The Square ISO program is the network of partner ISOs Square works through to reach merchants, and it’s how ISOs, sub-ISOs, and agents earn residuals reselling Square POS.
Here’s what most guides leave out: you don’t apply to it on Square’s website. There’s no Square ISO application and no number to call. Over 140 Square ISO partners hold the Square partner relationship directly as of 2026, and you join the Square ISO program by signing with one of them.
Here’s the good news: you don’t have to be one of the 140, and you don’t have to become a registered ISO. Turnkey is one of those partners, so you sell Square under us. You bring the merchant relationships and earn a residual on every account you place, whether you run your own ISO, sell as an agent, or bring us in on a referral. As a sub-ISO, you can also have your own agents sell Square on your behalf.
This guide covers how to join, the requirements, what you earn, and how to sell Square once you’re in. Ready to start now? Start your application, or follow how to become a Square reseller step by step.
What You Should Know About Square's ISO Program
Square didn’t open this channel to everyone. It chose its partner ISOs, and the standard it chose them by shows what the program rewards and where you fit.
Square chose ISOs that could deploy, not just sell. It looked for proof: successful implementations, steady referrals, positive merchant feedback, a standard onboarding path, and a dedicated support model. Above all, it wanted ISOs willing to lead with Square, not quote it when nothing else fits. That’s why the channel stays small, and why selling under a partner that already cleared that bar is the way in. How Square chooses its partners has the full story.
Which Turnkey Square ISO Program Fits You?
Every Turnkey program sells the same Square. What changes is how much of the work you carry and how much of the residual you keep. Pick the one that matches how you sell:
- Referral Partner, 25% residual. You have the relationships. Make the introduction, and we handle everything else, from the demo to ongoing support. It’s built for accountants, bookkeepers, consultants, and POS technicians.
- Agent, 50% residual. You find the deal and close it. We fund the hardware, deploy the system, and support the merchant, so you place systems without tying up your own capital.
- Veteran Agent, 70% residual. You run your own sales and supply your own equipment. We step in for deployment and technical help, and you keep a larger share for carrying more of the cost.
- Sub-ISO, 80 to 100% residual. You’ve built your own team. Keep your brand and your downline, pay your agents well, and rest easy with a written agreement that we won’t recruit them.
Not sure which fits? Choose “not sure yet” on the application, and we’ll work it out on the call.
Whichever program you choose, the requirements to join are the same, and they’re shorter than most people expect.
Square ISO Program Requirements: What You Need to Bring
Square chose its partner ISOs for their ability to deploy, not just sell, so that standard sits with the partner you join under, not with you.
You need a real sales motion and a real intention to sell Square. That’s the list. You don’t need ISO registration, a sponsor bank, a buy-in, or to leave your current ISO. You don’t even need your EIN or other sensitive documents to apply. We collect those in a follow-up conversation.
The Partners Merchants Already Trust Win
Agents, ISOs, accountants, bookkeepers, consultants, and POS technicians all do well selling Square, because business owners already listen to them. If you open with how a merchant’s business runs, not what they pay for processing, you’re already selling the way Square wins.
You Don't Need to Be Technical, You Need to Know the Product
Square was built to be sold by people who aren’t engineers. Signup is an application, not underwriting. A merchant’s menu moves onto Square in minutes, and Turnkey handles the build, the hardware, the training and go-live. What’s left for you is knowing which merchants Square fits best and what to say to them, and our weekly Square Sales Academy teaches that.
That’s the whole bar: a real sales motion, a merchant base that trusts you, and a partner behind you that already cleared Square’s standard. Here’s how you get started.
How You Can Resell Square Through Turnkey
Square chose its partners, and Turnkey is one of them. The link, the training, the deployment and the support behind every account run through us. Here’s what you can sell, how you join. Here’s what you can sell and how you join.
What You Can Resell With Our ISO Program
You’re selling a full stack, not a single system. Square leads, and it’s more than a register: kitchen displays, QR ordering, online ordering, Square Appointments, payroll, banking and loyalty all live in the same account. Around it, Turnkey gives you:
- Six other POS platforms: Clover, SkyTab, OrderCounter, Korona, RPower and PAR. When a merchant fits another system better, you place the deal there and keep the account.
- Websites and online ordering, built by our creative team.
- Menus, signage and branding, starting with free menu designs and printed menus and mailers to hand the merchant, and extending to menu boards, signs and logos.
- PayZero cash discounting, priced so you can quote it on the spot.
- Business services, including bookkeeping, marketing services, consulting and staff offshoring.
Most reps only have a rate to compete on. You walk in with a full package, and every layer you add is one more reason the merchant stays with you.
How to Join the Square ISO Program in Five Steps
- Apply and have the conversation. The form takes under five minutes, and a Turnkey sales representative calls you within one business day. We talk about what you sell today and how much of the work you want to own, which decides your program.
- Sit in on training before you sign anything. Our weekly Square Sales Academy is open to prospective partners. After you join, you and your agents attend free.
- Get your link and your portal. You receive a white-labeled signup link with your company name and logo, plus the Square reseller portal, where you see every account you’ve placed and what it earned.
- Sell and board. Merchants sign up on an instant application, not an underwriting submission. They can start with what they have and add the EIN and bank details later.
- We deploy, you get paid. Menus, hardware, printers, staff training and go-live are handled, and you earn a monthly residual for as long as the merchant processes.
Why ISOs and Agents Trust Turnkey
We’ve been setting up POS systems since 2009, and the people who work here stay. The Hartford Business Journal named Turnkey its #1 Best Place to Work, and we hold a five-star Google reputation. Here’s what that looks like for you:
- A real person answers. Your partner manager picks up first, our technical team solves what they can’t, and when something needs Square itself, we have a direct line to a named Square account manager.
