Piggles or Square: which one fits the way you work?
Square is the best-known name in taking a card over the counter, and for a lot of shops that is the right place to start. Piggles is built for the rest of the week: the website, the bookings, the quotes, the stock and the customers, on one bill. Here is the honest version of which to choose.
- Free for 14 days
- No card needed
- All sixteen apps included
Where Square is the better choice
Square is a payments and point-of-sale company built around its own card readers. These are the things it does better than Piggles, said plainly, because the right answer for your business matters more than this page.
Taking a card in person
Square makes its own card readers, terminals and stands, and tap to pay on a phone. If most of your money arrives across a counter, nothing on this page beats that. Piggles has no card reader of its own.
Restaurants and busy tills
Kitchen screens, kiosks, table service and a till built for a queue. Square has spent years on the counter itself, and it shows.
Banking beside the payments
Square offers business checking, savings and loans next to the money it takes for you. Piggles does not hold or lend money.
Payroll, if you pay it
Square sells payroll as its own paid product. Piggles records hours and hands them to whoever runs your payroll, and stops there.
Square is built around the moment somebody pays. Piggles is built around everything that happens before and after it.
Where Piggles fits better
The work that is not a sale
A quote that turns into a job and then an invoice, a request that needs an answer by Friday, a supplier order waiting to arrive. Piggles keeps each of these as its own record, attached to the customer it belongs to.
A website that is a real website
Pages, a blog, forms that land somewhere useful, search settings and social posting, not only a page to order from. It is on your own domain and it is part of the same bill.
One price that does not grow with the till
Every app is included in one monthly price. Adding a location or a team member costs extra; switching on bookings, email or stock never does.
Your choice of who takes the payment
Connect Stripe, PayPal, Square, Authorize.net or 1stPayGateway. Piggles adds no fee of its own to a sale, so you can move to a cheaper payment company without moving your business.
Piggles and Square, one need at a time
What each one offers for the things a small business looks for, read from Square’s own website on September 30, 2026. Where we could not confirm a feature on their site, the table says so rather than guessing.
| What you need | Piggles | Square |
|---|---|---|
| A website | Built in Finished sections you arrange, on your own domain. | Built in Square Online. |
| An online shop | Built in Products, services, checkout and trade accounts. | Built in Square Online. |
| Selling in person | Partly A counter sale is recorded as an order. There is no card reader or till app. | Built in Its own card readers and tills, sold separately. |
| Appointments | Built in Services, staff calendars, email reminders and booking online. | Built in In the plans, and still sold as Square Appointments. |
| Quotes and invoices | Built in Quotes that become jobs, then invoices, with a payment link. | Built in Invoices and estimates. |
| A customer list | Built in One record per customer with orders, bookings and messages. | Built in A customer directory. |
| Customer requests | Built in Requests with an owner and a time to answer by. | Not confirmed Not listed on its software page. |
| Email to your customers | Built in Emails to a list, from your own address. | Built in Email marketing. |
| Text messages | No Piggles does not send text messages. | Built in Text marketing, billed per text past an allowance. |
| Posting to social media | Built in Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google, TikTok, YouTube and Threads. | Not confirmed Not listed on its software page. |
| Stock in more than one place | Built in Counts per location, reorder points and transfers. One location included. | Built in Across locations, in Square for Retail. |
| Ordering from suppliers | Built in Write, approve, print and receive orders, with supplier prices and scorecards. | Built in Vendors and purchase orders, in Square for Retail. |
| Staff hours and shifts | Built in Clock in and out, timesheets, a published schedule and time off. | Built in Shifts and timecards. |
| Payroll | No Approved hours download as a file for whoever runs your payroll. | Sold separately Square Payroll is a separate paid product. |
| Automations | Built in Routine steps that run on their own when something happens. | Partly Its assistant automates some routine tasks. |
| An AI assistant | Partly Bring your own Anthropic or OpenAI account, or connect Claude or ChatGPT. | Built in Square AI and its manager assistant. |
| Bookkeeping and accounts | Partly Profit and loss, spending, bills and money owed, with a spreadsheet for your accountant. No ledger, bank matching or tax returns. | Another company’s app Connects to accounting software from other companies. |
How each bill is put together
No Square prices here: they are theirs to publish and they change. This is the shape of each bill, which decides what happens to it as your business grows.
Piggles
- One plan, $99 a month, with every app included.
- Three team members, one location, one website and 10,000 customer records included.
- More room costs a fixed amount: another location, another person, more storage.
- No fee on your sales. Your payment company charges its own card fee.
- Fourteen days free, with no card needed to start.
Square
- Plans are priced per location.
- Card readers, terminals and stands are bought separately.
- Payroll is its own paid product.
- Some devices, such as kitchen screens and kiosks, carry their own monthly fee.
- Payments go through Square, at Square’s card rates.
Moving from Square
Square lets you download your item library and your customer directory. Drop those files into “Move in from somewhere else” in your Piggles console. It recognizes Square’s files, shows you what will happen to every row, and only then writes anything.
How moving to Piggles worksWhat comes across
- Your item library: names, prices, variations and codes
- Stock counts for each of your locations
- Your customer directory, with notes and email consent kept as they were
What stays behind
- Past sales: Square’s item and customer files do not carry them
- Your card reader: it keeps working with Square, and you can keep Square as the way you take payment
- Appointments already booked: add upcoming ones by hand, or run both for a week
So which one?
Choose Square if
- Most of your money comes over a counter, from a queue, on a card.
- You run a restaurant, café or bar and need kitchen screens or table service.
- You want payroll and banking from the same company that takes your payments.
Choose Piggles if
- You quote, book or invoice more than you ring things up.
- You want the website, bookings, stock and customers in one place and one price.
- You want to choose, and change, who takes your payments.
- Selling in person is a few sales a week you are happy to record by hand, or through a Square reader you keep.
Questions about Piggles and Square
Where these facts come from
Everything this page says about Square was read from Square’s own website and help pages on September 30, 2026. Products change; if something here is out of date, tell us and we will check it again.
Try Piggles beside Square for fourteen days, for free.
No card needed. Nothing to cancel if you decide not to carry on.
