Payment Processors · reliability comparison

Shift4 Payments vs Square Payments: which is more reliable? (2026)

Shift4 Payments is more reliable than Square Payments, scoring 57.8 vs 53.3 out of 100. Over the last 90 days Shift4 Payments reported 5 incidents and Square Payments reported 12, with effective uptime of 99.36% and 98.93% respectively. Square Payments resolves incidents faster on average (12h 49m).

Data updated Nov 1, 2026 · How we score

Shift4 Payments

57.8/100

Operational

Visit Shift4 Payments ↗

Square Payments

53.3/100

Operational

Visit Square Payments ↗
VS
MetricShift4 PaymentsSquare Payments
Reliability score57.853.3
Rank (payment processors)#6#8
Uptime (90 days)99.36%98.93%
Incidents (90 days)512
Partial / major outages20
Avg time to resolve19h 29m12h 49m
Outages we detected00
Transparency score100/100100/100

Where Shift4 Payments and Square Payments differ

  • Square Payments reported 2.4× as many incidents as Shift4 Payments over the last 90 days (12 vs 5).
  • Shift4 Payments had 2 partial or major outages, compared with 0 for Square Payments.
  • Square Payments fixes problems faster: 12h 49m on average, against 19h 29m for Shift4 Payments.
  • Shift4 Payments's longest outage on record lasted 3h 24m (Aug 24, 2026); Square Payments's lasted 17h 43m (Apr 30, 2026).

90-day uptime

Shift4 Payments

Aug 4, 2026 – Aug 23, 2026: no incidentsAug 24, 2026: 92.92% uptime, 1 incident (Partial outage)Aug 25, 2026 – Sep 9, 2026: no incidentsSep 10, 2026: 95.74% uptime, 1 incident (Major outage)Sep 11, 2026 – Oct 21, 2026: no incidentsOct 22, 2026: 92.49% uptime, 2 incidents (Degraded performance)Oct 23, 2026: 85.00% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Oct 24, 2026: 85.00% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Oct 25, 2026: 91.58% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Oct 26, 2026 – Nov 1, 2026: no incidents
90 days ago99.363% average daily uptimeToday

Square Payments

Aug 4, 2026: 98.06% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Aug 5, 2026: 85.00% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Aug 6, 2026: 85.00% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Aug 7, 2026: 86.93% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Aug 8, 2026 – Aug 14, 2026: no incidentsAug 15, 2026: 99.20% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Aug 16, 2026 – Aug 17, 2026: no incidentsAug 18, 2026: 98.71% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Aug 19, 2026 – Aug 23, 2026: no incidentsAug 24, 2026: 99.82% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Aug 25, 2026 – Sep 9, 2026: no incidentsSep 10, 2026: 99.82% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Sep 11, 2026 – Sep 13, 2026: no incidentsSep 14, 2026: 99.36% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Sep 15, 2026: no incidentsSep 16, 2026: 99.64% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Sep 17, 2026: no incidentsSep 18, 2026: 88.11% uptime, 2 incidents (Degraded performance)Sep 19, 2026 – Sep 20, 2026: no incidentsSep 21, 2026: 97.29% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Sep 22, 2026: 85.00% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Sep 23, 2026: 85.00% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Sep 24, 2026: 99.61% uptime, 2 incidents (Degraded performance)Sep 25, 2026 – Sep 26, 2026: no incidentsSep 27, 2026: 97.23% uptime, 1 incident (Degraded performance)Sep 28, 2026 – Nov 1, 2026: no incidents
90 days ago98.931% average daily uptimeToday

Recent Shift4 Payments incidents

  • Degraded performanceOct 22, 2026 · resolved in 7d 4h

    Funding Delay

    Affected: Merchant Funding USA, Card Processing

  • Degraded performanceOct 22, 2026 · resolved in 1h 29m

    Timeouts for US processing 10/22/26

    Affected: TSYS, Shift4 Dine POS - US, eCommerce, Shift4 One, Shift4 Venue Payments (US)

  • InformationalSep 11, 2026 · resolved in 53m

    Processing Disruption

    Affected: Shift4 Dine POS - US, Shift4 Dine POS - Canada, Shift4 Dine POS - UK/EU, Shift4 Dine Mobile, Shift4 Dine Online Ordering, Shift4 Dine Kiosk

  • Major outageSep 10, 2026 · resolved in 1h 1m

    Eigen Processing Disruption

    Affected: Eigen Gateway

  • Partial outageAug 24, 2026 · resolved in 3h 24m

    Partial Funding Delay - 8-24-2026

    Affected: Merchant Funding USA

Full Shift4 Payments reliability report →

Recent Square Payments incidents

Full Square Payments reliability report →

Other payment processors to consider

See the full most reliable payment processors ranking →