Square Online platform help — the free-to-start online store in the Square ecosystem, automated through the Square commerce APIs (Catalog, Orders, Inventory, Payments/Checkout) that also power Square POS, plus HMAC-signed webhooks, OAuth, and an official MCP server. Use when Square Online inventory won't sync with POS or items oversell, wiring Square orders or catalog into a CRM or data warehouse via the API, a Square webhook fails HMAC signature verification, your Square OAuth token expired after 30 days, choosing a Square Online plan (Free vs Plus vs Premium) or weighing the 3.3%+30¢ online fee against upgrading, setting up the Square MCP server in Claude or Cursor, or comparing Square Online vs Shopify/Wix/Squarespace/Ecwid for a retail-plus-online seller. Do NOT use for cross-tool checkout-conversion strategy (use /sales-checkout) or picking a Merchant of Record for global tax (use /sales-merchant-of-record).
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name
sales-square-online
description
Square Online platform help — the free-to-start online store in the Square ecosystem, automated through the Square commerce APIs (Catalog, Orders, Inventory, Payments/Checkout) that also power Square POS, plus HMAC-signed webhooks, OAuth, and an official MCP server. Use when Square Online inventory won't sync with POS or items oversell, wiring Square orders or catalog into a CRM or data warehouse via the API, a Square webhook fails HMAC signature verification, your Square OAuth token expired after 30 days, choosing a Square Online plan (Free vs Plus vs Premium) or weighing the 3.3%+30¢ online fee against upgrading, setting up the Square MCP server in Claude or Cursor, or comparing Square Online vs Shopify/Wix/Squarespace/Ecwid for a retail-plus-online seller. Do NOT use for cross-tool checkout-conversion strategy (use /sales-checkout) or picking a Merchant of Record for global tax (use /sales-merchant-of-record).
argument-hint
[describe what you need help with in Square Online]
license
MIT
version
1.0.0
tags
["sales","ecommerce","checkout","platform"]
github
https://github.com/square
Square Online Platform Help
Square Online is the online store inside the Square ecosystem — a free-to-start storefront that shares one catalog, inventory, customer directory, and order book with Square POS. You don't automate the site builder (that's UI-only); you automate the commerce layer with the standard Square APIs (Catalog, Orders, Inventory, Payments/Checkout) plus webhooks, OAuth, and the official Square MCP server. This skill covers that integration surface and the pain points — POS↔online inventory sync, processing-fee math, plan gates — that trip people up.
Step 1 — Gather context
If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated platform knowledge.
Ask only what you need (skip if the prompt already says):
What's the goal? (a) automate/integrate via the API or webhooks, (b) fix an inventory/POS-sync or store problem, (c) pick a Square Online plan or weigh fees vs upgrading, (d) compare Square Online vs another store builder, (e) set up the Square MCP server.
Build context — automating your own account (personal access token) or a multi-merchant app (OAuth)? Which objects matter — catalog items, orders, inventory counts, customers, payments?
Sandbox or production? Square has a full sandbox at connect.squareupsandbox.com.
Skip-ahead rule: if the user's prompt already contains enough context, go straight to Step 2.
Step 2 — Route or answer directly
Map the request to the right home. When routing, give the exact command.
The user's real problem
Route to
Checkout-conversion strategy across tools (order bumps, AOV, cart abandonment tactics)
/sales-checkout {question}
Migrating a store off (or onto) Square Online — data export, redirects
/sales-checkout {question} (migration mechanics)
Choosing a Merchant of Record for global tax instead
/sales-merchant-of-record {question}
General website / landing-page / funnel strategy
/sales-funnel {question}
Post-purchase / abandoned-cart email sequences
/sales-email-marketing {question}
Not sure which skill
/sales-do {question}
Anything Square-specific (API, webhooks, inventory sync, plan gates, MCP) — answer here using Step 3.
Step 3 — Square Online platform reference
Read references/platform-guide.md for the full platform reference — capabilities & automation surface, pricing/plan gates, the data model with JSON shapes, integration recipes (cURL + Python), and integration patterns.
For raw API detail (endpoints, request/response JSON, auth headers, webhook HMAC verification, MCP setup), read references/square-online-api-reference.md.
Answer using only the relevant section — don't dump the whole reference.
Step 4 — Actionable guidance
You no longer need the guide loaded — focus on the user's situation:
Integration: Own account → personal access token (Bearer). Multi-merchant app → OAuth (tokens expire in 30 days — refresh them). Always send Square-Version: YYYY-MM-DD. Base URL https://connect.squareup.com/v2 (sandbox connect.squareupsandbox.com). For purchase-driven automation, prefer webhooks over polling; verify the HMAC and follow up with a GET.
Inventory: Treat the Inventory API as the source of truth, not the UI sync toggle. Enable stock tracking per item variation, react to inventory.count.updated, and reconcile counts on a schedule to prevent overselling.
Plan/fee math: Free has no monthly fee but a higher online rate (~3.3% + 30¢); Plus/Premium lower the rate and unlock custom domain, abandoned-cart emails, and advanced features. Above a few thousand dollars/month in online sales, the lower rate can pay for the subscription — do the break-even.
Builder limits: The storefront design and pages are UI-only (Weebly heritage) — there is no site-builder API. Don't promise programmatic page edits.
