Comparison
OhLocal vs Square Feedback
Short version: Square Feedback is a private suggestion box attached to your digital receipts. It is genuinely useful — and it will never, by design, produce a single public Google review. If public reviews and a customer list you own are what you are after, it is not the tool. If a private quality-control channel is all you want, it might be.
| Square Feedback | OhLocal | |
|---|---|---|
| What a customer's comment becomes | A private note in your Square dashboard | A public Google review the next customer can find |
| Public Google reviews generated | Never — feedback is private by design | The whole point — one tap opens the real Google review form |
| Reaches customers who skip the receipt | No — it rides on Square digital receipts (email or text) | Yes — QR card or short link; no receipt, no phone number needed |
| Cash customers | Mostly invisible | Covered — the QR card works for everyone who walks out |
| Private feedback channel | Yes — that is what it is | Yes — offered alongside the public links, never instead of them |
| An email list you own and can export | No | Yes — view and export free on every tier, forever |
| Requires a specific POS | Yes — Square only | Works with any POS, or none at all |
| Price | Included with Square | Free tier; paid plans from $29/mo |
What Square Feedback actually is
When a customer takes a digital receipt from a Square POS, the receipt includes a prompt to rate the visit and leave a comment. That comment goes to your Square dashboard, privately. You can reply, and even attach a coupon to win the customer back. For what it is — a free, zero-setup private feedback loop — it is well built, and it comes with the POS you already pay for.
The one thing it will never do
None of that feedback ever becomes public. A hundred glowing comments in your Square dashboard add zero stars to your Google rating, zero reviews to your profile, and zero weight to how you rank on the map. The customer who searches “nail salon near me” tomorrow sees none of it. Private feedback is a mirror; public reviews are a storefront. Square only sells the mirror.
There is a second gap: Square Feedback only reaches customers who take a digital receipt. The customer who pays cash, taps and waves off the receipt, or was rung up by the other register is invisible to it. For a walk-in business, that is a large share of everyone who came in.
What OhLocal does instead
A QR card at the register and a short link on the receipt create a customer touchpoint where no record existed — no receipt, no phone number, no POS integration required. One tap opens the real Google review form (empty, never pre-filled — that is deliberate; see the FAQ). A private feedback door sits alongside the public links — alongside, never as a filter in front of them. And an email signup turns the visit into a contact you own: viewing and exporting your list is free on every tier, forever.
When Square Feedback is enough
Honestly: if you run on Square, most of your customers take digital receipts, and what you want is a private early-warning channel for quality problems — not public reviews, not a marketing list — then Square Feedback is free, already in your dashboard, and you should just use it. You can also run both: Square for private operational feedback, OhLocal for the public reviews and the list. They do not overlap.
But if the thing you actually want is more Google reviews from the customers who walk out the door every day, no amount of private feedback gets you there. That is the half we built for.
Questions? hello@ohlocal.co