Lightspeed Restaurant POS Review (2024)

Pros

• Highly customizable
• Raw ingredient tracking
• Strong kitchen display software
• Loyalty program available on all plans
• Several add-ons and integrations are available

Cons

• Limited inventory management
• Moderate learning curve
• Add-ons get expensive

Lightspeed Restaurant POS Overview

Lightspeed Restaurant is a cloud-based iPad POS system built solely for the food service industry. It combines a complex, feature-rich POS back end with a deceptively simple structure and intuitive interface. Lightspeed Restaurant covers the basics, adds a range of custom options, and throws a good dollop of useful side functionality into the mix.

Lightspeed Restaurant POS Pricing

Lightspeed Restaurant earned an average score in pricing.

The system lost points because there is no free trial available, there is an early termination fee, and the company charges an added monthly fee for using any processor other than Lightspeed Payments for payment processing. This makes it difficult for restaurant owners to know whether Lightspeed Restaurant is worth the money before committing to the system long-term.

The system did earn points for having three different pricing plans ranging from $69/month to $399/month with monthly, yearly, and custom contracts available. The three plans are the following:

• Starter: $69/month; includes core POS software, a loyalty program, card pre-authorizations, a menu manager, and a floor planner
• Essential: $189/month; includes Starter plan plus online ordering, advanced inventory management, contactless ordering, and multi-location management
• Premium: $399/month; includes Essential plan plus custom payment processing rates, raw API access for developing custom software integrations, and revenue management for hotels

Plans include one POS register license, and extra register licenses cost $59/license/month. Lightspeed Restaurant can get expensive depending on how many registers, additional Lightspeed software product subscriptions, and integrations you add to your monthly plan.

Lightspeed Restaurant Extra Costs & Fees

You are not technically required to purchase any of your restaurant POS hardware from Lightspeed. The company’s help site includes a list of supported iOS devices, card readers, receipt printers, kitchen printers, and cash drawers.

Contact a Lightspeed representative to learn more about the software add-ons available to personalize your restaurant POS system.

You have the choice to use a third-party payment processor with Lightspeed Restaurant, but you will be required to pay a $99/month transaction fee in addition to your monthly software plan.

Lightspeed Restaurant Is Best Suited For…

Lightspeed Restaurant is one of the best POS systems for:

• Restaurants looking to incorporate a loyalty program into their marketing plan
• Hotels and inns looking to integrate property management software with restaurant POS software
• Quick-serve and fast-casual restaurants looking for fast inventory management, counter service checkout, self-checkout options, and kitchen display software
• Restaurants looking for multiple ordering methods, including online and third-party delivery platform ordering

Lightspeed Restaurant POS Features

Lightspeed Restaurant earns a nearly perfect score in the features category. It offers excellent quick-serve POS system features like a single-page ordering interface and self-serve kiosks for fast-paced restaurants, plus kitchen display systems and a handheld POS system to take orders at the table. The system also offers excellent perishable inventory management and several niche third-party integrations for establishments like hotels and places that do catering in addition to regular restaurant service.

The only place where Lightspeed lost a point is in the waitlist/reservation system feature. This is because you need an integration to take reservations. It’s not natively built into Lightspeed Restaurant the way it is with other providers such as TouchBistro.

Lightspeed offers:

Ordering System

Lightspeed Restaurant self-order menu for customers to order with a tablet stationed at their table or a standing kiosk.

Some of Lightspeed’s most notable features are the numerous ways for customers to order, including:

• At The Register: The Lightspeed POS register has two modes, quick-serve and full-service. With quick-serve mode, ordering flows are streamlined, order modifiers are easy to add, and Lightspeed offers a customer-facing display so customers can verify their orders before they’re sent back to the kitchen.
• At The Table: Full-service mode includes tableside ordering, plus check splitting and table management functions like splitting up checks by item or seat number and moving customers from a bar section to a table.
• Self-Ordering Kiosk: You can convert an iPad into a standing ordering kiosk or a tableside ordering kiosk. With the standing kiosk, customers pay for their entire order upfront and wait to pick it up at the counter. With the tableside kiosk, customers can order several courses and pay all at once when they’re ready. This unique feature makes Lightspeed one of the best self-ordering restaurant kiosks.
• QR Code Ordering: Place QR code menus anywhere on your property or take them with you when you’re at a mobile event so customers can place orders and pay from their phones.
• Online Ordering: With Lightspeed, you can create your own online ordering page that syncs with your POS system and kitchen display software. You can also add Lightspeed eCom, a separate eCommerce product, to your restaurant POS and offer things like online reservations on your business’s website.
• Third-Party Platform Ordering: Lightspeed is one of the best food delivery POS systems and integrates with major third-party delivery platforms, including Doordash, Uber Eats, and Skip The Dishes. You can create promo codes and platform-specific menus.

Lightspeed Restaurant order pickup navigation on POS device (left) and customizable Apple TV order pickup display (right).

The company now offers an order-ready status screen (pictured above) so customers can see the progress of their takeout order and know when to approach the counter. I believe this is a great feature for takeout-heavy restaurants like bubble tea shops and fast food restaurants.

