Square Appointments vs Setmore for a Solo Practitioner
Disclosure: We applied to Square’s affiliate programme through Impact — one application was declined and one is still pending. Nothing has been approved, we have earned nothing, and there is no affiliate link here. We could find no programme to join at Setmore. Note which way this page argues: toward the free plan of the tool that cannot pay us, and away from a $588-a-year plan at the tool that might.
These are the two most generous free plans in appointment scheduling, and they are generous about opposite things. One will take unlimited bookings across unlimited staff and cannot charge a client who does not turn up. The other takes a deposit at $0 and stops at two hundred bookings a month.
The short answer
Does a no-show cost you real money? Setmore. Is volume the problem? Square.
- 💳Setmore free takes deposits. Square’s free plan cannot — prepayment and cancellation policies need Plus at $49 a month.
- 📊Square free has no booking cap and unlimited staff calendars. Setmore free stops at 200 a month across 4 users.
- 💰The paid tiers are not comparable: Setmore Pro is $60 a year, Square Appointments Plus is $588.
- 📅Setmore free cannot sync your existing calendar — that is its $60 upgrade, and it is a real one.
Jump to: The deposit question The two free plans What paying costs Which one are you?
The deposit question, which is really the no-show question
For a practice where an empty chair cannot be resold, the single most valuable thing a booking tool does is make it expensive not to turn up. That requires two things: the ability to hold money at the point of booking, and a policy the software enforces without you having to be the one who says no.
Setmore’s free plan does this. Deposits, online payments, in-person payments and Tap to Pay are all marked available on the $0 tier, through Square or Stripe.
Square Appointments’ free plan does not. As we found when costing it separately, cancellation and prepayment policies sit on Plus at $49 a month. The free plan will book the appointment beautifully and has no way to charge for a missed one.
What a no-show costs, and when $588 is worth it. At an $80 appointment:
2 a month → $1,920 a year · 4 a month → $3,840 · 8 a month → $7,680
Square Plus at $588 pays for itself if it prevents just 7.3 missed $80 appointments a year. On those numbers it clearly does. But Setmore prevents them for $0, so the honest comparison is not “is $588 worth it” — it is “is $588 worth it rather than nothing”.
The two free plans
| Square Appointments Free | Setmore Free | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $0 |
| Appointment volume | Unlimited | 200 per month |
| Staff / users | Unlimited staff calendars | Up to 4 |
| Deposits / prepayment | No — Plus at $49/mo | Yes |
| Cancellation policy enforced | No — Plus at $49/mo | — |
| Automated reminders | Yes | |
| Branded booking site | Square-hosted | Your own branding |
| Calendar sync | — | No — Pro at $60/yr |
| Payment processor | Square only | Square or Stripe |
| Trial clock | None | None |
Two structural differences hide inside that table.
Square locks you to Square. Payments run through Square and only Square, at 2.6% + 15¢ in person and 3.3% + 30¢ online. Setmore lets you connect Square or Stripe, which means you keep the ability to shop — and, as our processor comparison shows, that choice is usually worth more than the scheduler.
Setmore’s 200 is shared. Four users at five bookings each per working day is 220 a month and already over the cap. For one person, 200 is roughly nine a working day and effectively unreachable; for a small team it is real.
What paying costs, if you get there
| Setmore Pro | Square Appointments Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Per year, one person | $60 | $588 |
| What it adds | Calendar sync, SMS reminders, recurring appointments, branding removal | Cancellation and prepayment policies, custom templates, lower card rate |
| Priced by | $5 per user per month | $49 per month, per location |
A note on Square’s lower card rate, because it is the reason people talk themselves into Plus: the discount is 0.1 points in person, and we calculated separately that you would need roughly $49,000 a month of in-person volume before it covered the subscription. Buy Plus for the cancellation policy or do not buy it.
Which one are you?
Which one are you?
🛍️ A missed appointment costs me an hour I cannot resell
Setmore, free. Deposits at $0 against $588 a year at Square. This is the largest single price gap on this site for one capability. If you also keep a Google Calendar, add $60 for sync and you are still $528 ahead.
📊 I take a lot of bookings — well over 200 a month
Square, free. No booking cap at all, where Setmore stops at 200. You still cannot charge a no-show without the $588 plan, so if that matters too, price both against Acuity at $192.
👥 There are several of us
Square, free — unlimited staff calendars against Setmore’s four, and Setmore’s 200 is shared between them. Setmore Pro is $5 per user, so a four-person practice is $240 a year; Square Plus is $588 flat per location. The crossover is real — do the arithmetic for your team size.
💳 I already take card payments through Square in person
Square, free, on integration alone — one account, one payout, one set of reports. But note that Setmore also connects to Square, so you can have the Square rails and Setmore’s free deposits. That combination is worth checking before you accept $588.
🌐 I want my own branding and my own processor
Setmore. Its booking page carries your branding on the free plan, and it connects Stripe as well as Square. Square hosts your page and takes your payments, full stop. See the six-tool comparison if branding is the deciding factor.
What we could not verify
Square’s external calendar sync. We established that Setmore’s free plan has no two-way calendar sync because Setmore publishes that in its comparison table. We did not establish the equivalent for Square Appointments’ free plan, so the table above leaves that cell blank rather than guessing.
Setmore’s cancellation-policy enforcement. Setmore’s free plan takes deposits, which is the mechanism that matters. Whether it also enforces a cancellation window automatically is not something we confirmed — if that specific behaviour is your requirement, ask before switching.
Dates. Setmore was read on 18 August 2026; Square Appointments on 15 August 2026. Both change without notice.
The thing that actually decides it
Not which free plan is more generous. Both are, unusually, and in a category where “free” is normally a trial with a countdown, that is worth saying.
What decides it is one question: when someone does not turn up, do you lose money?
If yes, Setmore does the thing that fixes it at $0 and Square wants $588 a year for it. If no — if a gap in the day is annoying rather than costly — then volume and staff are your constraints instead, and Square’s free plan has no ceiling where Setmore’s has two.
Related: Is Setmore actually free? and Is Square Appointments actually free? — the full breakdowns. Setmore vs Calendly, and the six-tool comparison.