Square KDS: price per device, supported screens, routing and limits

Square KDS is Square's kitchen display app. It costs $30 per month per device with Square Plus or $20 per month per device with Square Premium, and it is not available on Square Free. It runs only on Android tablets; the iPad version stopped working on January 12, 2026. Square sells 10.1-inch, 15.6-inch and 21.5-inch screens for it.

Our kitchen display guide compares Square with Toast, Clover, Lightspeed, Shift4 and Fresh KDS and has a mock-rush test. This page goes deeper on Square alone: the cost per screen on each plan, which devices work, how to route tickets, the settings to make before service and the limits in Square's help center. For Square's other fees, see our Square pricing guide.

What does Square KDS cost for your number of screens?

You pay for the Square plan per location and for the KDS app per screen. Square's KDS page prints the app price, and Square's pricing page prints Square Plus at $49/mo. and Square Premium at $149/mo., each per location. The sums below are our arithmetic on those prices for one location, before tax and card fees.

KDS screens	Square Plus: $49 plan + $30 per screen	Square Premium: $149 plan + $20 per screen
1 screen	Plus with 1 screen: $79/mo.	Premium with 1 screen: $169/mo.
2 screens	Plus with 2 screens: $109/mo.	Premium with 2 screens: $189/mo.
3 screens	Plus with 3 screens: $139/mo.	Premium with 3 screens: $209/mo.
5 screens	Plus with 5 screens: $199/mo.	Premium with 5 screens: $249/mo.
10 screens	Plus with 10 screens: $349/mo.	Premium with 10 screens: $349/mo.

Premium's plan fee is $100 more and it saves $10 on each screen, so the two cost the same at ten screens and Premium costs less above that. Premium also lowers the in-person card rate from 2.5% + 15¢ to 2.4% + 15¢. That 0.1 point is worth $1 for every $1,000 of card sales. With three screens, the $70 monthly gap closes at $70,000 a month in in-person card sales. Square's KDS page recommends Premium for restaurants that need several KDS stations and a more advanced POS, and Premium includes other features, so compare the two plan lists as well.

Screens are extra. Square's accessories shop lists Kitchen Display System touchscreens at $699 (10.1-inch), $749 (15.6-inch) and $899 (21.5-inch). An articulating wall mount is $99. Three 15.6-inch screens cost $2,247 before tax and shipping, or $2,544 with a wall mount for each.

Which devices does Square KDS run on?

Square's setup guide lists three MicroTouch screens (10.1, 15.6 and 21.5 inches) and says to pick one of them for kitchens with grease or heat. Other Android devices can run the app. Square says it cannot promise how the app will look on them, and it gives the listed devices priority for bug support. It recommends at least 3 GB of RAM, the Google Play Store and Android 9 or later.

• Mounting: the larger screens take Square's optional arm mount or any 100 x 100 mm VESA mount.
• Screen size: Square's iOS migration article says the 21.5-inch screen shows up to 18 tickets at once.
• If you still use iPads: the same article offers two routes: move to Android, or keep the iPads and connect Fresh KDS, a partner app, to your Square account.

How do you route orders to each screen?

Each screen is one device code, set up as a Prep or an Expeditor (Expo) station in Square Dashboard. Then you choose what each one shows.

Setting	What it does	Watch for
Source and fulfillment	Shows orders from chosen POS devices, and separately online, kiosk and delayed-fulfillment orders	Both toggles must be on for a screen to see both kinds
Kitchen routing categories	Sends items to a screen by a category you make for the kitchen; menu and reports are unchanged	Square's missing-orders guide lists an item left out of its category as a cause of missing tickets
Dining options	Sends Dine-In, To-Go or Delivery tickets to their own screen	Applies to POS orders only; online orders named Pickup or Delivery are left out
Completion	"Complete for all devices" or "Complete only on this device"	A Prep screen set to complete for all clears the other Prep screens and puts a green check on Expo

These rules come from Square's articles on routing orders, filtering by category and dining option and completing and recalling orders. Square's own example is a steak house: the grill completes the steak on its screen while the vegetable station still sees the garnish.

Which ticket settings should you set before the first shift?

1. Layout: pick the ticket layout, number of columns and text size for each screen.
2. Timers and alerts: set when tickets turn yellow and red, and whether a sound plays for new tickets.
3. Modifier colors: give modifier options their own text color, such as red for allergies. The color shows on every screen that shows that modifier.
4. Item order: sort items as entered, alphabetically, by category or by seat, and set the order of modifier sets on the ticket.
5. Staggered prep times: turn these on so quick items appear later and the order finishes together. Each item needs a prep time in your item library first.
6. Coursing: choose whether screens show held and fired courses or only fired ones. Servers fire courses from the POS.

Teach recall on day one. Square gives three seconds to undo a completed item or ticket; after that, staff find it in the Completed tab and tap Recall. If Expo updates third-party orders to Ready, recalling a ticket does not reverse the Ready status on the delivery platform.

What happens when the internet drops?

Square's KDS setup, routing and troubleshooting articles do not say how the KDS behaves without internet, and its offline mode article covers card payments. Test it before you rely on it: turn off the internet during a quiet hour, ring an order and watch the screen. Keep a kitchen printer set up as a backup.

Square's missing-orders guide suggests paper tickets while you restart or update the KDS, and says a restart does not erase settings or open orders. It also notes that an unused device code expires after 48 hours. Our POS offline mode guide covers what Square's payments do offline.

How should you test Square KDS before service?

1. Send one test order from each source: counter, handheld, Square Online, kiosk and each delivery app. Check each lands on the right screen.
2. Ring an item from every kitchen routing category and one with no category.
3. Send a To-Go order from the POS and one from Square Online, and check the dining-option screen.
4. Complete an item on a Prep screen and check what Expo shows.
5. Complete a ticket by mistake, wait past three seconds, and time the recall.

If phone orders reach your kitchen through a service, include one in the test. Maple Pro lists Square among the POS systems it writes phone orders into, and the Square integration page lists what to test with your own menu.

Published by Maple. This AI-assisted guide combines Square's own US KDS, pricing, shop and help-center pages with an original cost table on Square's printed prices. It does not report hands-on testing of Square KDS or a quote from Square.