Lightspeed POS Review — Is Lightspeed Retail Worth It in 2024?

Lightspeed Retail is a popular POS solution for retail with robust multi-store functionality for those hoping to launch more than one location. In fact, our research found it to be one of the best POS systems for retail, thanks to its granular stock control tools, detailed sales reporting, and 24/7 support.

As with any piece of technology, though, Lightspeed Retail has its downfalls. For one, it’s more expensive than other options on the market, with no free plan to get you started for cheap. On top of that, the user experience is a bit clunky, with advanced features that may slow down beginners. Still, if you’re a large business that expects to need seamless multi-store functionality, the extra cost could very much be worth it.

In this review, we’ll cover all the nitty gritty details about Lightspeed POS, including what features it offers, how much it will cost your business, and whether or not another POS is a better fit in the long run.

In this review:

• Lightspeed POS: At a Glance
• The Lightspeed Family: Explained
• Lightspeed POS Plans and Pricing
• Is Lightspeed POS Good Value?
• Lightspeed POS: Core Features
• Lightspeed POS Setup and Customer Support
• Lightspeed POS Alternatives
• Verdict: Is Lightspeed a Good POS System?

Lightspeed POS: At a Glance

Not sure if Lightspeed Retail is a good fit for you? Take a look at these deciding factors to learn more about whether or not this POS is your best bet.

• Paid plans: Lightspeed’s paid plans start at $89 per month, but if you’re after advanced tools like ecommerce and analytics you’ll need to get its Core package ($149 per month)
• Stock controls: Lightspeed has granular stock control tools, making it ideal for stores with big inventories of barcoded items.
• Reports: Lightspeed offers detailed reporting and sales forecasting capabilities, like multi-store stock reports and custom reports.
• Support: Lightspeed offers 24/7 support via phone, email, and live chat, making its support center stronger than most POS systems including Square.
• User experience: Lightspeed’s interface is a little clunky and unintuitive, in comparison to ultra user-friendly systems like Clover.
• Missing features: Lightspeed doesn’t offer fractional quantities or expiry dates on products. It doesn’t integrate with weighing scales either, making it unsuitable for stores that need these features
• Free plan? Lightspeed doesn’t offer a free POS plan like fellow providers Square and Zettle, but it does offer a free 14-day trial if you want to test out its software for free.

Who should be using Lightspeed Retail?

Lightspeed’s powerful inventory control tools make it a shoo-in for businesses with large or specific barcoded inventories, including:

• Sports stores
• Jewelry stores
• Clothing stores
• Toy and hobby stores
• Pet stores
• Furniture sellers
• Pharmacies

Who shouldn’t be using Lightspeed Retail?

The POS system’s lack of scheduling fractional quantities features, and weighing scale integrations make it less suitable for the following businesses:

• Hairdressers
• Tattoo parlors
• Grocery stores, florists
• Antique stores
• DIY stores
• Warehouses
• Dropshipping companies
• Storage facilities

To Learn more, check out our guide to the top POS systems for pharmacies

The Lightspeed Family: Explained

Lightspeed offers a range of different retail and restaurant POS systems, which are categorized into different X, known as ‘Series’. Since each retail POS Series showcases slightly different features and is better suited for different types of businesses, we outline how Lightspeed’s different retail systems compare below.

• Lightspeed X-Series – Formally known as Vend POS, Lightspeed Retail X-Series is a POS system that was designed for small to medium-sized, inventory-based retailers. Specifically, its excellent stock management tools make it ideal for specialty food and clothing stores, or businesses with multiple locations.
• Lightspeed S-Series – Lightspeed S-Series, which used to be the POS Shopkeep, caters to retail stores, and food service businesses. While the system is more versatile, its stock and ecommerce features are slightly more limited than Lightspeed X-Series, making it more preferable for small brick-and-mortar locations than online retailers.
• Lightspeed R-Series – Standing as one of Lightspeed’s most established plans, Lightspeed R-Series is older than other systems in this list. However, the platform will still be a good fit for businesses that are able to make do without frequent software updates and cutting-edge POS features.
• Lightspeed E-Series – Formerly known as Ecwid, Lightspeed E-Series is an ecommerce POS packed with useful features like multi-location stick tracking and social media selling. Due to the POSs useful ecommece features, it’s specifically tailored towards businesses looking to establish or improve their online presence.

Lightspeed also offers a variety of different POS systems for restaurants, including an L-Series, U-Series, and O-Series. Learn more about the provider’s small business food and beverage-focused system in our Lightspeed Restaurant U-Series review.

Learn more about some top POS systems for pharmacies here.

Lightspeed Retail Plans and Pricing

Lightspeed offers three pricing plans: Basic, Core, and Plus. The POS system also offers a solution for larger businesses that requires a custom quote, called the Enterprise plan.

Lightspeed is relatively expensive compared to its competitors. We’d suggest that the Core plan is likely to be the best fit for most businesses – retail ecommerce sales are more essential than ever, so it pays to have a POS that can integrate with your website.

