Your Square account knows what's happening in your shop. Square Sidekick tells you in real time.
Low stock, refunds, discounts, gift cards, top customers, labor. Built by a cafe owner, for iPhone.
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had a staff member handing their employee discount to random customers. against our rules. square doesnt ping you when that happens. you only catch it later in reports if you dig.
so i built a discount used alert in square sidekick. phone buzzes when one hits. staff comps, loyalty, all of it on one screen.
anybody else wishing square just told you when discounts go out?
oat milk died mid rush yesterday. square knew. i found out when someone yelled from the bar.
turned on low stock alerts for the few things that actually kill service. oat. almond. the croissant that vanishes by 11.
still tweaking the numbers. anyone else actually using square inventory alerts or do you just wing it?
Someone rang 50% off a latte this morning. Only caught it cause my phone buzzed.
Discount alert on Square. You pick which ones matter.
Do other cafe people catch comps real-time somehow or are you just finding them at close?
My wife said it first.
“Would be nice to know when the cafe is busy… like, the last hour did 30 tickets. Then I’d send help.”
Jewelry might be busy at 5 an hour. Coffee at 30–40. You set the number.
This is the rule live at Noe. 37 tickets in the last hour. Armed at 25.
Built by a cafe on Square, for other Square sellers.
App Store: Square SideKick
🤖 Made with AI
I run two cafes on Square. We all got tired of checking the Dashboard app 50 times a day to see if a refund happened or a big sale came in.
So I built an app that sends you a push notification the second anything happens in your POS. Sales, refunds, tips, inventory alerts, daily goals — all of it.
Square doesn't do this. Nobody in the App Marketplace does either.
Free to try on iOS: squaresidekick.com
Hey @Square sellers: big news.
Your AI phone agent is live.
In under 5 minutes you can:
- claim a local US business number
- connect Square securely via OAuth
- handle simultaneous inbound calls with AI
- send secure payment links via SMS
- route paid orders into your KDS
Free tier: 50 minutes/month.
Start: voice.squaresidekick.com
Outbound? @openclaw users: free outbound calling skill drop in the next post ↓
🦞
@openclaw Operators:
We build free outbound calling. The skill is live.
Use your Sidekick account/API key, install the skill, and your agent can place real outbound calls in minutes.
Free tier: 50 minutes/month.
Start: voice.squaresidekick.com
Skill: github.com/square-sidekick/s…
enjoy!
🦞
Codex CLI usage for 1d 7h 57m:
Token usage: total=1,998,347 input=1,842,880 (+ 42,355,200 cached) output=155,467 (reasoning 38,336).
🚀 On April 1st, I sketched an idea in my café. Six months later, it’s real: Square Sidekick — a powerful iOS app built by a business owner for business owners.
I’ve used Square for over 10 years — first as a sales engineer, now as a San Francisco café owner running my business on it.
But getting real-time alerts was nonexistent, until now.
So, I built my own. Nights. Weekends. No investors. Just obsession and caffeine. ☕
Building Sidekick was intense and rewarding.
No big team or funding—just long nights, quality espresso, and top tools.
How I built it:
- Xcode + Swift/SwiftUI for iOS
- Node.js + PostgreSQL on Fly.io
- Grok for early code reviews (>500 LOC)
- Codex CLI for rapid iteration
- Gemini 2.5 Pro + Gemini CLI for backend/frontend polish
- ChatGPT (o3) for mockups and ideation
- AppLaunchpad for App Store visuals
Stitched together through persistence.
After six months of work, Sidekick is live and free on TestFlight. I'll send your invite now.
It started as a late-night café idea and now helps business owners track sales, refunds, and orders instantly.
We're in alpha and seek honest feedback from Square sellers and business owners. It supports all your Square locations, from one shop to hundreds.
- DM me for early access (no sign-up or credit card).
- Or join the waitlist at squaresidekick.com for your TestFlight access code.
- Based in Noe Valley, San Francisco, for anyone wanting to connect IRL.
Thanks to the AI dev community and fellow founders for supporting this build. 🙏
Huge thanks to the tools and communities that made Sidekick possible:
@xai (Grok)
@OpenAI (ChatGPT o3)
@GoogleAI + @GoogleDeepMind (Gemini 2.5 Pro + CLI)
@flydotio (backend hosting)
@theapplaunchpad (screenshots)
@swiftlang + @Apple (iOS, Swift, SwiftUI)
@alexfinn (for Xcode learning inspiration 🙌)
@DavidOndrej1 (for coding guidance & inspiration)
--and many others.
Couldn’t have done it without this ecosystem.
More to come! 🚀
-Christian













