Hi @drcarr welcome to the forums!
You’re totally right, there are a lot of options to choose from. I’ll try to break it down at a high-level, and can gladly answer additional questions that may arise.
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Square Payment Form - it sounds like you started here; basically these are credit card fields you can embed on your own website. However, you’ll also need to implement a backend to call the Payments API to actually handle the payment (the form only creates a secure token called a
nonce, but doesn’t charge the customer). This is the most flexible option, but it does require the most work since you need to be familiar with coding and backend development. - Square Checkout Links - these are much less flexible, but much easier to use. You can basically create a “checkout link” (which is a Square-hosted checkout page) from an item in your Square catalog, or simply an amount. You can then embed this link on your website via a simple link or even embedded button that a customer can click. The entire transaction takes place off of your website, though.
- Square Online - a free way to quickly start selling all of your items through Square, although since you already have a website this may not be ideal for you. However, it is quick and easy, and looks good!
- Square App Marketplace - this is a marketplace of Square partners (only applications that get approved by our internal teams are allowed on here at this time). There are integrations from full ecom solutions to tax or inventory management. Some of these are free and some of these are paid services, but the beauty is they do not require any coding/development on your part and may completely provide a solution for you.
If you prefer sticking to just our APIs, I’m happy to help dive into those questions (like why your payment form isn’t working), just let me know.