Is "square free" really functional?

[anetajedrak]

I used to use Wordpress but it's become super complicated and confusing over the last 10 years. I want to have a basic website (front page, gallery, products, contact) which showcases my portfolio. I am planning to sell in the future but that is a few months away.

So far the website looks nice but does the free plan really stay free? I wouldn't like to spend two weeks fine-tuning my website, redirecting my domain DNS, uploading photos, only to find out that after some time it will get blocked or some functionality will be blocked or some popups will appear, forcing me to switch to the "plus" plan.

As I look at the plan comparison, it seems the difference between free and plus is mostly some marketing stuff and lower processing fees. There is no mention of limited number of photos or popups etc. but I wanted to make sure. I just do not want to be, kind of, extorted once I put a lot of effort into my website. Should I worry?

[TheRealChipA]

Hi there @anetajedrak.. First, a disclaimer.  No one can possibly know if you are going to run into something that will require you to move up to a paid plan.  The absolute only way to find this out is to build your new site, while keeping your old side up and running.  If you try to do something that the free tier doesn't support, you'll get a message and have the choice of upgrading.  That being said....

Square's free tier for websites allows you to build what I call a basic "billboard" site -- one that shows off you and your business.  This is similar to Weebly's free tier (which Square acquired years ago, btw).  Since you have an existing website, however, I want to alert you to the one things that you can NOT do with the free tier.  That this is you can NOT use a custom domain/URL.  All free Square sites have the URL of "businessname.square.site" with ".square.site" being fixed and unchangeable.

If using an existing domain name is important to you for the sake of continuity, you only have two choices:

1. Upgrade to a paid Square plan, or
2. Keep your existing domain/URL with whoever you have it with now, then use that registrar's tools to re-direct your existing site to your new Square site when you are ready to go live with it.

Trust m when I say that this limitation is not extortion.  There are technical reasons and server expenses for Square not being able to to just give away custom domain services.

Anyway, I'll reiterate what I said at the beginning.  The best way to ensure that you can do what you want/need with the Square free tier is to build a functional site.  You will find out pretty quickly if you need some function that is not supported without upgrading.

[anetajedrak]

Thank you for the information. I have my domain already registered with a registrar. Does it mean I can't redirect it to Square within the free plan? I have already tried (cname, txt etc.) and I didn't get any warnings that I would need to upgrade. I am aware that there are costs associated with running a business and I also know that users benefit from the free plan as well as Square benefiting from users because many of them upgrade to a paid plan. 

For now I like the way the free plan works because I am starting with my website. I am mostly worried about things disappearing: suddenly the gallery won't work or the domain won't work (it works great as of right now)

[TheRealChipA]

@anetajedrak Redirection from your old site to your .square.site domain will work just fine. You just have to do that within your existing registrar’s dashboard and it’s tools. It doesn’t matter whether the destination Square site is free or paid. 

[paulll43]

Hey, I totally get where you're coming from. I also moved away from WordPress recently because it became too bloated for what I needed. I'm currently testing out Square's free plan as well, and so far it's working fine for a basic site.

From what I’ve seen, the free version does stay free as long as you’re okay with the Square branding in the footer and using their subdomain (like yoursite.square.site). I haven’t run into any limits with photos or random popups, and the main restrictions are around ecommerce features and domain linking. If you’re planning to sell products in the future, then you might eventually need the Plus plan, but for just showcasing your portfolio, it should be okay for now.

I made a simple game-related site here : https://papasgamefree.com  – still a work in progress, but it gives you an idea of what can be done without paying yet.

Anyway, I’d also love to hear if anyone else has long-term experience with Square’s free plan – especially if anything suddenly changed for them down the road.

[erf17c]

Hi all,

I purchased a Square custom domain before I realized you had to be on a Plus plan to use it. I am too small of a business to upgrade to a paid plan. Is there a way to set up domain forwarding so that when someone types in the .com domain I paid for, it redirects to my .square.site subdomain? Thanks for any help. 

[TheRealChipA]

@erf17c That depends on who you purchased your domain name through.  Some, like GoDaddy, provide domain forwarding for domains you have purchased through them.  Other domain resellers do not -- ESPECIALLY the really inexpensive ones.  So you should check the website/dashboard of your domain registrar to find out.  And, if you run into a wall, come back here and explain in detail what you've done and I'll try to help you further.

FYI, I have a GoDaddy domain that I purchased through them because it has a .biz TLD.   We used that for years before we switched to a different domain that describes us better, now.  Not wanting to lose all of the marketing that we did over a decade using that .biz domain, I kept it and just forward to my new Square domain.  So, again, it can be done, but it ENTIRELY depends on who you purchased your domain from.

[erf17c]

Thanks for the info! I bought my domain through Square. I purchased it when I had the free Plus 30-day trial, and did not know it wouldn't let me continue to use my domain after my trial ended. I don't want to waste the $ I paid for it and not be able to use it. 😢  Do you know if Square has a forwarding option so I can keep using it?

[TheRealChipA]

@erf17c Not that would work in this case. Square limits forwarding/URL redirects to pages that are contained entirely in your website's domain.  So that means you can't forward from pages in a.com to pages in b.com.  There are a few reasons for this restriction and, honestly, I doubt it will ever be lifted.  So, at least in the Square ecosystem, this is not possible. 

One more thing to keep in mind.  Even if you could accomplish this, you'd run into problems down the road that you wouldn't like.  For example, if you have a page on your site you want to directly link to in marketing and such, that page would reside on your .square.site subdomain.  You couldn't access it directly using your purchased domain.  Here's an example.

• me.square.site/FAQs can be accessed directly using that URL
• my-domain.com/FAQs is not a real page.  Your site visitors would first have to navigate to me.square.site/home, then click on a navigation menu to get to FAQs.

URL redirects were not meant to do what you are trying to do.  They were meant, mostly, to allow companies to park lots of URLs that are all redirected to the same website easily.  That's it.  I'm just highlighting one drawback to trying to use them to save money, only.  Doing so only opens up a can of worms and you'll probably regret it later.  Anyway, if you want to do this, my next recommendation would be to hire a web techie to help you, which will only cost you even more money.  If you don't want to upgrade to Plus, you're probably just going to have to cut your losses and chalk this up to a lesson learned about how the internet works.  I'm sorry.