- Your agents stay your agents. We hold an agreement not to go after a sub-ISO’s agents. They can attend the weekly training, but they can’t come around you to us.
- You keep what you build. Once a merchant is on Square under you, no rep can underbid you with a cheaper Square, and your residual keeps paying whether you’re actively selling or not.
- We deploy so you can sell. Menus, hardware, printers, staff training and in-person go-live are ours, so your time goes into the next deal.
- No minimums, no quotas, no exclusivity. Keep selling what already works, and bring Square in when it fits.
That’s the short list. The full breakdown is in our guide to the best Square reseller program.
What You Earn in the Square ISO Program
Square pays you a share of what it earns on your merchants, every month they process. Square issues a true Schedule A and splits everything above interchange, with no cents-per-transaction add-ons, no basis-point override, and no monthly fees on top. Whatever comes in above interchange is what gets divided, at your program’s percentage. On lower-ticket merchants, a clean 80% split with nothing taken out first can out-earn an 95% to 100% split somewhere else. How the split is calculated is worth understanding before you compare any program.
Square’s other products pay you too. Square shares the revenue on its ancillary products (banking, cash advances, the Square credit card and payroll) on top of your processing split. SaaS fees are excluded. Every product a merchant adds also makes the account harder to unseat.
Here’s the timeline. Your residual clock starts with your merchant’s first month of processing. The report arrives about fifteen days after the month closes, and you’re paid by the end of the following month, so June’s residual is in your account before the end of July. The Square reseller portal shows every account and what it earned, so you never wait on a spreadsheet to know where you stand.
What to Know Before You Count Your Residual
Every channel has trade-offs, and you should hear them from us.
- Square’s pricing is fixed. It’s the same no matter who sells it, which protects your accounts from underbidding. It also means you can’t win a deal by cutting the rate. You win on service, deployment and workflow.
- Chargebacks can touch your residual. Square doesn’t charge a standard chargeback fee. But if it can’t recover a chargeback balance from the merchant, it can claw those funds back from your merchant margins before paying the rest of your residual.
- Your first deposit takes a cycle. Because the report lands after the month closes and payment follows the next month, there’s a gap between boarding a merchant and your first deposit. Plan your cash flow around it.
- Read your agreement. Published terms and signed terms aren’t always the same document. That’s why our application says you’ll see the terms before you sign anything.
After the Sale: Who Handles What
A residual is only worth what the account stays worth, and accounts stay when the first week goes right.
Deployment is mostly done before we arrive. Square’s AI and its WoFlow integration pull a merchant’s existing menu from their current POS or website into a working Square build in fifteen to twenty minutes. That’s about ninety percent of the install. The last ten percent is physical: printer routing, modifier mapping, KDS configuration, staff training and go-live coverage. Turnkey handles it in person. If you’d rather deploy yourself, you can take it on for a larger split.
Support climbs a ladder, and nobody gets put through twenty questions to prove they deserve help.
- You bring the issue.
- Your Turnkey partner manager takes it first.
- Turnkey technical support solves what needs deeper troubleshooting.
- Our direct line to Square handles whatever we can’t, through a named Square account manager.
Restaurants get delivery without re-keying. DoorDash and Grubhub connect directly through the Square Dashboard, and a restaurant on several delivery apps can add an integration from the Square App Marketplace that pulls every app into one feed and prints each order as a kitchen ticket. Delivery orders reach the kitchen the same way dine-in orders do. The field guide covers how to pitch it.
How To Sell Square Once You're In: The Square Sales Academy
Open on the merchant’s operations, not the rate. Ask them to walk you through a typical transaction, from the customer walking in to the money hitting their account, then let them talk. Their answer shows you where their current system slows them down, and that’s where Square wins. The strongest fits are restaurants and bars, salons and barbershops, contractors and home services, and professional services and retail.
You don’t have to learn it alone. Our weekly Square Sales Academy is a live training taught from real Square deals in the field. You’ll work through:
- Winning the switch: how to beat Toast, Clover and SkyTab and answer the fears that stop an owner from switching
- Industry playbooks: what keeps each type of owner up at night, from quick-service restaurants to salons and barbershops
- Pricing and quoting scenarios: which plan to quote and why, how to show total cost against a competitor, and when cash discounting fits
- Square product knowledge and updates: the full lineup and every new release, so you’re never behind the merchant
- Demos and onboarding: building a demo on the merchant’s own menu in minutes
It’s free for every Turnkey partner and open to your whole team. Every session is recorded, so one you miss isn’t lost, and you can sit in before you sign anything. For the discovery questions, the objections you’ll hear, and what to say when a Toast rep has already been in, read our guide to selling Square POS.
Start Selling Square Through Turnkey
Turnkey Processing is a Square partner and a registered ISO. We hold the Square relationship, we deploy the system in the merchant’s business, and we pay your residual every month for as long as the account processes. You bring the relationships.
Start your Square reseller application. It takes under five minutes, there’s no obligation, and you’ll see the terms before you sign anything. If you’d rather ask questions first, talk to our team.
Want to know all the detaisl first? Read how to become a Square reseller. Want to know what the product does before you sell it? Square POS covers it by business type.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to be a registered ISO to sell Square POS?
Is there a Square ISO program I can apply to?
Can I sell Square as an independent agent with no company behind me?
Who handles underwriting and compliance if I am not registered?
What happens to my residual if a merchant charges back?
How much can I earn as a Square reseller?
When do I get paid?
Can I keep selling other POS systems?
How long does it take to start selling Square?
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