Square POS terminals

If you use Square POS terminal hardware in your stores, you can accept Gift Up issued gift cards directly in your Square POS terminal, instead of using our mobile app alongside your POS terminal. 

Please note that as of 2025 Square now charge for loading balances onto gift certificates in a Square account based in Australia, Canada and the United States. 

How to enable Square POS integration

Head over to https://giftup.app/integrations and click "Connect" on the Square POS card:

Once clicked, you'll be asked to connect your Square account (if you've not already done so). Once your Square account is connected to Gift Up you can enable the Square terminal support option:

Once this is checked, all future gift cards sold via Gift Up will be redeemable directly in your Square POS terminal.

What about existing gift cards already in Gift Up?

If you have any existing gift cards in your Gift Up account prior to connecting your Square POS terminal, these cannot be redeemed in your Square POS natively, instead you'll have to continue using our mobile/web app. This is because Square has a very specific code format for their gift card codes, and the usual 5-character Gift Up codes that we issue are not compatible with Square, so we cannot publish them to your POS terminal.

If you sell Square gift cards in-store using your Square terminal

By default, we'll only push any gift cards sold in Gift Up to your Square account, not vice versa. However, if you have any other software integrations connected to Gift Up (like an ecommerce store, for example), you should enable the option labelled "Add future Square gift cards to Gift Up" (shown below). That way, if you sell a gift card in your Square terminal, we'll automatically add it to your Gift Up account and sync it to your connected integrations. This is really useful if you sell gift cards in-store, but want them redeemable online in your shopping cart, for instance. 

Please note, that if you enable this option, any gift cards that are sold via your Square terminal going forwards will be imported into Gift Up and billed for, by us, at the usual Gift Up rate. 

How the connection to your Square account works

As Square already has a functional gift card system built-in, we just hook into that existing capability: when a gift card is issued in Gift Up, we create a new Square gift card with, by default, an 8-digit alphanumeric gift card code. If your specific Square POS terminal is having difficulty accepting these alphanumeric codes, it could be that you are running an older Square POS hardware/software, and you need to instruct Gift Up to only issue older style Square gift card codes, which are 16-digit numerical codes. 

Of course, we'll keep the balance up to date in Square if it changes in Gift Up, and vice versa, so if it gets used (partially or wholly) in Square, we'll make the necessary deduction in Gift Up. This means you are also welcome to add another redemption connection to Gift Up, like an e-commerce store like Shopify or WooCommerce (for example), and have your Gift Up gift cards redeemable online and offline safely and easily. 

If you use multiple Square locations

If you have a single Square account and utilize multiple Square locations, you can already sell a gift card in any location, and it can be redeemed in any Square location via your existing Square terminals. Using Gift Up alongside this does not change this behaviour, you are still able to sell a gift card in-store at any Square location and redeem it at any other Square location.

We ask for you to nominate a Square location when connecting Gift Up to Square. This is so that we know which Square location to use for any payment processing (i.e. your gift card sales conducted through our checkout system), and which location to specify when we make any changes to your gift cards, like a redemption or top up initiated via Gift Up. 

As a result, the Square location you nominate only affects reporting internally to Square, so it might be advisable to create a new Square location called something like "Gift Up" so that you can identify gift cards we create/redeem/top-up differently to those you sell or redeem in-store. 

Is your Square POS terminal refusing to accept a Gift Up issued gift card code?

In 2022, Square worked with Gift Up to revamp their gift card system to allow us to generate gift cards in Square via the Square API. At the same time, Square relaxed the requirement on what a gift card code can be in the Square ecosystem. 

Prior to 2022, only Square generate gift card codes and they were a 16-digit number code. After 2022, Square allowed a gift card code to have letters and numbers, and as few as 8 digits in length. 

At Gift Up, we prefer shorter alphanumeric gift card codes as they are easier to type in if a barcode is not available. So, by default, when you have Square POS connected, we generate an 8-digit alphanumeric gift card code. 

However, it is possible that you are running an older version of Square's software which expects gift card codes to be the older 16-digit number codes only and refuses to allow letters to be entered in the gift card code field. If this is the case, you should update your Square software version, or if this is not feasible or possible (due to your older Square provided hardware blocking any updates), you can change your gift card code scheme in Gift Up to only produce 16-digit number cased gift card codes.

1. Head to https://giftup.app/settings/gift-cards#code-generation-format
2. Enter ################ as your new gift card code scheme

Doing this will force Gift Up to issue only a 16-digit number based gift card code, which will work on your older Square software. Any existing gift card codes are unchanged, so you'll have to redeem those manually.