Lightspeed
A detailed review of Lightspeed's POS software with pricing, comparisons to competitors, key info, and FAQs.
Updated on September 19th, 2023
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Lightspeed is an intuitive point of sale (POS) and e-commerce software created for small to medium-sized retail and restaurant businesses. It's one of the most feature-rich POS options available.
Our Pick
Square Point of Sale
Easy to Set Up and Use
Sign Up FreeUsed by more than 2 million businesses.
Robust reporting.
Custom invoices.
Pricing:
Plan* | Monthly Pricing** |
|---|---|
Retail Lean | $139.00 |
Retail Standard | $199.00 |
Retail Advanced | $319.00 |
Retail Enterprise | Contact for quote. |
*Discounts are available on annual subscriptions.
**Users receive a discount when using Lightspeed payments.
Review:
Lightspeed's POS offerings are feature-rich and easy to use, with a lot of room for customization using a wide range of integrations and many add-on options. The company has made it simple for business owners to find which solution best fits their needs by making pre-assembled industry-specific POS examples and kits available on the website.
While Lightspeed's POS solutions are expensive, the fully-integrated retail and restaurant POS solutions have everything one needs in a POS, especially excellent inventory management.
Pros:
Lightspeed POS offers excellent inventory management features including 3,000 integrated vendor catalogs and has included many opportunities for personalized branding, two features not offered by Square.
Lightspeed and Square offer excellent e-commerce solutions, but Lightspeed takes it a little further by supporting 14 languages and multiple currencies.
Square is a download-and-go solution, but Lightspeed offers more features and requires help with setup and onboarding, which the company does for free and one-on-one. This, in particular, has been something much appreciated by reviewers and customers.
Cons:
Where Square cuts unnecessary features to keep its POS light, Lightspeed offers all the features one can imagine. This feature-heavy approach has made digging through the features for the ones needed a challenge for some. Split bills, for example, is a feature that has proven difficult for new users to find when using the Restaurant POS.
A free basic version would allow small business owners to feel whether Lightspeed's feature-rich packages are too much or just right. There is no free version, though, only a 14-day free trial, and with everything Lightspeed has to offer, we're not so sure that's enough time for getting a good feel for the software.
When you sign-up to Square, they send you a free credit card reader. With Lightspeed, the hardware is sold separately.
And, staying on hardware, Lightspeed does not offer its own mobile credit card reader. So if you want to use Lightspeed Payments, you won't be able to attach a card reader to your iPad or mobile phone. Only if you use another payment processing provider will you have the option of using a mobile reader. Square offers its own mobile magstripe readers.
Reputation:
Most customer reviews of Lightspeed are positive. Ease of use, clean user interface, and the presence of every feature one could imagine, tend to be the main positives, but Lightspeed has a number of complaints against it.
Based on complaints filed at the Better Business Bureau, customer support seems to be a major problem among Lightspeed users, as well as a seeming disinterest in figuring out fixes to a few persistent bugs in the software.
At-a-Glance:
Feature | Lightspeed |
|---|---|
Free options | No |
Contactless payments | Yes |
Wireless and fixed POS | Yes |
PCI compliant | Yes |
Offline functionality | Yes |
EMV-compliant | Yes |
Lightspeed vs. Square:
Lightspeed’s POS plans cost up to $319.00 per month, which is more than Square's starting price of $60.00 per month. However, Lightspeed offers more room for customization and more features, including a very impressive vendor catalog, personalized branding at almost every stop, and workflow management.
Lightspeed vs. Square Comparison:
Feature | Lightspeed | Square |
|---|---|---|
Retail POS | From $69.00 /mo. | $60.00 /mo. |
Restaurant POS | $90.00 /mo. | $60.00 /mo. |
Lightspeed vs. Vend POS:
Lightspeed and Vend POS both offer a range of tiered packages that are customizable. While Lightspeed charges up to $319.00 per month, it offers many opportunities for personalized branding, an impressive vendor catalog, and a few more third-party integrations. In comparison, Vend POS's pricing starts at $119.00 per month.
Lightspeed vs. Vend POS Comparison:
Offer | Lightspeed | Vend POS |
|---|---|---|
Retail POS | From $69.00 /mo. | From $119.00 /mo. |
Restaurant POS | $90.00 /mo. | From $119.00 /mo. |
Lightspeed Packages:
Lightspeed Retail POS.
