Most "how to sell to [big company]" guides start by pointing you at a vendor portal. With Block that's the first place the advice breaks down. Block Inc. (NYSE: XYZ, the company formerly known as Square Inc.) does not publish a click-to-apply supplier registration page you can find from its homepage. If you go looking for block.xyz/suppliers, you get a 404. That absence tells you something useful about how to actually get in.
This guide covers what Block buys, why its procurement is harder to cold-pitch than a Fortune 500 retailer's, and the realistic moves for a diverse-owned business that wants on the vendor list. Where I can't verify a specific portal, program name, or contact, I'll say so plainly instead of pointing you somewhere that doesn't exist.
What Block actually is, and what it buysBlock is not one company. It's a holding company for several businesses, and that shapes everything about procurement. The main units:
- Square — point-of-sale hardware and software for sellers (the white card readers, terminals, restaurant and retail POS).
- Cash App — consumer peer-to-peer payments, stock and bitcoin buying, the Cash App Card.
- Afterpay — buy-now-pay-later, acquired in 2022.
- TIDAL — music streaming.
- Bitkey — a self-custody bitcoin wallet.
A fintech and hardware company of this shape spends across a few obvious categories. Hardware means contract manufacturing, electronic components, injection molding, packaging, logistics, and reverse logistics for the Square readers and terminals. Software and infrastructure means cloud, security tooling, data services, developer tools, and a large stack of SaaS subscriptions. Corporate services covers the same things every big employer buys: facilities, office fit-out, professional services (legal, audit, consulting), marketing and creative agencies, events, travel, and staffing.
The practical read: if you're a hardware components supplier, a specialized professional-services firm, or a marketing/creative shop, you're selling into a real category. If you're a generalist office-supplies reseller, the spend is smaller and more consolidated than at a company with hundreds of physical stores.
How registration actually works at a company like BlockHere's the honest version. I could not verify that Block runs an open, public supplier-registration portal, a named supplier-diversity or supplier-inclusion program, or a published supplier-contact email. So I'm not going to hand you a URL that breaks.
What I can tell you is how procurement works at a tech company of Block's size and stage, because the pattern is consistent. Companies like this almost always run sourcing through a managed procurement platform (the common ones are SAP Ariba, Coupa, Jaggaer, and Oracle), and onboarding into that system is usually invitation-driven, not open-application. A buyer or category manager identifies a need, runs a sourcing event or direct negotiation, and only then sends the chosen supplier an onboarding link to register banking details, tax forms (W-9), insurance certificates, and compliance attestations. The portal is the paperwork step at the end of getting selected, not the front door.
That means the cold-application strategy that works at a 100,000-employee manufacturer mostly doesn't work here. There's no queue to stand in. You get in by getting in front of a buyer.
How to get noticed (the part that matters)Since the front door isn't a form, treat this like enterprise sales, because that's what it is.
Map the buyer, not the company. Block's units buy differently. A Square hardware buyer and a Cash App marketing lead are different people with different budgets. Figure out which unit owns your category before you pitch anyone.
Lead with a specific problem you solve. Procurement and category managers respond to "we cut returns-handling cost 18% for two other hardware brands," not "we'd love to be a partner." Bring named results and dated outcomes.
Use LinkedIn and warm intros. For a company without an open portal, the people working in sourcing, vendor management, and the relevant business unit are findable. A short, specific, no-ask-yet message to the right category manager beats any contact form.
Show up where their buyers are. Industry events, fintech conferences, and supplier-diversity matchmaking sessions (more on that next) put you in the same room as the people who actually sign.
Have your paperwork ready before they ask. When an onboarding link does land, the suppliers who close fast are the ones who already have their W-9, COI, security documentation, and a clean capability statement sitting in a folder. Slow paperwork loses momentum.
The diversity-certification angleI could not verify a named Block supplier-diversity program or a published list of certifications Block recognizes, so I won't invent one. Confirm that directly with Block before you rely on it.
What's true across enterprise procurement generally: a current third-party certification gives a diverse-owned business a real edge, because corporate buyers can count your spend toward their own supplier-diversity reporting only if you're certified by a recognized body. The certifications that carry weight with corporate buyers are NMSDC's MBE (minority-owned), WBENC's WBE (women-owned), NGLCC's LGBTBE, Disability:IN's DOBE, and NaVOBA's VBE/SDVBE. If you're chasing any large corporate buyer, getting certified is rarely wasted effort. Start with our NMSDC certification guide to see whether the minority-owned path fits, and if you'd rather have the paperwork handled across multiple programs at once, that's exactly what CertifyAll does.
Certification also makes you discoverable. Many corporate buyers search certification-body supplier databases (and platforms like ours) when they're building a sourcing shortlist. A certified, complete profile is a passive way to get found by the buyer you couldn't reach cold. You can list your business in our supplier directory for that reason.
The Tier-2 side doorI could not confirm whether Block runs a formal Tier-2 (second-tier) supplier program, so verify this before counting on it. The concept is worth knowing regardless, because it's often the easier way in.
Tier-2 means you don't sell to Block directly. You sell to one of Block's existing prime suppliers (its contract manufacturer, its facilities provider, its big marketing agency), and that prime reports the diverse spend it routes to you back to Block. Large companies use Tier-2 to hit diversity-spend goals without onboarding hundreds of small vendors directly. For a smaller diverse-owned business, subcontracting to an existing Block prime can be faster than winning a direct contract, and it gives you a track record that makes the eventual direct pitch credible. Identify who Block's big suppliers already are in your category, and pitch them.
Where this leaves youBlock isn't a company you break into by filling out a form, because the form mostly doesn't exist in public. You get in by knowing which unit buys your category, reaching the right buyer with a specific result, having certification and clean paperwork ready, and considering the Tier-2 route through an existing prime. Before you build a whole plan around a Block program name or portal, confirm the current details directly with the company, since those specifics weren't publicly verifiable when this was written.
If you'd rather start with companies that publish clear supplier paths, browse the corporate program directory to see which buyers have open registration and stated diversity goals, then work your way toward the harder, higher-value targets.
