# Square Appointments (Bookings API) vs TheFork B2B API

> Square Appointments scores 68.1 (B) to TheFork B2B's 43.6 (E) for booking availability. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/square-appointments-vs-thefork
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/square-appointments-vs-thefork.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/square-appointments-vs-thefork.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/square-appointments-vs-thefork.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-15

Square Appointments (Bookings API) scores 68.1 (B) on agent readiness against TheFork B2B API's 43.6 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do booking availability.

- Square Appointments (Bookings API): grade B, 68.1/100, rank #245 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/square-appointments.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/square-appointments.json
- TheFork B2B API: grade E, 43.6/100, rank #966 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/thefork.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/thefork.json
- Best restaurant reservation and local appointment APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/local-bookings/index.md
- All 36 bookings comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/local-bookings/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Square Appointments (Bookings API) (B)

Good for: Venue-side appointment booking for salons, clinics and other service businesses already on Square.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 55 against 35
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 56
- Security & auth, 70 against 42
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 5
- Maintenance & community, 71 against 15
- Transparency & trust, 70 against 47

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: Seller-level create, update and cancel fail with 403 unless the seller pays for Plus ($49) or Premium ($149) per location

### TheFork B2B API (E)

Good for: CRM, PMS and AI phone-agent vendors and restaurant groups that run on TheFork Manager, mainly in Europe.

Watch for: Venue-side only. Credentials cover the restaurants that granted access, and no endpoint lists restaurants


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Square Appointments (Bookings API) | TheFork B2B API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 35 | Square Appointments (Bookings API) +20 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 87 | Square Appointments (Bookings API) +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 56 | Square Appointments (Bookings API) +24 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 70 | 42 | Square Appointments (Bookings API) +28 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 5 | Square Appointments (Bookings API) +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 15 | Square Appointments (Bookings API) +56 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 47 | Square Appointments (Bookings API) +23 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **68.1 · B** | **43.6 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Square Appointments (Bookings API) | TheFork B2B API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Block, Inc. | TheFork (La Fourchette SAS) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://connect.squareup.com/v2/bookings` | `https://api.thefork.io/manager` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Freemium | Your plan |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Square Developer Terms of Service. The OpenAPI specification and MCP server are Apache 2.0 | Proprietary service under TheFork Partners API Terms of Use (La Fourchette SAS) and any core agreement with TheFork |
| Tools exposed | 3 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-16 | none |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-10 |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-15 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |

## Verdicts

**Square Appointments (Bookings API).** The Bookings API lets an agent working for a Square seller search availability and create, change and cancel appointments, with a public OpenAPI spec, appointment OAuth scopes and idempotency keys. It acts for the venue. Seller-level writes need Plus or Premium, services with a no-show fee can't be booked through it, and it hasn't changed since September 2024.

**TheFork B2B API.** A venue-side API with a generated OpenAPI 3.1 schema, an llms.txt written for agents and nine OAuth scopes down to read-only availability. It acts for restaurants and their vendors, not diners, needs partner approval, cannot take card guarantees, and has no public status page, changelog or published prices.

## Before you call either

### Square Appointments (Bookings API)

1. Act for the seller. This API books into one Square seller's calendar, not across businesses
2. Call RetrieveBusinessBookingProfile and check `support_seller_level_writes` before trying to create or cancel a seller-level booking
3. Call SearchAvailability first, then CreateBooking with the service variation ID and version, team member, location and customer
4. Send a fresh `idempotency_key` on each create, update or cancel, and pass `booking_version` when cancelling
5. Check `no_show_fee` on the service. A service with a non-zero fee must be booked by the customer elsewhere

### TheFork B2B API

1. Read hasPaymentGuaranteeRequirement in the timeslots response before booking, since the API cannot take a card
2. Check the status field after creating a reservation and treat REQUESTED as unconfirmed
3. Send the timeslot datetime unchanged as mealDate, because times are the restaurant's local time
4. Check for an existing reservation before retrying a failed POST, as no idempotency key exists and 409 signals DOUBLE_BOOKING
5. Cache the access token for its 8,600 seconds and do not request a new one while it is valid

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Square Appointments (Bookings API) or TheFork B2B API?

Square Appointments (Bookings API) scores 68.1 (B) on agent readiness against TheFork B2B API's 43.6 (E), and leads in every scored category.

### Do Square Appointments (Bookings API) and TheFork B2B API need an API key?

Square Appointments (Bookings API) takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. TheFork B2B API uses an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Square Appointments (Bookings API) and TheFork B2B API without installing anything?

Yes. Square Appointments (Bookings API) has a hosted endpoint at https://connect.squareup.com/v2/bookings and TheFork B2B API at https://api.thefork.io/manager.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/square-appointments-vs-thefork.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/square-appointments-vs-thefork.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "square-appointments", "b": "thefork"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare square-appointments thefork`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/square-appointments.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/thefork.json

## Other comparisons with Square Appointments (Bookings API) or TheFork B2B API

- [Chope vs TheFork B2B API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/chope-vs-thefork.md)
- [Eat App Partner API vs TheFork B2B API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/eat-app-vs-thefork.md)
- [Resy vs TheFork B2B API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/resy-vs-thefork.md)
- [TheFork B2B API vs Tock](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/thefork-vs-tock.md)
- [Chope vs Square Appointments (Bookings API)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/chope-vs-square-appointments.md)
- [Eat App Partner API vs Square Appointments (Bookings API)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/eat-app-vs-square-appointments.md)
- [OpenTable APIs vs Square Appointments (Bookings API)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opentable-vs-square-appointments.md)
- [OpenTable APIs vs TheFork B2B API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opentable-vs-thefork.md)
- [Resy vs Square Appointments (Bookings API)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/resy-vs-square-appointments.md)
- [Square Appointments (Bookings API) vs TableCheck API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/square-appointments-vs-tablecheck.md)
- [TableCheck API vs TheFork B2B API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tablecheck-vs-thefork.md)
- [SevenRooms vs Square Appointments (Bookings API)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sevenrooms-vs-square-appointments.md)
- [SevenRooms vs TheFork B2B API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sevenrooms-vs-thefork.md)
- [Square Appointments (Bookings API) vs Tock](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/square-appointments-vs-tock.md)