Square combines scheduling and payments for sole proprietors

Square’s Appointments product has become a popular option for smaller merchants, who rely on the service to schedule customers and manage their business calendar. Many such merchants have also been using Square’s point-of-sale app for payment processing, but until now the products operated separately.

Now, Square is bringing Appointments and payments under one umbrella, while also making the combined product free for sole proprietors (previously, Appointments cost individual sellers $30 per month). Larger sellers will pay a monthly fee, starting at $50, based on the number of employees with user accounts. Features include inventory management, invoicing, customer profiles, and more.

The idea is to “make the product even more accessible to a wider range of sellers,” says Alyssa Henry, Square’s seller lead. By making the service free, Square hopes to entice sellers who are just starting out, while the enhanced feature set is designed to appeal to larger merchants.

Square made its name serving micro-merchants, who flocked to the company’s diminutive square card-reader dongle. It has since moved upmarket, seeking to woo large retailers with products like Square Register, unveiled by CEO Jack Dorsey last October. But winning over sole proprietors, and growing as they grow, remains the primary driver of the company’s revenues.