Starter
Up to 75 bookings per month
Every feature and team access included, with SMS reminders (50 credits a month).
£19/mo
Barkway vs Square Appointments
Barkway vs Square Appointments. Square is excellent at appointments and payments. Barkway starts with the dog.
Square Appointments is a strong general scheduling and payments platform, including a capable free plan. Barkway exists for the grooming-specific layer around that appointment: pet history, grooming notes, recall, balances and the next visit.
Smart Scheduler™ is one example of Barkway being shaped around the real gaps, durations and buffers in a grooming diary.Comparison checked 1st October 2026
At a glance
Compare the things that actually change what you pay.
Square Appointments starts free for one location and includes unlimited staff calendars, online booking, reminders and integrated payments. Barkway starts at £19/month and adds the grooming-specific records and workflow a generic appointments system isn’t designed around.
Entry price
Barkway
£19/month
Square Appointments
£0/month Free for a single location
Paid plans
Barkway
£19 / £29 / £39
Square Appointments
Plus £29/location; Premium £69/location
Booking-volume limit
Barkway
75 / 150 / 300 per month
Square Appointments
No booking-volume cap is stated on Square’s public appointments pricing page
Staff calendars
Barkway
Team access included
Square Appointments
Unlimited staff calendars on all three Appointments plans
Online booking
Barkway
Included
Square Appointments
Included on Free, Plus and Premium
Reminders
Barkway
Email and SMS reminders, with 50 / 100 / 150 SMS credits a month included
Square Appointments
Automatic text and email reminders are listed on Free
Pet-specific records
Barkway
Dedicated pet profiles, grooming history, notes and appointment context
Square Appointments
Square is a general appointments platform rather than a pet/grooming-specific system
Card payments
Barkway
Online card payments and deposits through your own Stripe account. Stripe’s fees apply; Barkway takes no transaction fee. In-person card readers aren’t part of Barkway.
Square Appointments
In-person: 1.75% on Free; 1.6% on Plus and Premium
Pricing & limits
Compare the plan you would actually need, not just the cheapest number on the page.
Barkway
Pricing changes with monthly booking volume.
Growth
Most popularUp to 150 bookings per month
Every feature and team access included, with SMS reminders (100 credits a month).
£29/mo
Professional
Up to 300 bookings per month
Every feature and team access included, with SMS reminders (150 credits a month).
£39/mo
Square Appointments
Published pricing checked 1st October 2026.
Free
For a single location, plus payment processing fees.
£0/month
- Unlimited staff calendars
- Online booking
- Automatic text and email reminders
- Integrated payments and automated contracts
Plus
Adds more operational scheduling features.
£29/month per location
- Everything in Free
- Cancellation policy and fees
- Waitlist
- Appointments reports
Premium
For more complex staff and resource management.
£69/month per location
- Everything in Plus
- Advanced Access
- Resource management
- Custom staff commissions and contract fields
Which one fits?
There should be a good reason to choose either.
Choose Barkway if…
- You want pet profiles, grooming history, behaviour/allergy notes and recall to be first-class parts of the product.
- Smart Scheduler™ and grooming-specific appointment context matter more than a broad POS ecosystem.
- You want one groomer-led workspace for the diary, dog, client, invoice and next visit.
Choose Square Appointments if…
- A £0 appointments product is enough for what you need right now.
- Square’s integrated card hardware, POS and broader business ecosystem are central to how you operate.
- You mainly need general scheduling, reminders and payments rather than grooming-specific records and recall.
The trade-offs
The useful differences show up in the working day.
01 · Free is genuinely compelling
Square’s free plan is strong. We would not pretend otherwise.
Square includes unlimited staff calendars, online booking, automatic text and email reminders, contracts and integrated payments on its £0 Appointments plan for a single location. If that covers your business, paying for specialist software may not yet make sense.
02 · The dog
The difference appears once the appointment needs grooming context.
Barkway is designed to keep pet history, behaviour, allergies, grooming notes, previous visits, balances and recall attached to the working record. Square is intentionally a much broader appointments and payments product.
03 · Ecosystem
Choose the ecosystem you actually want to live in.
Square is difficult to beat if your priority is integrated hardware, POS and payments. Barkway is the stronger fit when the software needs to think like a grooming business rather than a general appointment business.
How we compare
Checked 1st October 2026
We build Barkway, so this isn’t an independent review. Competitor prices and limits are taken from the companies’ own published pages and we deliberately include reasons you might prefer them. If something changes, we want to correct it.
Questions
The bits worth checking twice.
Can dog groomers use Square Appointments?+
Yes. Square Appointments can handle general booking, reminders and payments very well, and its free plan is capable. The decision is whether you also need grooming-specific pet records, history, recall and workflow around those appointments.
Is Square cheaper than Barkway?+
Square Appointments has a £0 Free plan for a single location, so it can absolutely be cheaper. Square Plus is £29/month per location and Premium is £69/month per location. Barkway’s published plans are £19, £29 and £39 per month based on booking volume.
Does Square limit staff calendars?+
Square states that all Appointments plans include unlimited staff calendars. Barkway also includes team access across its published plans.
What are Square’s card processing fees?+
Square currently lists 1.75% for in-person card payments on Appointments Free and 1.6% on Plus and Premium. Other online, manually entered and Clearpay rates differ, so check Square’s pricing page for the payment mix you use.
More comparisons
Still weighing it up?
Barkway vs TuftTwo grooming-specific products with very different pricing and marketplace models.Barkway vs Savvy PetCompare Barkway’s booking-volume pricing with Savvy Pet’s feature-based tiers.Barkway vs BookdSame £19 starting price. Barkway includes 75 bookings a month; Bookd’s Starter includes 20.Barkway vs ShakeYourTailA newer workflow-led Barkway approach versus a long-running grooming platform.Barkway vs BooksyGrooming-specific software versus a broad beauty marketplace and booking platform.
Still deciding?
Put a real grooming week through Barkway.
Use your own diary, clients and dogs. The difference is much easier to judge when the software has to survive a real working day.