Lightspeed Basic – $89 per month

The entry-level Basic tier is aimed at small businesses. It costs $89 per month when billed annually, or $109 per month when billed monthly. For that, customers get a retail POS and payments system with a free terminal included.

You’ll also have to decide whether your business uses the Lightspeed Payments system to process payments. Sticking with Lightspeed’s own processor will make life easier, but if you choose to switch from Lightspeed at any point, there might be a bit more legwork involved. Lightspeed charges 2.6% + 10¢ for every transaction, which is fairly standard for the industry (Card-not-present rate: 2.6% + 30¢). These transaction fees remain the same across all plans.

The home screen for Lightspeed retail is basic enough for our team to understand how it works right out of the gate. Source: Tech.co testing

Lightspeed Core – $149 per month

The Lightspeed Core plan allows you to hook up your online store sales to your in-person sales with its ecommerce features.

You’ll also get the ability to integrate a third-party accounting platform into Lightspeed. This should cut down on manual paperwork for you, though you’ll have to pay $149 per month or $179 per month, depending on whether you choose annual or monthly billing.

Lightspeed Plus – $289 per month

For $289 per month (paid annually) or $339 per month (paid monthly), you’ll get the Plus plan. This plan adds omnichannel customer loyalty features, including a rewards program. This means Lightspeed will track your customers’ purchases, and prompt you to reward your biggest fans with discounts, free gifts, or other nice treats.

This plan is also the first one to let you access and analyze sales data, which can help you optimize your operation.

Lightspeed Retail allowed us to edit settings to adjust the platform for our needs. Source: Tech.co testing

Lightspeed Enterprise – Custom quote

There is also an Enterprise tier, which is aimed at large businesses. It is a custom package that will be designed around your business and one that Lightspeed will price up for you on request.

The big benefits to this plan are its many consultation services: Unlimited personalized onboarding and launch services, general consultation, and API consultation and support. Enterprises with this plan will get both a dedicated premium support team and a dedicated customer success manager. Finally, they’ll get “preferred Lightspeed Payments rates,” although the company does not make these rates public.

Don’t forget that there is a 14-day free trial that you can check out before committing to Lightspeed long-term. You can get permanently free POS systems, too, but that isn’t always the best idea as their feature sets tend to be limited and they charge steeper transaction fees.

Lightspeed Hardware Costs

Lightspeed offers hardware kits for iPads, MacOS devices, and Windows PCs, as well as selling compatible items individually.

However, it doesn’t make the prices for these packages (or even the individual items) public – you’ll have to head to the company directly for a quote.

Find out more about Lightspeed hardware below.

Lightspeed’s iPad stand has a modern feel and uses the Lightspeed USB-C cable. Source: Lightspeed

Lightspeed POS Pricing vs Competitors

Lightspeed isn’t the only POS company out there. In fact, the market is awash with POS companies claiming to offer you the best option for less.

So how does Lightspeed compare? It’s a bit more expensive than some of its competitors, sure, but its quality of features and UI still make it a strong choice.

Lightspeed has also recently acquired ShopKeep and Upserve, two more specialized POS providers, which should see it bring some more features to the table soon.

Is Lightspeed free?

Sadly, Lightspeed is not free – if you want to use the Lightspeed POS long-term, you’ll need to pay upwards of $69 per month. However, the cost is justified for the features on offer, and Lightspeed does provide a 14-day free trial and a free terminal with all plans.

Is Lightspeed POS Good Value?

Since Lightspeed doesn’t offer a free service and the price of its plans are generally a little steeper than similar alternatives – we don’t think its value offering is great. Ecommerce features aren’t available in its cheaper ‘Essentials’ tier either, making the POS even more pricey for omnichannel retailers.

However, this isn’t to say Lightspeed’s value isn’t strong across the board. If your business manages large or complex inventories, Lightspeed’s state-of-the-art stock management features will provide you with a great return on your investment by letting you handle the process with the same platform.

Lightspeed POS: Core Features

Sales

When using Lightspeed, we were able to create or search for a customer profile, before inputting the items bought or simply scanning them with a barcode scanner.

Once ready, we were able to ring up the order for credit, debit, check, cash, PayPal, or a combination. Then to create a sale reference, we simply print or email the receipt.

Lightspeed also offers PCI-compliant payment processing, and a fully integrated system to protect from human error and fraud.

The payment screen for Lightspeed Retail allowed our team to easily accept many forms of payment. Source: Tech.co testing

Ordering

Lightspeed let us apply automatic discounts on products to increase sales activity. The POS also allowed us to add manual discounts, whether we were docking a price by percentage or by dollars.

Like other leading POSs like Square and Clover, Lightspeed made it easy for us to issue refunds, exchanges, or store credit, so we could keep customers happy without spending ages fiddling about on the back end.

When we tested out Lightspeed ourselves, we were impressed at how easy it was to add order notes to specific items. We were able to add notes in a couple of taps, so customers could have a record of any specific changes or amendments in their sales receipt.

