Square Appointments vs Acuity Scheduling: Cost by Team Size

Square vs Acuity, side by side

Square vs Acuity, side by side: the billing unit decides most bills, and Table 1 shows where each vendor puts reminders, no-show protection and card rates (pricing pages read September 25, 2026; Square's feature grid and Acuity's plan cards captured September 27, 2026).

How does Square Appointments bill?

Square Appointments bills $0, $49 or $149 a month per location on Square Free, Plus and Premium, with unlimited staff calendars on all three, and quotes Square Pro only on request (Square's pricing page, read September 25, 2026; feature grid captured September 27, 2026).

Square Free carries no subscription. The pricing page's FAQ says that “With Square Free, there are no monthly subscription costs” and that “you only pay processing fees when you take a payment” (captured September 27, 2026). Square Pro shows “Get custom pricing” and no figure; Square invites businesses that process over $250,000 a year to ask whether they qualify.

Square's feature grid, captured September 27, 2026, shows what each plan adds. Multi-staff appointment booking, cancellation policy and no-show fees, a waitlist and multi-location management start on Square Plus. Resource management, which assigns rooms, chairs and stations, is on Square Premium only. Unlimited calendars, appointment deposits, prepayments and appointment reminders are on all three plans. The multi-staff line does not limit Square Free to one staff member: Square's tooltip defines it as letting “clients book one appointment with multiple services assigned to different staff.”

Support and marketing texts also change by plan. Phone support runs 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific time, Monday to Friday, for the first 90 days on Square Free, the same hours with no 90-day limit on Plus, and 24/7 on Premium. Text message marketing is not available on Square Free; Plus includes 500 texts a month per account, then 3 cents a text, and Premium includes 2,500, then 1.5 cents (grid captured September 27, 2026).

Plus and Premium each come with a free 30-day trial. Two costs sit outside the plans: Square Payroll, “starting at $35 per month + $6 per person paid”, and hardware, with “options starting at $59” (pricing page, read September 25, 2026). If those limits send you looking elsewhere, we keep a list of Square Appointments alternatives.

How does Acuity Scheduling bill?

Acuity Scheduling bills one account by calendar count: Starter is $20 a month for one calendar, Standard $34 for up to six and Premium $61 for up to 36, or $16, $27 and $49 billed annually, and there is no free plan (Acuity's pricing page, read September 25, 2026).

Every plan card reads “7-day trial, no credit card needed”, and the page notes that “Prices do not include applicable taxes.” Starter lists “Payments via Stripe, Square, PayPal, Venmo”, “Email reminders”, “Custom client forms” and “Automatic time zone conversion”. Standard adds text reminders, an appointment waitlist, “Sell memberships and packages” and “Sell gift certificates”. Premium adds “AI Booking Assistant”, “Hide Acuity logo on scheduling page”, “Multiple time zones for staff/locations” and “Custom API and CSS” (plan cards captured September 27, 2026).

Above 36 calendars, Acuity stops publishing a price. Its FAQ describes an Enterprise offering with “unlimited calendars, VIP account management” and more, and ends with “Contact our Enterprise team to learn more”, with no figure attached (read September 25, 2026). That is the same shape as Square Pro: a real tier with no published number.

Acuity is also sold as Squarespace Scheduling. For the wider field, our Acuity Scheduling alternative roundup prices these plans against other booking tools.

Square Appointments vs Acuity: which is cheaper at your team size?

At one location, Square Free is $0 a month at any headcount, while Acuity steps from $20 a month for one calendar to $34 for up to six and $61 for up to 36 ($16, $27 and $49 billed annually), on pricing pages read September 25, 2026.

On subscription alone, Square Free is cheaper at every headcount. It reaches those headcounts without multi-staff appointment booking or cancellation and no-show fees, both of which start on Square Plus at $49 a month per location (grid captured September 27, 2026). A salon that charges for late cancellations therefore compares Square Plus with Acuity.