If you discover a gotcha or tip not in references/learnings.md, append it there with today's date.
Gotchas
Best-effort from research (2026-06) — review these, especially plan-gated features and integration details that may be outdated.
Inventory sync lag → overselling is the #1 complaint. Online stock can fail to decrement after an online order, items show "sold out" when in stock, and the per-item sync toggle silently turns off. Don't trust the UI toggle — drive stock from the Inventory API and reconcile via inventory.count.updated.
No Square Online site-builder API. You automate catalog/orders/inventory/payments, not the storefront pages/theme. The site itself is UI-only.
Free plan = higher online fee + branding. ~3.3% + 30¢ online on Free, a *.square.site subdomain, and Square ads; custom domain and ad removal need Plus+.
OAuth access tokens expire after 30 days. Long-lived integrations break unless you refresh with the refresh token. Personal access tokens (own account) don't expire the same way.
Webhook HMAC is computed over notification URL + raw body. A trailing slash, http-vs-https mismatch, or re-serialized body fails verification. Use the SDK WebhooksHelper; signature header is x-square-hmacsha256-signature.
API-created orders need fulfillment + payment to show in the Dashboard. A bare order won't appear until it has a fulfillment and a completed payment.
Tax auto-calc is US/Canada only. Selling elsewhere means manual tax setup or an external tax tool.
Rate limits aren't published. Expect 429 RATE_LIMITED under load — retry with exponential backoff + jitter.
Related skills
/sales-checkout — Cross-tool checkout-conversion strategy, order bumps, AOV, and cart-abandonment tactics (Square Online is one platform among Shopify/BigCommerce/Wix/Medusa).
/sales-wix — Wix eCommerce, the other no-code website-builder-plus-store option.
/sales-merchant-of-record — Choosing a MoR (Paddle/Lemon Squeezy) for global tax vs owning tax yourself.
/sales-email-marketing — Post-purchase and abandoned-cart email sequences.
/sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do -a claude-code
Examples
Example 1: "Sync every new Square Online order into my CRM"
A developer/automation question. Recommend a webhook (order.created / order.updated, plus payment.created if you need paid confirmation) over polling. Walk through: subscribe in the Developer Dashboard, verify the HMAC-SHA256 signature (x-square-hmacsha256-signature) over the notification URL + raw body with the subscription signature key, then GET the full order from POST /v2/orders/search or RetrieveOrder. Show the Bearer + Square-Version headers, dedupe on the event/order ID, and return 2xx fast. Point to references/square-online-api-reference.md for the JSON.
Example 2: "My online store keeps overselling — stock doesn't match the POS"
The top Square Online pain point. Explain that Square Online and POS share one catalog but the UI sync can lag or the per-item tracking toggle flips off. Fix: enable inventory tracking per item variation, treat the Inventory API (BatchRetrieveInventoryCounts) as source of truth, subscribe to inventory.count.updated to catch changes in real time, and run a scheduled reconciliation. If a count is wrong, push a BatchChangeInventory adjustment rather than fixing it by hand each sale.
Example 3: "Free vs Plus vs Premium — and is the free plan actually free?"
Pricing/plan-gate question (answer from the guide). Free is $0/mo but charges a higher online processing rate (~3.3% + 30¢), uses a *.square.site subdomain, and shows Square ads. Plus (~$49/mo) adds a custom domain, ad removal, and abandoned-cart emails; Premium (~$149/mo) lowers fees further and adds real-time shipping rates + advanced reporting. Do the break-even: subscription cost ÷ (fee delta) = the monthly online sales where upgrading pays off. Flag all pricing as best-effort and tell them to confirm current rates.
Troubleshooting
"Inventory isn't syncing between POS and my online store / items oversell"
Square Online and POS read from one shared catalog, but sync glitches are common: online orders not decrementing stock, items stuck "sold out," sync toggles turning themselves off, and 24h+ delays. Don't rely on the dashboard toggle. Confirm inventory tracking is on per variation, use BatchRetrieveInventoryCounts as the truth, subscribe to inventory.count.updated, and reconcile on a schedule. For a known-bad count, post a BatchChangeInventory physical-count adjustment. If sync is system-wide broken, it's usually a Square-side bug — log it with support and rely on the API in the meantime.
"My webhook signature verification keeps failing"
The HMAC-SHA256 is generated over the notification URL string concatenated with the raw request body, signed with that subscription's signature key — not the body alone. The most common causes: hashing a re-serialized/parsed body instead of the raw bytes, a notification URL mismatch (trailing slash, http vs https, wrong path), or using the wrong subscription's key. Use the official SDK WebhooksHelper.verifySignature (Node/Python/PHP/Ruby), pass the exact configured notification URL, and compare with a constant-time function. Header name is x-square-hmacsha256-signature.
"I'm getting 401 Unauthorized after my integration worked for weeks"
OAuth access tokens expire after 30 days. If you stored a token and stopped refreshing, it's now dead — exchange the refresh token for a new access token (POST /oauth2/token with grant_type=refresh_token) and store the new pair. Other 401 causes: missing/short token, calling production with a sandbox token (or vice versa), or a scope you didn't request at authorization. For your own single account, a non-expiring personal access token from the Developer Dashboard avoids the refresh dance.
