thread Re: Questions about Square Gift Cards Repricing (1/31/24) in Payments Troubleshooting

Questions about Square Gift Cards Repricing (1/31/24)

skateman81 — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 19:48:52 GMT

The title of this thread has been edited by a Square Moderator from the original: "Gift Card Load fees?!"

So let me get this straight. Square now wants to charge a 2.5% fee for loading gift cards, on top of the card processing fee if they use a card to pay with it? So if someone buys one of my cards and puts $50 on it, pays with a credit/debit card, I have to $5 in fees?? I lose $5 plus the cost of the card. Is this correct? If it is, then I might just have to leave square. I set up a reloadable loyalty card for my customers to pay with to get discounts and now new fee is a big bag over the head and punch in the face to my business. I thought you were supposed to be helping businesses. Not screwing them out of even more money!

Re: Gift Card Load fees?!

Jenthom08 — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 18:25:30 GMT

I just saw this as well. This is ridiculous. I used to love the Square ecosystem but they are giving me more and more reasons to switch every day.

New Load Gift Card Load Fee?!

CColotti — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 18:41:05 GMT

saw the new email and this new page: https://squareup.com/us/en/gift-cards/pricing

This sadly is rather crappy...so the customer gets $50 to spend but it costs the merchant $2.65 on the $50 GC sale to sell the card? I was just working with a local business to by ore loaded cards as a marketing promotion. Paying the swipe fee makes sense but really what does it cost you to LOAD a card? $0 that's how much. And the same load fee on physical and eGift cards too?

Just getting up and running with my business and Square and this is just an unreal surprise that makes no sense as to why this load fee is needed by Square when it's never been there for years looking back through old threads...

So how many merchants are going to pass that 2.5% load fee on to the customer?

Please correct my math on a $50 GC sales but it was based on the new fee plus 2.6% + $.10c

Re: Questions about Square Gift Cards Repricing (1/31/24)

dsachs — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 18:37:47 GMT

I would love to meet what idiot thought this was a good idea at Square. We were about to migrate our website to Sqaure hosting to streamline everything. Now, I’m going to keep with Wix and try and figure out how to maybe sell physical gift cards through Wix. Which ironically, processes through square.

In the meantime, we will be posting a very prominent sign stating our business can no longer afford to sell gift cards due to Sqaures policy. We will also be posting their customer service phone number so our customers can call them to let them know. It’s absolutely insane they would value my businesses loyalty this little…

Re: Gift Card Load fees?!

_Violet — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 18:38:28 GMT

Hi there @skateman81 and @Jenthom08 - Thank you for sharing your feedback. I can certainly provide some more information to help explain this recent change.

After March 1, 2024, anytime you load a gift card or an eGift card in-store or a customer buys an eGift card online through your eGift card order site, you will be charged an additional 2.5% gift card load fee based on the total amount loaded on the card. For example, if you sell a $100 gift card to a customer, you pay a $2.50 (2.5%) load fee on the transaction plus any other standard Square processing fees (like credit card processing fees). This load fee will be charged for gift cards loaded through any payment method, including credit cards, cash, or other tender payment types.

The load fee will be subtracted from your daily sales (Square balance), similar to how Square credit card processing fees are usually deducted. If your daily sales don’t cover the total fee, the remaining balance will be debited from your linked bank account linked to your Square account.

Square Gift Cards have long been free to use (with the exception of regular Square processing fees and the cost to order physical gift cards). While we have been happy to offer this pricing for quite awhile, as we continue to build more advanced features, we need to make this update so we can continue investing in the product to continue helping sellers like you.

We believe that by lowering the cost of physical gift cards, it will make it easier for businesses like yours to continue to offer gift cards to your customers. The 2.5% per load fee ensures that you can sell as many or as few gift cards as your customers need without having to pay expensive monthly saas fees to offer gift cards like some other POS systems charge.

We completely understand that this price change may affect your operations and overall business costs. This is not something we take lightly. As we continue to build more advanced features, we need to make this update so we can continue investing in the product to continue helping sellers like you.

You can also review this Suppot Article for more details.

I hope this information is helpful but please do let me know if you have any additional questions.

Re: Gift Card Load fees?!

skateman81 — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 18:45:08 GMT

This information doesn’t help me, it hurts my business and my customer loyalty. You have really hurt my business by doing this. I would have rather paid more for gift cards.

