The specs
Square CapitalShopify Capital
Product typeMCAMCA
Amount range$300 – $250K$200 – $2M (varies by store volume)
Cost (factor / APR)Single fixed fee (10 – 16% of loan amount); no APR / no compoundingSingle fixed fee (factor 1.10 – 1.18 typical); no APR / no compounding
Speed to fundAs soon as next business day2 – 5 business days after acceptance
Min time in business12 months3 months
Min monthly revenue$10,000+ in Square card sales typical floor~$5,000+ in Shopify processed sales typical floor
Min credit scoreNo FICO pull — underwrites entirely against Square sales historyNo FICO pull — underwrites entirely against Shopify sales history
Products
- Embedded seller working capital (Square sellers only)
- Embedded merchant cash advance (Shopify stores only)
Verdicts by use case
- Restaurant on Square for Restaurants POS — Winner: Square Capital. Square for Restaurants is a meaningful share of QSR, cafe, and counter-service POS — Square Capital surfaces directly in the Square dashboard with one fixed fee (10 – 16% of advance) and no FICO pull. Most natural embedded-capital path for Square-native restaurants.
- Coffee roaster, bakery, or food-product brand selling via Shopify POS — Winner: Shopify Capital. Shopify POS is used by hybrid food-product brands selling both in-store and direct-to-consumer online. If revenue is split roughly half in-store + half Shopify online, Shopify Capital's underwriting (which counts both channels) typically offers larger advance amounts than Square Capital would for the in-store-only slice.
- Pure dine-in restaurant doing $30K+/mo in card sales — Winner: Square Capital. Pure dine-in restaurants have effectively zero Shopify-relevant revenue. Square for Restaurants matches the dine-in workflow (table-side ordering, course management, tip distribution) far better than Shopify POS, and Square Capital approves against the same Square card-present history you're already running.
- Lowest published fee for A-paper restaurants — Winner: Shopify Capital. Shopify Capital's typical factor band runs 1.10 – 1.18 — slightly tighter than Square's 1.10 – 1.16 floor though similar in overall structure. Neither is materially cheaper than the other on A-paper restaurants; the differences come down to which platform the restaurant is already on rather than headline cost.
- Fastest funding into operating cash — Winner: Square Capital. Square funds as soon as next business day after acceptance into the linked Square business bank account. Shopify funds 2 – 5 business days after acceptance. For a restaurant managing payroll or supplier cash flow next week, Square is the faster path end-to-end.
The honest takeaway
Square Capital and Shopify Capital solve overlapping but distinct problems. The right choice depends on three things you already know about your business: how fast you need the money, how long you've been operating, and whether the capital need is one-time or recurring.
Frequently asked questions
- Can a restaurant on Toast POS use either of these?
- No. Both Square Capital and Shopify Capital are embedded products — they require you to be processing on Square or Shopify respectively. A Toast restaurant would use Toast Capital. If you want to compare across POS platforms, run the same hypothetical deal through each platform's embedded calculator and compare effective APR and total cost on identical inputs.
- Is Shopify Capital actually used by restaurants in 2026?
- Mostly by hybrid food-product brands (coffee roasters, packaged-food makers, bakeries with online ordering) rather than traditional dine-in restaurants. Shopify POS for pure dine-in is uncommon — its strength is in retail and DTC e-commerce. Most restaurants asking about embedded capital end up comparing Toast Capital vs Square Capital, not Shopify, as of 2026-06-28.
- Which one is easier to qualify for as a new restaurant?
- Both require active processing history on their respective platforms (Square typically wants 12+ months of Square sales; Shopify wants 3+ months of Shopify sales). Shopify's 3-month TIB floor is the lowest in the embedded-capital category — a useful path for restaurants under a year old with online merchandise revenue running through Shopify.