That comparison splits at six people. Up to six calendars, Acuity Standard at $34 a month, or $27 billed annually, costs less than Square Plus, and Starter at $20 costs less still for one person. From seven to 36 people, Square Plus at $49 costs less than Acuity Premium's $61 monthly rate and matches its $49 annual rate. Above 36 people, Acuity publishes no price, while Square Plus stays at $49 for one location.

What happens to each bill when you open a second location?

Square Plus multiplies by location and ignores headcount; Acuity Premium ignores location and caps calendars at 36. At three locations with 30 staff, Square Plus is $147 a month and Acuity Premium $61 ($49 billed annually), on pricing pages read September 25, 2026.

Put as formulas, Square Plus costs $49 a month times the number of locations, and staff count is not an input. Acuity Premium costs $61 a month, or $49 billed annually, for as long as the account holds 36 calendars or fewer, and location count is not an input.

One assumption matters. Acuity's tooltip allows a calendar per employee or per location, and Table 3 counts one calendar per employee, the reading that flatters Acuity least. Counted per location instead, four shops need four calendars, which fit Standard at $34 a month however many people work in them.

Square Free has no subscription at any number of locations, but it lacks multi-location management, multi-staff booking and no-show fees (grid captured September 27, 2026), so Table 3 compares the plans a multi-location salon with no-show fees would weigh.

Four locations with nine staff each is exactly 36 calendars, the last point Acuity's published plans cover. One more person pushes the count past “Up to 36 calendars”, where Acuity offers only its Enterprise contact, while Square Plus is still $196 a month and rises by $49 with each added location. Square Pro is its own unpriced tier for businesses processing over $250,000 a year, so both vendors publish a ladder and then hand larger businesses a contact form.

The crossover is a shape, not a dollar amount. Square's price rises with doors and ignores people. Acuity's rises with calendars, ignores doors and stops being published at 36. Anyone running more than one address should also read our notes on multi-location scheduling software.

What do card payments cost on each?

Square prints a card rate for every payment type on every plan, from 2.4% to 2.6% plus 15 cents in person; Acuity prints none and passes payments to Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo (pricing pages read September 25, 2026; Square's fee table and Acuity's plan cards captured September 27, 2026).

Square's fee table lists tap, dip or swipe at 2.6% plus 15 cents on Free, 2.5% plus 15 cents on Plus and 2.4% plus 15 cents on Premium. Online payments are 3.3% plus 30 cents on Free and 2.9% plus 30 cents on Plus and Premium. Manual entry or card on file is 3.5% plus 15 cents on all three. ACH bank transfer by invoice is 1% with a $1 minimum, and Plus and Premium add a $10 fee cap. Afterpay is 6% plus 30 cents, and cash or check is free (fee table captured September 27, 2026).

Price a real month. A salon takes $20,000 in card-present sales across 400 tickets. On Square Free that is 2.6% of $20,000, or $520, plus 400 fees of 15 cents, or $60, for $580 in total. On Square Plus it is $500 plus the same $60, or $560. The upgrade saves $20 a month in fees and costs $49 a month in subscription.

Each step up Square's ladder cuts the card-present rate by 0.1 percentage point. Free to Plus costs $49 a month, so it pays for itself at $49,000 a month of card-present sales; Plus to Premium costs $100 a month more and pays for itself at $100,000. Online, Plus cuts the rate from 3.3% to 2.9%, so it pays for itself at $12,250 a month of online card sales, while Premium saves nothing more on the online row. A salon that takes most payments online reaches Plus far earlier than one taking cards at the chair.

Acuity prints no processing rate; the rate is whatever the connected processor charges. Square is one of the four processors Acuity names on its plan cards, so an Acuity account can take payments through Square; Acuity does not print what that costs (plan cards captured September 27, 2026). Any total-cost figure for Acuity stays incomplete until you pick a processor.

Acuity Scheduling or Square Appointments: which should you choose?

Choose by the thing that grows in your business: people, locations or card volume. Table 4 names each trigger and what each vendor's own page says about it (pricing pages read September 25, 2026; Square's feature grid and Acuity's plan cards captured September 27, 2026).