Re: Gift Card Load fees?!

dsachs — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 18:46:58 GMT

“continue to build more advanced features”

So can you tell us what features we are getting for this cost? It seems to me thats an arbitrary answer that’s unprovable. Everything I pay to square I have a tangible result that benefits my business. This is just screwing people who have been loyal to you.

Also, although it will be an administrative nightmare, wont this just force us to use paper gift certificates sold as an item? That way, we would only pay the processing fee and not be price gouged by square for no reason whatever.

Re: New Load Gift Card Load Fee?!

skateman81 — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 18:48:00 GMT

I WAS passing the fees to my customers and square emailed me and threatened to cancel my account if I continued to do that. They are really **bleep**ing me off.

Re: Gift Card Load fees?!

Jenthom08 — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 18:50:47 GMT

Exactly, I sometimes give away gift cards or donations or marketing. Now, a $100 gift card that I give away will cost me $2.50 for exactly 0 from square. I would definitely like a refund for all of the custom gift cards that I bought in bulk a year ago for a lower cost. Will they give me a retroactive 30% discount now that I have a new future fee?

Re: Questions about Square Gift Cards Repricing (1/31/24)

CColotti — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 18:53:39 GMT

So here's what's even better...You LOAD a card for YOU yourself to give away to people. You run that as a 100% discount so you pay no processing fee BUT it still cost YOU 2.5% to give away a card to your customer or use as a promotion. The loading fee in that case should not even apply...

This was not well thought out when you would be better off just hading them $5 cash from the till!

Re: Gift Card Load fees?!

CColotti — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 18:58:04 GMT

But then how is the fee applying to eGift Cards as well then? Your reasoning is for a physical card cost but eCard is costless but the fee is the same? That's literally stealing from the vendors with the eGift Card option at the same 2.5% AND then the 2.9% + .30 transaction fee....the Digital ones should NOT have that fee then!

Re: Gift Card fee update??

skateman81 — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 18:57:28 GMT

It was in my registered email about 30 minutes ago. The discount on cards is around 30%, so you would save about 30-40 cents a card. I would rather have no processing fee.

Re: New Load Gift Card Load Fee?!

CColotti — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 19:00:21 GMT

If you are referring to Credit Card Surcharging that is a whole different deal with lots of regulations...Square has no compliant system to do that it's documented. In this case you can't legally sell a $50 GC for $52...I am sure that isn't legal in every state.

Re: Questions about Square Gift Cards Repricing (1/31/24)

MADBros — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 20:25:32 GMT

I agree that this is a bad move, just one more reason that I feel Square is not what it used to be. It seems more and more Square is taking money from everything they offer and in my opinion pricing themselves out of the game. Luckily I am already in the process of deciding to leave. The sad part is all systems like Square are generally the same.

Re: Questions about Square Gift Cards Repricing (1/31/24)

MADBros — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 20:26:40 GMT

Back to certificates or single-use cards that are worth the value you put on them for a one-time purchase.

Re: Gift Card Load fees?!

MADBros — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 20:27:48 GMT

Advance features that cost you an addition monthly subscription.

Re: New Load Gift Card Load Fee?!

_Violet — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 20:31:04 GMT

Regarding passing the fees onto the customer, every country and state has their own laws on how to enact surcharges. You must make sure you understand local laws before ever passing on any type of transaction or processing fee to a customer.

Re: Questions about Square Gift Cards Repricing (1/31/24)

CColotti — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 20:41:58 GMT

I think all merchants need to contact their local Attorney Generals as a starting point on this too.

Re: New Load Gift Card Load Fee?!

dsachs — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 20:42:04 GMT

@_Violet Will square reconsider this position if we just switch back to paper gift cards? Seems like that is the solution for us that don’t want to be held hostage on these fees.

Re: New Load Gift Card Load Fee?!

CColotti — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 20:45:18 GMT

I'm very familiar with Surcharging and that's not the same as this fee. I don't believe in surcharging I never have and even written my own blog posts about it but THAT is specifically related to PROCESSING fees not fees like this either that you are adding on top of the processing fee. You are just nickel and diming merchants with this.

But you have opened a new can of worms about trying to pass this fee on just by introducing it b/c it is NOT a processing fee (which is what surcharges address) but this COULD be considered a CONVIEiNCE FEE to the customer. Either way your people have not thought through all the use cases and ramifications of this change....that is clear.