around: the cheapest change available to an older Square account may be which device it takes payments on, not which provider it is with.

Where Square gets expensive, and what it does not publish

• Going online costs you 0.6 points. Square's online rate is 2.2% against 1.6% in person. Deposits, payment links and gift-card purchases all price at the online rate, so a business that shifts takings from the counter to the web moves that volume onto the dearer side of Square's own schedule.
• Card on file prices as online, not in person. Manually entered payments and card-on-file charges through Square Invoices and Virtual Terminal sit at 2.2%. If you keep cards on file for repeat customers, that rate applies to those payments, and the counter rate in the headline does not.
• The negotiating door is open but unmarked. Square states its sales team can arrange custom transaction rates for larger sellers. No turnover threshold is published, which is not the same as there not being one. Tyro publishes a figure; Square does not. Ask anyway.

This page is the detail. The comparison lives elsewhere

Everything above is Square on its own terms: what Square publishes, what it charges for, and the conditions attached. That is deliberately a one-provider view. A rate on its own tells you very little. What matters is what it comes to across a year of your turnover, at your average ticket, on your mix of in-person and online. Three other pages do that arithmetic.

• What card fees cost a venue, salon or clinic: the hub, where Square is costed against every other provider over a year, in three trades. Start there if you have not settled on a provider yet.
• Square vs Zeller vs Tyro vs Stripe, head to head: the four published rate cards in one table, then the annual total across six turnover and ticket combinations.
• Run your own numbers: the same engine, on your turnover instead of a worked example.

The same depth on the others: Zeller · Tyro · Stripe