Lightspeed Retail POS is a fully-integrated solution that brings together eCommerce, analytics, payments, inventory, accounting, loyalty, and hardware. There are six different plans to choose from.
Lean.
Aimed at very new retailers, the lean plan includes all of the POS features and tools, as well as a free payment terminal, but does not include the online shop builder, accounting integrations, loyalty program, and analytics.
Retail Standard.
The most popular and recommended plan, the retail standard allows more established retailers to integrate with their accounting systems and automate accounting functions and processes.
Retail Advanced.
Including all that comes with the retail standard, the advanced plan includes those Lightspeed integrations and add-ons that allow for a robust and easily-managed loyalty program.
Enterprise.
Aimed at much larger businesses, with far more complex needs, information about Lightspeed's enterprise plan can only be gotten through a scheduled call.
Retail POS features:
Inventory management. | Reporting. |
Analytics. | Accounting Integrations. |
Personalized branding. | Mobile inventory. |
Centralized purchasing. | Centralized customer data. |
Integrated payments. | Customer management. |
One-on-one on-boarding. | 24/7 support. |
Lightspeed Restaurant POS.
Lightspeed Restaurant POS is a fully-integrated solution for managing restaurants. It includes payments, accounting, hardware, customer-facing displays, menu management, and kitchen display.
Starting at $90.00 per month, Lightspeed's Restaurant POS includes:
- Customer-facing display.
- Kitchen display system.
- Advanced reporting.
- Self-order table menu.
Plus and Pro.
For $246.00 and $519.00 per month, respectively, businesses get:
- Third-party accounting integrations.
- Loyalty program app.
- Self-order kiosk.
- Advanced inventory management.
- Multiple revenue centers.
- Third-party delivery integrations.
Lightspeed Restaurant POS Features:
Custom floor plans. | Menu management. |
Workflow management. | Staff management. |
Fully-featured offline mode. | Automatic sync and backups. |
Takeout and delivery orders management. | Split or group bills. |
Order from anywhere. | Tip management. |
Multi-location management. | Lightspeed Advanced Reporting. |
One-on-one on-boarding. | 24/7 support. |
Integrations:
Integration | Type of Integration |
|---|---|
TSYS. | Credit card processing. |
Employee scheduling. | |
Analytics, inventory management. | |
eCommerce, online ordering, invoicing. | |
Analytics. | |
Reporting. | |
Employee scheduling. | |
Marketing. |
This is by no means a comprehensive list. Find all of Lightspeed's restaurant POS integrations and retail POS integrations on the website.
Other Products and Services:
Lightspeed's other products are add-ons that give the Retail and Restaurant POS solutions more functionality.
Lightspeed e-commerce.
- Pricing: free and paid options.
Lightspeed eCommerce offers everything you need to set up an online store. It offers 50 templates to choose from, impressive SEO and social media marketing tools, integrated shipping, sales reports, and data analytics. It supports 14 languages and multiple currencies.
Lightspeed Payments.
- Transaction fee (tapped, inserted, swiped): 2.6% + $0.10.
- Transaction fee (keyed-in): 2.6% + $0.30.
- Chargeback fee: $15.00.
Built into all of Lightspeed's POS solutions, Payments ensures safe and secure payments and accepts all major credit and debit cards. It is PCI and EMV-compliant.
Key Information:
Legal Name | Lightspeed POS Inc. |
Founder | |
Founding Date | Mar 01, 2005 |
Address | 700 St-Antoine E., Ste. 300, Montreal, Quebec H2Y 1A6 Canada |
Number of Employees | 900 |
Number of Customers | 74000 |
Telephone | |
Website |
FAQs:
How much does Lightspeed cost?
Lightspeed's pricing starts at $139.00 per month.
Is Lightspeed cloud based?
Yes. Lightspeed's point of sale (POS) solution is cloud-based.
What is Lightspeed eCommerce?
Lightspeed has a cloud-based e-commerce solution that allows users to manage in-store and online inventory, view customer information, and analyze multi-channel sales data.
What is Lightspeed retail?
Lightspeed Retail is Lightspeed's cloud-based point of sale (POS) solution for retailers in clothing, footwear, bike, jewelry, pet, sporting goods, and home decor industries.
What is Lightspeed OnSite?
Lightspeed OnSite is Lightspeed's on-site point of sale (POS) solution.
Is there a Lightspeed free trial?
Yes, Lightspeed offers a 14-day free trial.