Lightspeed let me add notes to specific sales receipts to keep customers informed about changes. Source: Tech.co testing

Inventory

Lightspeed is at the top of its game when it comes to stock control. It offers extremely granular levels of control. We were able to quickly import products from a CSV or Excel file, and add additional style, size, and color specifications to each item.

In addition, pre-loaded catalogs available on the Lightspeed Commerce POS allowed us to restock our inventory directly from the system. We were also able to check inventory from the mobile app while on the go.

What’s more, Lightspeed has created its own Supplier Network, which allows businesses to access products from a number of dedicated suppliers. Products were automatically integrated into our POS upon order, and sometimes you might even get them at reduced rates.

However, for all of Lightspeed’s strengths, it doesn’t offer a cost-profit management tool for inventory products like Epos Now. This makes it slightly less beneficial for businesses that are looking for extra help with their pricing strategy.

Customers

Customers can be tracked via Lightspeed’s suite of CRM tools, allowing stores to give individual customers statuses like “VIP” or “regular,” and to create email lists for targeted marketing campaigns.

An individual customer’s sales history allowed us to make smart decisions about which items are most popular, or which future purchases to suggest to a specific customer. Support for a customer loyalty or gift card program is also available. The support is also omnichannel, meaning it will work for in-store and online sales, and work across email and direct messaging.

Lightspeed’s CRM toolkit is nothing to be sniffed at, but it does charge a premium for customer loyalty features. Therefore, if you want to unlock advanced customer loyalty functions like customized rewards without paying extra, you’d be better off going for its rival, Clover POS.

Learn more about Lightspeed’s alternative in our Clover POS review.

Lightspeed let me add a new customer profile easily, and even allowed me to group them into specific categories. Source: Tech.co testing

Ecommerce Integrations

A single-store inventory can be sold both in-person and through an online storefront, for a consistent brand experience.

Customer data can be tracked across both channels as well, giving us an accurate picture of our shopping habits. It was easy for us to set up websites through Lightspeed, thanks to the ready-made templates on offer. Integrations make it possible to sell directly through Facebook as well.

Of course, if ecommerce really matters to you and your POS, Shopify might be a better fit than Lightspeed. This is because Shopify offers an in-house ecommerce platform, making it easier for businesses to synchronize data and sell goods online and through social media.

Check out our Lightspeed vs Shopify guide to learn more about how the systems compare.

Lightspeed and WooCommerce Integration

Lightspeed has strong integration with ecommerce platform WooCommerce. It costs $149 per year to integrate the services but, in return, you’ll have a seamlessly linked online store (through WooCommerce) and point-of-sale system (through Lightspeed).

Your inventory and sales will be automatically tracked, meaning that operating your online and offline businesses is far easier. Plus, it will make your business more defensible in the face of potential restrictions on in-person sales.

Reports

Data about customer and employee habits can be tracked and logged, meaning that trends will appear in the data over time. This allowed us to make intelligent decisions, with specific insights on factors including which employees clock in and out on time, which customers buy the most, and which items sell best on which day of the week.

Accounting data can be automatically processed with integrations available from Lightspeed, and all reports can be exported to PDF or Excel.

Lightspeed Hardware

Lightspeed Commerce is an iPad-based POS with terminal options too. For example, its iPad hardware kit includes a LAN receipt printer (with paper), a cash drawer, a Bluetooth scanner, and a branded iPad stand. Meanwhile, the desktop hardware kit includes a USB receipt printer, a cash drawer, and a USB scanner.

If you aren’t a fan of the humble iPad set-up, you’ll also be able to access Lightspeed’s software with a MacOS device, or a Windows PC.

Lightspeed doesn’t offer an in-house POS terminal like most other POS providers, which could deter businesses that are looking to build a new hardware setup from scratch. The POS also lacks a customer-facing display as part of its Retail POS package, which may be an inconvenience for stores that want to display order information during the checkout process.

Sadly, Lightspeed doesn’t make its prices for these packages available publicly – you’ll have to head to the company directly for a quote. It’s also worth noting that Lightspeed does not offer integration with weighing scales, so if you’re looking for that kind of hardware – for a grocery store or similar – you’ll be better off finding another provider like Square or NCR.

Setup and Customer Support

Lightspeed offers 24/7 live support via phone and email, with only a handful of other POS vendors offering similar levels of support. Lightspeed offers live chat but only for sales inquiries, not account or technical support.

Lightspeed also includes live onboarding sessions for new clients to help them get started.

In addition, webinars can walk you through the Lightspeed interface, while a customer forum allows you to ask and answer questions as a community. The Lightspeed YouTube channel include video tutorials as well.

Support & Training

Lightspeed Retail Alternatives

Of course, Lightspeed isn’t the only POS system on the market – it’s going head-to-head with some of the biggest names in the business.

If you’re looking to get started for cheap, Square is our best-rated POS system overall, with a generous free plan, excellent payment features, and a shallow learning curve for beginners. Shopify POS, on the other hand, offers the best ecommerce features we reviewed, with unique social media integrations and digital marketplaces.

Check out our table below to see how Lightspeed compares:

How We Evaluated Lightspeed Retail

Lightspeed POS FAQs