Total Customers (Directory) for the selected period.
At a glance
The headline count of customer profiles in your Square Customers Directory. This is every profile Square has created or you have added, across in-store (Square POS), web (Square Online), and invoicing. It is the size of your owned audience, the people you could in principle reach by email if they opted in.
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Square Online data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A US bakery on Square. Two cafe locations plus a Square Online storefront for cakes and gift boxes. The Customers Directory snapshot is reviewed on 14 Mar 26.
Three things to notice:
- POS dominates profile count but captures the least email. 9,400 profiles came from the register, but only a third have an email and far fewer opted in. Web checkout captures email almost universally because it is required at checkout. So a directory that looks huge can have a much smaller truly reachable audience, the gap is your email-capture opportunity at the till.
- Duplicates inflate the headline. Roughly 640 records here are likely the same people captured more than once (a guest web order plus a later in-store profile). They count toward this total until merged. Use Square’s customer merge tooling to deflate the number to a true unique-person count.
- This is the denominator for engagement cards. Email Opted-In Customers and High-Value Square Customers Unengaged on Email are both percentages of this total. A big directory with low opt-in is a marketing growth lever sitting idle.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Reconciling against Square
Where to look in the Square Dashboard: Square Dashboard, Customers, Directory. The total at the top of the Directory list is the closest match to this card. Clear any group, filter, or search so you are looking at the full directory. The count includes profiles from every creation source. Other Square Dashboard views that look like the same number but aren’t:- Customers, Directory, total: this DOES match (no filters, full directory).
- A saved customer group: a filtered subset (for example “reachable by email” or “spent over $100”). Smaller than this card.
- Customers, Insights: aggregate behaviour metrics, not a raw profile count.
- Marketing audience size: only the subset eligible for a campaign, typically opted-in customers, which is the Email Opted-In figure, not this card.
Cross-connector reconciliation:
The Square owned-audience advantage: because Square is one merchant of record across POS, web, and invoicing, this single directory is genuinely your whole customer base, in-store regulars and web shoppers in one list. On platforms where POS is separate, the in-store audience often never reaches the online customer record at all, so a unified directory like this is a real Square strength to build marketing on.
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Does this include in-store customers, or only web shoppers? Both. The Square Customers Directory is one list across in-store (Square POS), web (Square Online), and invoicing. Square tags each profile with acreation_source such as TERMINAL, ONLINE_STORE, or INVOICE, but this card counts them all. To split capture channel, use Customer Capture Source (POS vs Online).
Is this the number I can email?
No, this is the full directory. The reachable audience is the subset with an email address and marketing consent, which is the Email Opted-In Customers card. A large total directory with a small opt-in count is a common and very fixable gap, especially for merchants who capture most customers at the register.
Why might this number be higher than my real customer count?
Duplicates. The same person can appear more than once if they checked out as a guest online, were added manually, and gave their email at the till on separate visits. Each is a separate profile until merged. Square provides customer merge tooling; running it lowers this number toward a true unique-person count.
Does a customer with no orders still count?
Yes. A profile counts as soon as it exists, even with zero orders, no email, and no consent. Profiles can be created by a manual add or an import, not only by a purchase. So this card measures profiles on file, not active buyers.
Why is there no alert on this card?
Directory size is a slow-moving reference number. It is here as the denominator for the engagement and capture cards. A sudden drop usually means a merge or delete batch, and a sudden spike usually means an import, both worth a manual check rather than an automated alert.
My email platform shows more contacts than this. How?
That should not happen if the email platform is fed only from Square. If it does, the email tool holds contacts that were never Square customers, imported from another source, added manually, or carried over from a previous platform. Reconcile via Square Orders to Email Attribution and check the email platform’s import history.