As a platform, Square exposes several different APIs that cover different needs.
- E-commerce API, with which you can take payments using
- Register API, which can be used to build your own applications for in-store or mobile payments.
- Item & inventory management API.
- Sales reporting & Analytics API.
- Employee management API.
Square is currently maintaining two versions of the API, Connect v1 and Connect v2. There’s also an SDK for the Register API. It is possible that you might need to use both v1 and v2 of the Connect API, as not all endpoints have been implemented in the second and newest version. Mixing the two API versions together is encouraged by Square.
All the APIs that Square exposes are web APIs. As Web APIs follow the RESTful architecture principles, they can be accessed through HTTP. As a RESTful API, interacting with it can be achieved by using tools like CURL or Postman or by using HTTP clients for your favourite language or framework. A few suggestions:
Square also maintains official SDKs or libraries for the following languages:
Because of the popularity of Square, a number of unofficial libraries/SDKs are also implemented, so a quick search on Google or Github will help you find a library for your favourite framework or language.
Square API Authentication
In order to use the Square API, you first need to register a new application with Square. By doing that, you are also generating credentials that will be used to access the API endpoints.
To register your application:
- Go to
https://connect.squareup.com/apps
and sign in to your Square account. - Click New Application and enter a name for your application.
- Click Create App.
The application dashboard displays your new app’s credentials. One of these credentials is the personal access token. This token gives your application full access to your own Square account. Copy its value to use in the next step.
Square API Rate Limiting
If Connect API endpoints receive too many requests associated with the same application or access token in a short time window, they might respond with a 429 Too Many Requests error. If this occurs, try your request again at a later time. The current rate is on the order of 10 QPS. This might change in the future and is not officially documented, so make sure that you properly handle our requests and responses.
Pull Data from the Square Platform
As mentioned earlier, Square exposes a number of APIs for different applications. Thus each one offers different opportunities for pulling useful data out of it. In this post, we will focus on how to get meaningful data out of the Square Connect API that can be used for analytics.
The Square Connect API allows us to use the Square platform to execute payment transactions, so a large number of endpoints are related to these tasks. We do not need to access these endpoints for analytic purposes. In a payment system, what we need to track and use as data for further analysis are events related to what is happening on our system. For example, we would like to be able to track when a new payment had happened, when