Square taking away email customizations AND "from" address

[250986]

That's right -- you can't make any customizations to online order email confirmations AND online order email communications can only be sent from messenger [at] messaging.squareup.com (not your company email address).

Square announced these changes yesterday (after business hours) that will take place on August 21, 2025...and also provided zero workarounds or alternatives. 

This is a huge step backward for Square and a sign of how out of touch Square is with e-commerce. 

So, which platform do y'all recommend using instead of Square?

[JJ_]

Hello there, @250986 

I'm sure you must have received the email from our product team regarding this change, and I appreciate your feedback and know that I understand that this change may be interpreted as a negative change for you. However, for the visibility of everyone else, I will be sharing the reasoning behind this change:

Why are we making this change?

This change will result in several benefits for Square Sellers and their customers:

Improved reliability

• Using the proven Square digital receipts platform, which powers all point of sale order updates today, will improve the overall reliability and delivery of the online order update emails.

Streamlined Branding

• The modern Square Digital Receipts template ensures a professional and cohesive look across all in-store and online orders. Your customers receive a consistent experience whether they shop online or in-store.

Enhanced Communication

• All emails will be sent from our verified address ([email protected].com) for improved deliverability.
• Customers can now reply directly to all order emails by default, making it easier to stay connected.

Ending support for sender profile and email customization

• Custom sender email addresses will no longer be supported as part of this change.
• Advanced email template customization will be replaced with our standard Square Digital Receipts format, which will continue to support limited customization capabilities like adding your logo and brand color to the emails.

Again, I appreciate the feedback and the time taken to express your concerns.

[250986]

All of the reasons you provide are for Square's benefit -- literally none of them are for our benefit (the customer you are charging). So you're still taking our money, but provided worse service...
Point by point:
- "improved reliability" -- yup, Square needs to fix this...we've reported numerous times that Square sends both us and our customers multiple, identical order confirmation emails for a single order...this makes our customers think they ordered more than once and makes us think we've received more orders than we actually have...what has Square "support" done to fix this even though we've spent hours reporting it and providing detailed info and examples? absolutely nothing...like literally ghosting with no email response for weeks and counting during out latest but not only attempt...so Square's "solution" to it's unreliable email confirmation system is to take away customization and remove our company email as the "from" address...this is not a solution...it's taking away service with zero benefit but the same cost to us, your customers
- "streamline branding" -- yup, Square removes our ability for customers to distinguish between online and in-store purchases...this is not a benefit...when you make it required, you remove service but keep charging us all the same
- "enhanced communication" -- this is the most catfish of them all...Square gets free advertising by using Square's email address instead of our company's...which also leaves our customers confused, thinking its spam, calling their credit card companies to report fraud (when it's not...it's just from a random square email address), and more

And what's more, you have yet to show us what our emails are gonna look like once you take away all the customization and our own company's "from" address...so we're also flying totally blind: no idea what our customers are gonna start receiving in their inbox once Square pulls the plug on this.

And you're gonna keep charging us the same even while you take away services...so obviously, you have zero motivation to fix this because you're still gonna get all your money. 

Really not impressed with your cut-n-paste reply and it doesn't provide any evidence that Square knows what it's like using Square or doing business online in the real world.

[250986]

That's right: Square is taking away online order email customization and we can't use our own company's "from" address...starting August 2025.

These super basic, entry-level features are part of every other e-commerce platform out there...so don't waste your time with Square Online. 

Which other services are y'all moving your online business to? We're planning to move all three of the Square Online shops we manage to other providers because Square "support" is horribly time-consuming and totally unhelpful...but mostly because Square Online isn't even going to let us customize online order confirmation emails and force us to use a generic Square "from" address with zero indication to our customers that the emails are even coming from our business.

[rtfulk]

Square hasn't officially come out and said why they are changing this, but this is my opinion why it's changing.

• If they let every business use a custom “From” email without proper domain authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), a lot of those messages could land in spam or get blocked outright.

• By forcing all messages through Square’s own verified email servers and a single sender domain (squareup.com), they keep deliverability rates higher and reduce the risk of phishing or spoofing.

• Custom email domains mean they have to troubleshoot domain DNS settings, email authentication errors, and spam complaints for thousands of customers.

• Cutting that feature removes a whole category of support tickets

• Like many payment processors (PayPal, Stripe, etc.), they want all transactional emails tied directly to their brand name to reinforce trust in payment security.

• Unfortunately, that’s at the expense of our branding.

• Square operates in multiple countries, and some have stricter rules about who can send transactional emails and how sender identity is verified
• Using only Squares domain eliminates compliance risks.