If you sell product at the front desk, Square's hardware and card-present rates are the reason to stay on Square. If a team of six or fewer needs text reminders and a waitlist, Acuity Standard at $34 a month costs less than Square Plus at $49, the first Square plan with a waitlist.

How other booking tools price a ten-person salon

At ten people in one location, the cheapest published plan runs from $0 on Square Free to $209.99 a month plus tax on Booksy, depending on whether the vendor counts locations, calendars, seats or team members (pricing pages read September 25, 2026).

Billed annually where the vendor offers it, Acuity falls to $49, Setmore to $50, Calendly to $100 and GlossGenius to $148. The counting unit drives the spread as much as feature depth does: Setmore counts users, Calendly seats, Booksy team members after the first, GlossGenius staff by plan, Acuity calendars and Square locations. Feature lists differ from vendor to vendor, so Table 5 ranks subscription price alone. Prices drift, so check the vendor's page before you buy.

Vagaro's pricing page showed Canadian prices from our location, so it is not in the table; our Vagaro vs Square Appointments comparison covers it.

Where the top-ranking Square Appointments vs Acuity pages get it wrong

Four of the five pages ranking for square appointments vs acuity on September 8, 2026 printed at least one Square or Acuity price that the vendor's own pricing page did not show; the fifth printed no prices.

Two of the five, on wpamelia.com and talkspresso.com, printed Square Plus at $29 and Square Premium at $69 a month per location; Square's pricing page lists $49 and $149 (read September 25, 2026). The wpamelia.com page printed the correct $49 and $149 in its prose and the lower pair in its comparison table. It also said the free plan “caps you at one user and one location”, while Square's grid lists unlimited staff calendars on Square Free.

The thesalonbusiness.com page said Acuity is “free for individuals” and that “If you have a team of five, Acuity costs $25/month”. Acuity's page shows no free plan, and five calendars fall within Standard at $34 a month, or $27 billed annually. The calystaemr.com page printed Square's in-person fee as 2.6% plus 10 cents, where Square prints 2.6% plus 15 cents. The talkspresso.com page also named Acuity's plans “Emerging”, “Growing” and “Powerhouse”; Acuity names them Starter, Standard and Premium.

The fifth page, a quantumbyte.ai article on acuity vs square appointments, printed no price figure, so there was nothing on it for either vendor's page to contradict. The pair of $29 and $69 a month per location appeared on two of the five pages and nowhere on Square's pricing page. We apply the same test to our own figures, which is why every price on this page carries the date it was read.

Where Twizzlo fits next to Square Appointments and Acuity

Twizzlo is web-based online booking and appointment scheduling software for appointment-based service businesses, with a public booking page, email and SMS reminders, client records, staff schedules and shifts, and Stripe payments and tips.

Free is $0 a month for up to 150 bookings, with no SMS. Business Pro is $29.99 a month per business, with unlimited bookings, 50 SMS a month then $0.03 each, and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Both plans include unlimited staff and locations. Online payments carry your Stripe processing rate plus a 1.5% Twizzlo platform fee. For how card processing works in a booking business, see our guide to payment processing.

On subscription, the numbers cut both ways. Square Free charges no subscription above 150 bookings a month, where Twizzlo Free stops. Acuity Starter, at $20 a month or $16 billed annually, costs less than Business Pro for one calendar, and Acuity Standard costs less only on annual billing, at $27. Business Pro costs less than Square Plus from the first location and stays at $29.99 at three locations, where Square Plus is $147 a month (Square and Acuity pricing pages read September 25, 2026). That per-business price is how our salon scheduling software is sold.

Twizzlo does not run payroll, track commissions or sell memberships. Square sells payroll separately, and Acuity sells memberships and packages from its Standard plan.

To test it against your own team, start on Free, then move to Business Pro when you need unlimited bookings and SMS reminders; our Free plan and Business Pro pricing page lists both. For the salon setup, see our salon appointment software page.