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PayPal vs Square
March 19, 2025 | Author: Sandeep Sharma
37★
PayPal is an international e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as cheques and money orders. PayPal is the faster, safer way to send money, make an online payment, receive money or set up a merchant account.
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.
See also:
Top 10 Online Payment platforms
Top 10 Online Payment platforms
PayPal and Square are two remarkably similar entities in the grand cosmic ballet of payment processing. Both allow money to move in mysterious digital ways, ensuring that humans can exchange goods and services without the inconvenience of physical currency or, indeed, human interaction. They offer invoicing, subscriptions and a variety of fraud protection measures, because let’s face it, money has a habit of disappearing into the ether when left unsupervised. Their mobile-friendly nature means that, at any given moment, you could theoretically buy a llama in Bolivia from the comfort of your sofa in Birmingham—provided, of course, the llama is also online.
PayPal, in its infinite wisdom, has been around since 1998, making it practically an elder god of online payments. It was designed to help people send money across borders before we all realized that borders are largely theoretical when it comes to the internet. With a presence in over 200 countries, it caters to freelancers, e-commerce businesses and anyone who’s ever had to explain to their grandmother why mailing a check is no longer a thing. It also has a penchant for buyer and seller protections, which is a fancy way of saying that if your llama turns out to be a goat, you might get a refund.
Square, on the other hand, materialized in 2009, born out of the need for small businesses to accept card payments without having to summon the dark forces of banking bureaucracy. Unlike PayPal, it focuses primarily on brick-and-mortar shops, offering point-of-sale systems that make cash registers look like sad little anachronisms. It’s only available in a select handful of countries, but what it lacks in global reach, it makes up for in sheer business utility—handling payroll, employee management and other crucial things that business owners pretend to understand. It doesn’t do peer-to-peer payments in the same way, but that’s fine because it has Cash App, which is basically Venmo in a different hat.
See also: Top 10 Online Payment platforms
PayPal, in its infinite wisdom, has been around since 1998, making it practically an elder god of online payments. It was designed to help people send money across borders before we all realized that borders are largely theoretical when it comes to the internet. With a presence in over 200 countries, it caters to freelancers, e-commerce businesses and anyone who’s ever had to explain to their grandmother why mailing a check is no longer a thing. It also has a penchant for buyer and seller protections, which is a fancy way of saying that if your llama turns out to be a goat, you might get a refund.
Square, on the other hand, materialized in 2009, born out of the need for small businesses to accept card payments without having to summon the dark forces of banking bureaucracy. Unlike PayPal, it focuses primarily on brick-and-mortar shops, offering point-of-sale systems that make cash registers look like sad little anachronisms. It’s only available in a select handful of countries, but what it lacks in global reach, it makes up for in sheer business utility—handling payroll, employee management and other crucial things that business owners pretend to understand. It doesn’t do peer-to-peer payments in the same way, but that’s fine because it has Cash App, which is basically Venmo in a different hat.
See also: Top 10 Online Payment platforms
