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A free Square for Restaurants alternative

Square is a paid POS and payments platform. DineKit is a free plugin for your own website — menus, QR codes, allergens, table bookings, commission-free online ordering, a full point of sale and a free kitchen display, used by restaurants worldwide. Card payments run through your own Stripe account, so you keep 100%. If you want the till and the ordering without the monthly bill, start here.

Get DineKit — Free

How Square for Restaurants works & what it costs

Square is an all-in-one till and card-payments system. You get an integrated point of sale, in-venue card processing and hardware that ties it all together.

There’s a free plan to get started, but the restaurant-focused paid tiers typically run around £69 per month per location. On top of the subscription, in-person card processing is roughly 1.75% per transaction. That’s a fair deal if you want one company handling your counter, your card machine and your reporting — and if you’re happy living inside Square’s hardware and payments ecosystem.

The catch for smaller or multi-site restaurants: the good features sit on the paid tiers, the fee repeats for every location, and everything is built around Square taking the payment. If all you actually need is a decent menu on your website, you’re paying for a full POS to get it.

DineKit vs Square, side by side

Square bundles its own till, card machine and payments under one roof. DineKit is the free website-based alternative — menu, ordering, bookings, a full POS and a kitchen display, running on your own site with your own Stripe account.

What you need	DineKit	Square for Restaurants
Price to start	Free — no plan required	Free plan; paid tiers ~£69/mo per location
Per-location monthly fee	None	Yes, repeats per site on paid tiers
Digital menu builder	Yes, free	Yes
QR code menus	Yes, free	Yes
Allergens + printable matrix	Built in, free — tag dishes, drill to sub-sources, add your own, print a compliance grid (e.g. UK Natasha’s Law)	Not a dedicated feature
Lives on your own website	Yes — WordPress plugin	Square-hosted ecosystem
Works worldwide	Yes — used globally; menu and prices display in your own currency	Yes
In-venue till + card payments	Yes, free — full POS with cash + card via a Stripe smart reader or pay-by-QR	Yes — proprietary till hardware, one bill for everything
Card machine / hardware	Bring your own standard Stripe reader — nothing proprietary to brick, or go card-machine-free with pay-by-QR	Square’s own hardware, locked to Square
Card processing fee	0% DineKit fee — standard Stripe rates only, on your own Stripe account	~1.75% in person, via Square
Kitchen display (KDS)	Free — per-round coursing tickets, fullscreen kitchen mode	Typically a paid add-on
Installable app + multi-tablet sync	Yes, free — install to any phone/tablet, screens stay in live sync	Yes, on Square hardware/apps
Loyalty	Built-in points, free	Paid add-on
Own your data / self-hosted	Yes — open-source	Hosted by Square
Commission-free online ordering	Yes, free — collection and delivery, keep 100%	Available

Straight answer: DineKit now runs the till too — order pad, tabs, split bills, cash and card, partial refunds, an editable service charge and a free kitchen display, plus commission-free ordering and bookings. The real difference is hardware and payments: Square sells you its own integrated card machine and takes a cut of every payment; DineKit is software that works with your own Stripe account and a standard reader — raw processing rates, no DineKit markup — or pay-by-QR with no card machine at all.

Why restaurants choose DineKit

A free menu, till, kitchen display, ordering and bookings system on your own site — without signing up to Square’s payments platform to get it.

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Free, with no per-location fee

Menus, QR codes, allergens, bookings, ordering, the POS and the kitchen display cost nothing — one site or ten. No £69/month bill repeating per location.

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Lives on your own website, worldwide

DineKit is a WordPress plugin used by restaurants across the world. Your menu, ordering and bookings sit on your own domain and display in your own currency — not a page inside someone else’s ecosystem.

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Allergens done properly

Tag every dish, drill regulated allergens down to their source, add your own, and print a compliance matrix your kitchen and front-of-house can actually use — flexible enough for strict regimes like the UK’s Natasha’s Law. Square doesn’t give you this out of the box.

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Full POS + free kitchen display

Order pad, open tabs, split bills, tips, editable service charge, partial refunds, X/Z cash-up and void with a manager PIN — with a free Kitchen Display showing per-round coursing tickets. Card payments run through your own Stripe account, so you keep 100%.

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Installable app on every tablet

Install the staff app to any phone or tablet home screen and it keeps loading through a dropped connection. Run it on several tablets and they stay in live sync — a change on one screen appears on the others in seconds.

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Open-source, your data, built-in support

Self-hosted and open-source with built-in loyalty points and in-dashboard support tickets. You own the menu, the content and the customer relationship — no tie to a payments processor.

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When Square might still be right

We’d rather be honest than oversell. Square is the better fit in a few cases.

You want one company’s own integrated hardware. Square sells a purpose-built till and card machine as one product with one bill. DineKit’s POS is software: you bring your own Stripe smart reader (or use pay-by-QR with no card machine at all). There’s no Tap-to-Pay on a phone — card-present needs a dedicated Stripe reader.
You take card payments in a non-GBP currency. DineKit displays your menu and prices in your own currency and works worldwide, but card capture today settles in GBP through Stripe. Square captures in local currencies out of the box.
You run several locations under one account. DineKit is one venue per site. Square manages many locations centrally — handy if that’s how you operate.
You need gift cards, stored value or promo codes. DineKit doesn’t have a gift-card or coupon engine yet. Square does.
You’d rather not run a website. DineKit is self-hosted — it lives on your own WordPress site, so you or your web person keep it running. Square is a fully managed, done-for-you platform if you’d rather not touch a website at all.
You want a diner-facing discovery network or a native app-store app. DineKit doesn’t bring you new customers the way a marketplace does, and while the staff app installs to a home screen (PWA), there’s no native iOS/Android app-store build — it’s built to strengthen your own site, not replace it.

Some restaurants still run both: Square’s terminal on the counter for its own hardware and ecosystem, DineKit on the website for the free menu, bookings, ordering, kitchen display and allergen matrix. They can complement each other.

Common questions

Is DineKit really a Square replacement?

For most restaurants, yes. DineKit now includes a full free POS — order pad, tabs, split bills, cash and card payments, partial refunds, an editable service charge and X/Z cash-up — plus a free Kitchen Display, commission-free online ordering and table bookings, all on your own website. Card payments run through your own Stripe account via a smart reader or pay-by-QR. The genuine differences are hardware and payments: Square sells its own integrated till and card machine and takes a cut of each payment; DineKit is software you pair with your own reader at raw Stripe rates (or no hardware at all with pay-by-QR).

Does DineKit work outside the UK?

Yes — DineKit is used by restaurants worldwide, and your menu and prices display in your own currency. Two honest notes: the allergen tools are built around strict regimes like the UK’s Natasha’s Law but are flexible for how your country presents allergens, and card payment capture currently settles in GBP through Stripe. Everything else — menus, QR, ordering, bookings, POS, kitchen display — works anywhere WordPress runs.

Can I use DineKit and Square together?

Yes, and some restaurants do — usually to keep Square’s own terminal on the counter while using DineKit on their website for the free menu, ordering, bookings, kitchen display and allergen matrix. But since DineKit’s POS and payments are now free and live, plenty of restaurants use DineKit on its own and skip Square’s monthly fee entirely.

Does DineKit charge per location or take a cut of sales?

No. There’s no per-location fee and DineKit takes 0% commission on orders or bookings. Card payments run through your own Stripe account, so only standard Stripe processing fees apply — DineKit never takes a cut.