> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Total Customers (Directory), Square Online > Total Customers (Directory): the count of customer profiles in your Square Customers Directory. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Card class:** [Non-Hero](/nerve-centre/overview#card-classes-explained) • **Category:** [Ecommerce Platform](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) > 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. | | | | ---------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **What it counts** | The number of customer profiles in the Square Customers Directory. Each profile is one record, regardless of how many orders that customer has placed. | | **How profiles are created** | Square tags each profile with a `creation_source`, such as `TERMINAL` (created at a Square POS register), `ONLINE_STORE` (created during Square Online checkout), `INVOICE` (created when an invoice was sent), and others. This card counts profiles from every source. | | **POS vs online scope** | **All sources combined.** A walk-in who gave their email at the register and a web shopper who checked out online are both one profile each here. To split capture channel, see [Customer Capture Source (POS vs Online)](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square-online/customer-capture-source-pos-vs-online). | | **Currency / unit** | Whole number (count of profiles). No currency. | | **Time window** | `RT` (real time). The count reflects the current size of the Directory. | | **Alert trigger** | No alert. This is a reference audience-size number. A sudden drop (a bad merge or delete) or spike (a bulk import) is worth a manual check. | | **Roles** | owner, marketing | | **What inflates it** | Duplicate profiles. The same person can have multiple records if they checked out as a guest, were added manually, and gave their email at the till on different visits. Square offers merge tooling; un-merged duplicates inflate this count. | | **What it does not measure** | Engagement. A profile with no email, no consent, or no recent order still counts. For the reachable subset, see [Email Opted-In Customers](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square-online/email-opted-in-customers-directory). | ## 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. | Profile source (`creation_source`) | Profiles | Has email | Email opted-in | | --------------------------------------- | ---------- | --------- | -------------- | | TERMINAL (created at POS register) | 9,400 | 3,100 | 1,200 | | ONLINE\_STORE (created at web checkout) | 4,250 | 4,250 | 2,900 | | INVOICE (created from an invoice) | 180 | 180 | 60 | | Manually added / imported | 520 | 480 | 210 | | Likely duplicates (un-merged) | 640 | 410 | 180 | | **Total Customers (this card)** | **14,990** | | | Three things to notice: 1. **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. 2. **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. 3. **This is the denominator for engagement cards.** [Email Opted-In Customers](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square-online/email-opted-in-customers-directory) and [High-Value Square Customers Unengaged on Email](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square-online/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 | Card | Why pair it with Total Customers (Directory) | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Email Opted-In Customers (Directory)](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square-online/email-opted-in-customers-directory) | The reachable subset of this total. Opt-in count divided by this number is your email-permission rate, a core marketing health metric. | | [Customer Capture Source (POS vs Online)](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square-online/customer-capture-source-pos-vs-online) | Splits this total by `creation_source`. Shows whether your directory is growing from the register or the web. | | [New Customers](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square-online/new-customers) | The flow that grows this stock. New customers per period tells you how fast the directory is expanding. | | [Repeat Purchase Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square-online/repeat-purchase-rate) | How many of these profiles come back. A large directory with low repeat rate signals weak retention. | | [High-Value Square Customers Unengaged on Email](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square-online/high-value-square-customers-unengaged-on-email) | The revenue-at-risk slice of this directory, top spenders you are not reaching by email. | | [Total Orders](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square-online/total-orders) | Orders divided by customers approximates orders-per-customer, a rough loyalty read across the directory. | ## Reconciling against Square **Where to look in the Square Dashboard:** [Square Dashboard, Customers, Directory](https://squareup.com/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](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square-online/email-opted-in-customers-directory) figure, not this card. **Why our number may legitimately differ from Square Dashboard:** | Reason | Direction of divergence | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------- | | **Active group or filter**. A customer group or search left applied narrows the dashboard count. | Dashboard lower with a filter applied | | **Un-merged duplicates**. Both this card and the Directory count un-merged duplicates until you merge them, so the two should agree. A recent merge spree lowers both. | Aligned; both fall after a merge | | **Imports in flight**. A bulk customer import may take a short cycle to reach our index. | Self-resolves within minutes | | **Deletes and merges**. A profile deleted or merged in Square is removed from both; timing of the sync can briefly differ. | Self-resolves within minutes | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Square Orders to Email Attribution](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square-online/square-orders-email-attribution) | The email platform's audience should be at or below the opted-in subset of this directory | Your email platform (Klaviyo, Dotdigital, Mailchimp) only holds contacts that synced and consented. Its list size should never exceed your opted-in Square profiles; if it does, you have contacts in the email tool that never existed in Square. | | [`klaviyo`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/klaviyo) | Email-platform profile count tracks the synced, consented subset | Sync rules, suppression lists, and double opt-in all shrink the email-platform list relative to the raw Square directory. | **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. ***
Same-metric documentation cross-reference (for agencies running multiple platforms) The same definition of total customers lives on other commerce platforms. This is **not a reconciliation**, your Square directory has no parallel customer list on Shopify or BigCommerce. These links exist so agencies running multi-platform client books can navigate between equivalent metrics across the docs. * [`shopify.total-customers`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/total-customers) * [`bigcommerce.total-customers`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/total-customers)
## 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 a `creation_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)](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square-online/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](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square-online/email-opted-in-customers-directory) 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](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square-online/square-orders-email-attribution) and check the email platform's import history. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Total Customers (Directory)* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Square Online and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. [Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.