Just more than a year since it initiated monthly pricing, the mobile payment startup Square will do away with those plans, effective in February. Customers on the monthly plan will receive a bill on Jan. 2 that covers the rest of January; thereafter, they will be charged per transaction.

According to the Square website, those fees are 2.75 percent per swipe or online sale, and 3.5 percent plus 15 cents for manually entered transactions. Beyond promising to save businesses money, the monthly plans were also meant to bring transparency to merchant acquirer and payment processing plans that are typically opaque by design.

Square told The Next Web that the monthly plans, which allowed customers to pay $275 per month with no contract or additional fees, were meant to offer pricing flexibility for larger businesses, but that many customers complained that caps and limits were limiting growth. Businesses on the monthly plan could process up to $250,000 per year, but then were required to pay the standard 2.75 percent rate.

"Caps and limits in the program were inhibiting growth — at a certain point, rates went back up the more you sold," Square said in a statement posted on its website.

Higher-volume Square customers may be able to negotiate lower per-swipe rates, but Square has declined to discuss that publicly.

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