I know this answer is not going to help, but you have to remember Square is a payment processor. Shopify, BigCommerce and others are web hosting companies so they are not regulated the way Square is.

[250986]

Thanks, @rtfulk. Appreciate ya taking the time to respond, but you're right -- it's not a helpful answer. We noticed your'e a "Square Champion" and there are financial benefits for that, so we get that it's in your interest to defend/justify Square's roll-back of these basic e-commerce features.

Responses to just a couple of your notes:

- requiring domain authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is the new norm...it's not unusual or extra...Square needs to get with the program and continue to allow custom "from" addresses just like just about every other e-commerce platform (who have also updated (not removed!) their email requirements and support pages and taught their support staff how to actually support customers in getting settings aligned to be able to continue to use our own "from" address...it's not difficult, it's the new standard, and Square just dropping this function completely puts Square way behind the times

- we pay Square every time we take a payment...they're getting money for the business we do...we get that they would like free advertising via their own "from" address + removal of our business' address, but nothing's free -- Square is getting money for their services, and taking away services from us--their customers--PLUS getting free "reinforcement of payment security" for their brand is a dirty deal by Square

- You're right: Square is a payment processor...but Square Online promotes themselves as an e-commerce platform -- so they either need to fulfill basic, entry-level e-commerce services or do away with Square Online and stick to just Square as a payment processor...they don't get any sympathy from us for offering half-baked online services...they decided to offer Square Online, nobody forced them to...so they can either keep up or get out of the game, and with this roll-back of email customization and removal of our own "from" address, it certainly is not a sign that Square Online has any intention of keeping up--let alone growing--in this major portion of commerce in this day and age

Bottom line, this is an out-of-touch and behind-the-times decision by Square. They're pretending to solve a problem by just removing the service...that's not problem solving -- it's replacing one set of problems with a new--and longer--set of problems. 

[rtfulk]

@250986 Even though I’m a Square Champion, I don’t always agree with Square—or some of their changes. This rollback of custom “from” addresses in online order emails is one of those cases. Requiring domain authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is now standard across e-commerce, and other platforms have updated the feature to meet these standards instead of removing it entirely. Taking away this basic tool hurts branding, customer trust, and puts Square Online behind competitors.

Like I said in my first post, Square has not come out and said why they are making the change. My first post to you was just my opinion of why "I thought" they were doing it. It could be something totally different.

[JJ_]

Hey there, @250986 

I noticed you had created a similar post from our previous conversation. I've merged it to avoid having duplicate conversations. 

At this time, what I can recommend is submitting a feature request for this on our Square Online Ideate Board. This will help our product team get visibility and track other Sellers with similar interest in your request. 

Important: When submitting a request, make sure to include the desired feature, and provide the details of how this feature will help your business succeed (how would you use it and what you expect from it).

[250986]

@JJ_ -- We get it...Square doesn't want the news of its removal of these basic, entry-level e-commerce features to be spread on other channels in Community.

It's not helpful when you "merge" (aka remove) posts from other Community channels. Square says y'all set up these Channels to attract different audiences...and Square says they'll only make changes to your ridiculous decision to end online order email customization and disable our own "from" address IF you get enough negative feedback from your customers about this. Your moves deleting our posts seem to show that Square is intent on curtailing feedback from your customers on your removal of these key e-commerce features since you're narrowing the audience by "merging" (aka deleting) posts. 

Also, your note doesn't seem like you've actually read any of our posts anyway...because why would you suggest that we submit a feature request for features that Square already had??? Nothing we've written about is a request for new features...it's pointing out that Square is removing existing features. If putting back existing features after taking them away is what Square calls "Ideat-ing" then Square is even more backward than ever.

And what's more...we've already spent a TON of time providing Square with detailed info regarding these issues...multiple times via email and chat and in this chain, too...plus following up with Square again and again and again after getting zero reply to the emails we sent, support tickets we opened, and chat follow-ups that never came. So Square has tons of info on this from us (even if Square doesn't reply and deletes our Community posts, too). That you suggest we spend even more time repeating the same info AGAIN on yet another "ideate" board (which makes zero sense anyway) when Square already has all our info in multiple formats just shows how little Square respects its customers and how hard y'all seem to be trying ware us down so we'll just give up and go away. 

In short, your note and post deletions have made our experience and these issues worse, not better.

[K-mobile]

This really is the last straw that's causing me to consider moving away from square altogether.

[250986]

Latest update: Square extended their decision to take away email customization and our own "from" addresses until Oct 20, 2025, but after that, who knows? [email protected] emailed us on Oct 2, 2025, to share this date and we replied asking for help...three times over the course of the last 11 days, but [email protected] hasn't replied at all.