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Create and share Square Payment Links

Who is this article for?
Sellers and team members with payment link permissions. Set permissions in Square Dashboard.

About payment links

Square Payment Links enable customers to purchase anything you want to sell online without creating an eCommerce website. You can create payment links to take payments, sell an item, sell an event or class, or accept a donation.

You can send your customers a payment link through an email, or let them purchase at their convenience by posting the link on social media or your blog. You can also offer a touch-free checkout experience through your Square Point of Sale. When you send a payment link from your Point of Sale, your customer will get a unique link on their phone they can use to pay without needing to enter PINs or install special apps.

Before you begin

  • Square Payment Links are only available for domestic sales. 

  • Square Payment Links must be Active to be used. If you’ve previously shared a link with your customers, they'll be unable to complete a transaction with the link if you deactivate or delete it.

If you’d like to sell online internationally or create a fully customizable eCommerce website, take a look at Square Online.

Create a payment link

You can create payment links from your Square Dashboard or Square POS app. You can also Customize Square Payment Links. If using a payment link to collect donations, learn how to Set up donation goals with payment links.

Square Dashboard

  1. Sign in to your Square Dashboard, then click Payments > Payment Links.
  2. Click Create a link.
  3. Select Collect a payment, Sell an item, Accept a donation, or Sell an event or class.
  4. Enter a name for your link to be displayed to your customer. If you’re selling an item, select the item from your Item library, or create a new one.
  5. Enter in the amount you want to charge.
  6. Choose a Frequency if prompted to accept recurring payments.
  7. Add an optional description. The description for each payment link has a 400 character limit.
  8. Add an optional image.
  9. Click Advanced settings to toggle on additional features such as Enable tipping, Allow buyer to set the price, Redirect to a website after checkout, or Enable custom fields.
  10. Click Create link.
  11. Select Copy link to share the link anywhere.

Note: When creating a new link for a new product in your item library, you can add a brand new description. This description will sync back to your item library for future use. For an existing item in your library, you can use your pre-existing description or create a new description to overwrite the previous one. Managing descriptions is currently only available in the Square Dashboard.

Square Point of Sale

  1. Tap ≡ More > Payment Links. Note: If Payment Links does not appear in More, add it to your Point of Sale app by tapping ≡ More > Add-ons > Payment links > Add for free.
  2. Tap + in the Payment Links section.
  3. Choose a payment link type.
  4. If prompted, enter the name, amount, and description for your link and choose the applicable options.
  5. Tap Save.
  6. Tap Share link, Send via text, or Print QR code.

Share a payment link

Square Dashboard

  1. Sign in to your Square Dashboard, then click Payments > Payment Links.
  2. Next to the payment link you want to share, click Share and choose your share option.

Share options include:

  • Manually copy the link to share via your own channels.
  • Send via Square Messages.
  • Create QR code. Download it to your files, display it anywhere and customers can scan it to pay you directly.
  • Create a Buy button to embed the code to your website.
  • Post to social media channels like Facebook and X (formerly Twitter).
  • Create an email campaign with Square Marketing.

Square Point of Sale

  1. From your Square Point of Sale app, go to ≡ More > Payment Links.
  2. Tap the payment link you want to share, then tap Share link and choose your share option.

Share options include:

  • Copying the link
  • Sharing via text
  • Creating a QR code to print

Note: You can also send payment links from the checkout screen of your Square Point of Sale by selecting Charge and tapping the Send Payment Link option. This will create a touch-free checkout experience so you don’t have to manage cash or cards.

Virtual Terminal

You can send payment links directly to your customers via text message using Square Virtual Terminal from your computer. You can collect contactless payments from customers in real-time when they aren’t physically with you. To do so:

  1. From the Virtual Terminal Overview page, select Take a Payment.
  2. Add a custom amount to Quick charge or add items to Itemized sale.
  3. Add an existing customer or create a new one.
  4. Under Payment details, select Send payment link.
  5. Select your customer’s country code.
  6. Enter the customer’s phone number and click Send link.
  7. Your customer will receive a text message with a payment link. The link will take your customers directly to an online checkout page to pay on their mobile devices, where they can pay with a supported debit or credit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, Cash App Pay or Afterpay.
  8. Wait for confirmation that the customer completed the payment.

Note: Selecting the back button while a payment is pending will cancel the payment link. You must wait until you receive the payment before closing the window.

Deactivate a payment link

You can deactivate and delete a payment link at any time. Once deleted or deactivated, the payment link will become unavailable to anyone you shared it with — this action can’t be undone.

Square Dashboard

  1. Sign in to your Square Dashboard, then click Payments > Payment Links.
  2. Select the payment link you want to deactivate or delete.
  3. Click Delete or Deactivate.

Square Point of Sale

  1. From the Square POS app, go to ≡ More > Payment Links.
  2. Select the payment link you want to deactivate or delete.
  3. Tap Actions > Deactivate or Delete.

Payment links reporting

You can easily track the amount of sales generated from each payment link so you can track how links are performing. To view the amount of sales per payment link from your Square Dashboard, review the sales per link in the Total Sales column.

You can also view all of your sales in your Square Dashboard in Reports when you filter by Source > Payment Links.

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