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Clover vs Square
March 17, 2025 | Author: Sandeep Sharma
15★
The world's first integrated mobile POS with EMV, NFC, and on-screen PIN entry. All Clover products are purpose-built for POS and feature sleek designs with brushed aluminum and white glass accents.
30★
Accept credit cards on your iPhone, Android or iPad. Send invoices free with Square Invoices. Signing up for Square is fast and free, and there are no commitments or long-term contracts like with alternative services.
Clover and Square, two seemingly innocent point-of-sale systems, are in fact engaged in a subtle yet relentless battle for the affections of small business owners everywhere. They both promise effortless transactions, sleek hardware and the ability to make sense of financial chaos with a wave of their digital wands. Each offers cloud-based analytics, employee tracking and the kind of payment versatility that would make even the most indecisive customer feel accommodated. They are, in short, the sorts of things that, if introduced in ancient times, would have been worshiped as gods of commerce—at least until the first inevitable system update.
Clover, hailing from the year 2012, takes itself very seriously. It believes in customization, offering an entire app market where businesses can tweak and tailor their setup to the point of obsession. It also insists that its users sign up with Fiserv for payment processing, because nothing says "cutting-edge technology" quite like a contractual obligation. Clover is particularly fond of restaurants and retail shops, places where its robust (read: expensive) hardware can shine and its users can revel in the knowledge that they have bought into something delightfully, unavoidably complex.
Square, by contrast, came into existence in 2009, with the singular ambition of making payments so simple that even a street performer armed with a ukulele and an overinflated sense of self-worth could accept credit cards. It scoffs at the need for third-party merchant accounts, preferring to handle payments all on its own, like a particularly self-assured intern who refuses to delegate. It is, at its heart, for the scrappy, mobile and e-commerce savvy—pop-up shops, food trucks and online sellers who would rather spend their time making money than deciphering a labyrinthine POS manual. Square is for the rebels, the wanderers and those who believe that free software (with a small transaction fee, of course) is a right, not a privilege.
See also: Top 10 Retail software
Clover, hailing from the year 2012, takes itself very seriously. It believes in customization, offering an entire app market where businesses can tweak and tailor their setup to the point of obsession. It also insists that its users sign up with Fiserv for payment processing, because nothing says "cutting-edge technology" quite like a contractual obligation. Clover is particularly fond of restaurants and retail shops, places where its robust (read: expensive) hardware can shine and its users can revel in the knowledge that they have bought into something delightfully, unavoidably complex.
Square, by contrast, came into existence in 2009, with the singular ambition of making payments so simple that even a street performer armed with a ukulele and an overinflated sense of self-worth could accept credit cards. It scoffs at the need for third-party merchant accounts, preferring to handle payments all on its own, like a particularly self-assured intern who refuses to delegate. It is, at its heart, for the scrappy, mobile and e-commerce savvy—pop-up shops, food trucks and online sellers who would rather spend their time making money than deciphering a labyrinthine POS manual. Square is for the rebels, the wanderers and those who believe that free software (with a small transaction fee, of course) is a right, not a privilege.
See also: Top 10 Retail software
