They scattered your business across ten logins. We collapsed it into one.
Square is free until you need features. Appointments: $29/mo. Invoices Plus: $20/mo. Online processing: 3.3%. Add it up and "free" costs more than Helix.
Bottom line: Square's "free" tier costs $1,560/year in processing fees alone on $5,000/month revenue. Add Square Appointments ($348/year) and Invoices Plus ($240/year) and you're at $2,148/year. Helix is a one-time purchase of $279 for scheduling, invoicing, CRM, and accounting. Square can also freeze your account and hold funds for 180 days with no warning.
Square is pre-selected below. Add any other tools you're paying for to see the full picture.
Square with add-ons: ~$179/mo = $2,148/year. Helix: $279 once.
Scenario: Service business doing $5,000/mo in card payments.
Square can freeze accounts and hold funds for 180 days with no warning and no appeal. It happens to businesses of all sizes, often without explanation.
"Woke up to find my account frozen. $4,200 held hostage. No explanation. No human to talk to." — Reddit r/smallbusiness
Free POS hardware ecosystem that's genuinely useful for retail. Instant deposits when you need cash flow. Strong brand recognition that customers trust. If you're primarily in-person retail, Square's hardware-software integration is hard to beat.
Account freezes without warning are a well-documented risk. The 3.3% online fee increase in January 2026 hit service businesses hard. Add-ons make "free" expensive fast — appointments, invoicing, payroll all cost extra. And the CRM is really just a contact list. No pipeline, no follow-ups, no automation.
Most Square defectors hit one of four triggers: (1) their account got frozen and they lost trust, (2) they're paying for 3+ add-ons and realized "free" isn't free, (3) they need a real CRM, not just a contact list, or (4) they want to own their tools instead of renting features piecemeal.
In Square, export your customer directory and transaction history as CSV files. Takes about 10 minutes.
15-minute setup. Import your customers, configure services and pricing. The Setup Wizard walks you through everything.
Run both systems for a few days. You can keep using Square just for card processing if you want.
Cancel Square Appointments and Invoices Plus. Keep Square for POS if you need it. Stop the monthly bleeding.
Base POS is free but processing fees (2.6% + $0.10 in-person, 3.3% + $0.30 online) apply to every transaction. Add-ons ($29–149/mo) for appointments, invoicing, retail. On $5K/mo revenue, Square costs ~$2,148/yr.
Yes. Square can freeze accounts and hold funds for up to 180 days with no warning. This is documented in their terms and is a common complaint.
Depends on add-ons. If using Square Appointments ($29/mo) + processing on $5K/mo revenue: saving ~$1,869 in year one vs Helix $279.
Helix handles invoicing, scheduling, CRM, and accounting. For payment processing, you connect your own processor. Helix doesn't hold your money.
Easy. Export your customer directory and transaction history from Square. Import into Helix. Keep using Square just for card processing if you want.
Square costs you $2,148/year with add-ons + processing. Helix is $279 once.
Calculate Your Savings· Data sourced from official pricing pages
Square looks free until you count the per-transaction fees, the add-on subscriptions, and the account freezes. Helix is $279 once and you own it. Square is another login, another sync, another place your data can leak. Helix is a Single Source — 65,000+ workflows, zero walls between them.
One point of truth. Zero points of failure.