Software solution
Square Shifts
Square Shifts gives growing U.S. businesses one connected place to publish schedules, capture hours, and prepare payroll. A café can fill an open barista shift, a salon can track different job rates, and a retailer can compare scheduled labor with sales without reconciling separate spreadsheets.
Built for your day-to-day
Team members can use the Square Point of Sale app or Square Team app to clock in, take breaks, switch jobs, see estimated pay, request time off, and swap shifts. Managers work from Square Dashboard, where they can review attendance, tips, wages, overtime, and labor cost. Basic scheduling and time tracking are available in Shifts Free for up to five team members; the broader Shifts feature set is included with Square Plus and Premium.
Key capabilities
Set availability, assign recurring or one-off shifts, duplicate a week, publish open shifts, and notify staff by email and in the Square Team app. Team members can request time off or seek shift coverage, while managers approve or decline requests.
Staff can clock in and out, start and end breaks, and change job titles during a shift from a shared Square POS device or the Square Team app. Timecards retain hours, breaks, notes, and shift history for review.
Square Shifts reports hours, wages, tips, and labor cost. Shifts Plus adds labor-versus-sales reporting so an owner can compare staffing expense with net sales by day, week, month, team member, or location.
Timecards can sync to Square Payroll or be exported to a third-party payroll provider. Square also documents automatic tip and commission calculations and support for hourly, salary, and multiple wage types.
Managers can configure break and overtime rules, flag violations, prevent early or unscheduled clock-ins, and—on Shifts Plus or Premium—enable automatic clock-out after a chosen grace period.
Explore the details
Square Dashboard is the management hub for availability, schedules, open shifts, publishing, permissions, timecards, and labor reporting. A team member must be added before a schedule can be built, and each team member needs a personal passcode for POS clock-ins. A schedule may contain up to three shifts per team member per day. Availability can be entered in Dashboard or the Square Team app, with up to four availability blocks per day in the app.
The Square Team app lets staff view schedules, scheduled hours, timecards, estimated pay, tips, and commissions remotely. It also supports clock-in/out, breaks, time-off requests, shift swaps, open-shift claims, and schedule notifications. For businesses using a shared register, the same basic time clock is available inside Square Point of Sale; badge tap is supported when the employer uses team member badges.
Timecard and shift reports can be viewed and exported only from a computer, not downloaded from the Square Team app. Labor-versus-sales reporting requires Shifts Plus and a wage assigned to each team member; newly added wage information does not populate older shifts retroactively. Tip attribution is accurate for declared cash tips and transaction-pooled tips; other pooling methods require the labor-cost export.
Plan details
Square Shifts Free provides basic scheduling and time tracking for up to five team members. Square Shifts is included in the U.S. Square Plus and Square Premium plans; the current unified plans are priced per active location. Square Free does not include time tracking. Hardware is sold separately. Legacy sellers may see different subscription packaging, so confirm the account-specific offer in Square Dashboard before purchase.
Published on Square's U.S. pricing page for the Free plan; payment processing fee, not a Shifts subscription fee.
Square's U.S. unified-plan announcement; includes staff management/Square Shifts and a 2.5% + $0.15 in-person processing rate.
Published by Square for Square Plus in-person payments.
Square's U.S. unified-plan announcement; includes the Plus feature set and Shifts, with the lowest published in-person rate.
Published by Square for Square Premium in-person payments.
Verified against official Square U.S. pages on 2026-10-27; plan pricing and feature packaging can change.
The $49 monthly figure is Square Plus per active location, not a standalone Shifts-only price. Shifts Free has a five-team-member limit for basic scheduling and time tracking.
Square's current unified-plan documentation says Square Free excludes time tracking; do not describe Shifts as included in every free Square account.
Hardware compatibility is described at the Square POS/Team app workflow level here; no specific Square hardware model is recommended without a model-specific official compatibility source.
Processing rates are card-payment rates and may not apply to every payment method, card type, or custom pricing arrangement.
Questions
Yes, Square Shifts Free offers basic scheduling and time tracking for up to five team members. Square Free by itself does not include time tracking, so the account must have Shifts Free or an eligible plan/add-on enabled.
Yes. When the employer enables the option, team members can clock in and out in the Square Team app. At a shared location they can also use the Square Point of Sale app, and supported setups can use team-member badges on the POS device.
Shifts prepares payroll data rather than replacing payroll. Timecards can sync to Square Payroll or be exported to a third-party provider, and Square Payroll is a separate paid add-on in the unified U.S. plans.
Information as of 2026-10-27. Product details date: 2026-10-27.
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