Square Canada recently released a study detailing the best and worst cities in the country when it comes to tipping. Data was taken from the company’s five biggest markets and over 52,000 merchants using the company’s mobile payments system.
Here’s the data released from their study:
1. Ottawans tip 76.7 per cent of the time with an average tip of 15.6 per cent.
2 and 3: Montreal and Toronto, who tip an average of 14.4 and 14.5 per cent on their bills, respectively.
4. Calgary comes in fourth place, tipping an average of 13.3 per cent, but only 59.4 per cent of Calgarians left a tip when they had the opportunity.
5. Vancouver came in with an average tipping amount of 13.4 per cent with 62 per cent of transactions being tipped.
Square also mentioned Montreallers tip more often than Torontonians at 70.4 per cent vs. 65.5 per cent. They also mentioned 45 to 50 percent of Square transactions involve a tip.
How often do you tip and how much? Where are you located?
Square branched outside the U.S. And entered Canada during the fall of 2012. The mobile payments company is backed by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.
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Very interesting. However if they decided to leave a cash tip, I’m sure this would affect the results. Maybe Vancouverites and Calgarians leave more cash tips? But as a previous server in Vancouver, I can tell you that people in Vancouver tip poorly. (And no, I wasn’t a bad server) haha
Hehe I’ve worked in the service industry too. You gotta hustle if you want to make fat stacks!
Tipping cash is irrelevant if you pay by credit.
A lot of customers pay credit but tip cash so this wouldn’t show up in Square’s stats. So their percentage of people who left a tip is going to be completely off.
there’s also the issue of whether it’s a takeout order or not. for example, my company gets a lot of takeout orders. of course in that case the customer won’t be tipping much!
Good point.
Really? As a Montrealer, takeout is when I tip most!
I wonder what Square Canada is going to share next. Or have shared at the time of posting 🙂
As a stats nerd, I’m a bit concerned about sampling bias as I have never seen square used in a situation that warrants tippin out here in Calgary. Only seen it for retail purchases at places like a farmer’s market/flea market.
Bold headlines to catch people’s attention with little and weak stats to back it up. I’ve never seen Square used in a scenario in Vancouver where tipping would be relevant. I frequent restaurants, and to me, this study doesn’t apply to restaurants, never seen Square there.
Vancouver is an expensive place to live maybe that’s why they tip less there.
Maybe they don’t have enough merchants in each category to do a proper analysis? I think cash is used more in van because of the foreigners than in Toronto.