Booked vs Square Appointments
Square Appointments is built to keep you on Square's payment rails. Booked treats payments as optional: run card deposits through it, or take cash and card in person however you already do, and use Booked purely for the calendar.
Side by side
| Square Appointments | Booked | |
|---|---|---|
| Payments | Central to the product and tied to their processing | Optional. Turn it off entirely and use Booked as a calendar |
| Deposits | Available through their payment stack | Per service. Charge a deposit on the risky ones only |
| Booking page | Hosted on their domain | booked.co/your-shop, or your own domain on Pro |
| Card processing | Bundled with the booking product on most plans | Optional. 3.75% + 45¢ per successful charge, all-in, and only if you turn it on |
| Leaving | Export what the platform chooses to export | Export customers and bookings as CSV, any time, without asking support |
Choose Square Appointments when
- You already run your register, retail and payouts on Square and want one account for everything.
- You want hardware, point of sale and booking from a single vendor.
- Your payment volume earns you pricing you would lose by splitting it up.
Choose Booked when
- You do not want your booking software tied to a payment processor.
- You want online booking without moving your in-person payments at all.
- You want deposits on the bookings that need them and nothing on the ones that do not.
Questions
- Can I use Booked and keep taking payments on Square in the shop?
- Yes. Leave Booked's card payments off and it never touches money. Clients book online, you charge them at the chair exactly as you do now.
- Will my Square client list come across?
- Yes, via CSV export and import. The migration guide walks through the column mapping.