Kitchen Management

Lightspeed Restaurant iPad KDS

Lightspeed offers excellent kitchen order and inventory management, including:

• Product Management: This feature makes it easy to set up your menu. Products can be added and associated with unique kitchen names, IDs, or pictures. You can also quickly add discounts, service fees, and combos using this feature.
• Raw Ingredient Tracking: With Lightspeed Restaurant’s raw ingredient tracking, you can automatically keep track of all your raw ingredients based on specific dishes sold. If you’ve run out of an ingredient for a menu item, a notification will be sent to the waitstaff. Lightspeed Restaurant’s integration with MarketMan enables users to track their raw ingredients and allows for purchase order management capabilities.
• Kitchen Display System: Lightspeed has one of the best kitchen display systems that ties nicely to ingredient tracking, accepts orders from all third-party ordering platforms and in-store orders from registers and self-serve kiosks, and mirrors your POS register workflow to make it easy for all staff to navigate all devices in your restaurant.
• Reporting: With Lightspeed reports, you can view revenue and receipts by the hour, day, week, and month. There is tailored product and product category information and specific cash register monitoring (so you can see which employees are earning the most money). There’s also in-depth user tracking (so you can see your staff’s activities and performance over a set period).
• Timed Events: Timed Events allow you to set promotions and offers to run for a specific time or on certain days; it works great for “20%-Off Tuesdays” and “Half-Price Fridays.” If that’s not enough, you can also set multiple offers to run simultaneously, setting which one has priority.
• Kitchen Name Printing: With this feature, you can input the order as it appears on the menu, and when you send it to the kitchen, it will print in the language of your choice. This feature is also beneficial if your restaurant has different names for menu items. If, for instance, you have a menu item called “the Senior Breakfast Special,” you can have the order printed out in the kitchen as “two eggs and a side of bacon.”

Niche Features

Lightspeed Restaurant integration with hotel management software.

• Loyalty: Lightspeed Loyalty is one of the best rewards programs and is available on all subscription plans. You can easily sign customers up for your loyalty program, decide how loyalty points are earned and redeemed, and allow customer loyalty information to guide your marketing campaigns. Customers can earn and redeem loyalty points on in-person and online orders.
• Property Management Integrations: Lightspeed hotel integrations (StayNTouch, Mews, WebRezPro) allow you to bill food and drinks to customers’ rooms, integrate room management into your POS, monitor guest check-in/check-out, make online reservations, and more.
• Nutritional Information Display: Display nutritional information for items, including allergens, on all POS interfaces in your restaurant.
• Reservation Management: You can integrate your POS with Lightspeed eCom or a third-party reservation system to accept reservations and manage waitlists at your sit-down restaurant.
• Niche Integrations: In addition to hotel management, Lightspeed offers integrations for liquid inventory management (which makes it an excellent bar POS system), invoicing, employee management, and more.

Ease Of Use

Lightspeed Restaurant earns an above-average rating when it comes to ease of use. This is because while the system is not overly difficult to use, you do have to contact a Lightspeed representative to both get started with your POS system and add any new features. This can slow down your POS system setup and customization efforts, which is annoying to busy restaurant owners.

The system has a simple interface that is both visually and practically pleasing. Lightspeed Restaurant also provides a variety of training videos to help you get your system up and running, as well as offering descriptions of some of the system’s key features within the POS user dashboard itself.

Some users have criticized Lightspeed’s approach as “too minimal.” However, for many other users, the combination of good functionality and a minimal, easy-to-use interface is another positive aspect of this POS system.

What’s New With Lightspeed Restaurant?

In September 2023, Lightspeed Restaurant updated its help site interface so it’s easier to navigate. In November 2023, the company significantly reduced its monthly fee for third-party payment processing.

The provider also recently launched the Product Switcher in the back office, which offers 14-day free trial promotions for Lightspeed add-on apps, so Lightspeed users subscribed to standard software plans can try more paid features before committing to an added monthly fee.

The current promotion is for Order Anywhere, an app that allows you to create QR code menus. The promotions change over time and depending on your software plan, so you can continually try new products.

Customer Service & Support

The company earned a high customer service score because it offers 24/7 phone support in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and France. Coming soon, live chat will also be available 24/7 in the Lightspeed help center. We do have to note that some users complain about the wait times associated with phone support.

The company also ranks highly in self-serve support because its help center offers excellent knowledge base articles to help you set up and customize your POS. From my own personal experience, navigating the support articles is easy and includes lots of photos and videos embedded into articles to help guide you along.

Payment Processing With Lightspeed Restaurant POS

There are several payment processing options available with Lightspeed Restaurant. You can opt for integrated payment processing with Lightspeed Payments, which are available for individuals in the US, Canada, and parts of Europe.

Lightspeed Payments flat-rate payment processing rates for individuals on the Starter and Essentials plans are:

• Card-Present Payments: 2.6% + $0.10
• Keyed-In Card Payments: 2.6% + $0.30
• Online Orders: 2.9% + $0.30

Those on the Premium plan will get a lower custom payment processing rate.

Alternatively, you can use a third-party payment processor for an additional $99/month, which may or may not be worth it depending on whether a third-party processor can beat Lightspeed’s rates. Lightspeed Restaurant is compatible with Dejavoo with Worldpay (formerly Vantiv), Cayan, and Bridgepay.

Lightspeed Restaurant Contract & Commitment

Lightspeed Restaurant is sort of transparent about its merchant agreement. When reading through the Lightspeed Service Agreement page (which was last updated on November 23, 2023), I found a few things not explicitly mentioned on the company’s main site.

However, by diligently analyzing your order form, learning how to negotiate a merchant agreement, and watching out for the following contract pitfalls, you can get the best monthly fees for your software. If Lightspeed has the niche features you are looking for, my concerns do not have to be dealbreakers.

What To Watch Out For

With all of this in mind, I strongly recommend that you make sure your subscription starts out on a monthly basis until you are sure that Lightspeed is the right POS system for your restaurant.

Lightspeed Restaurant POS Reviews

This system scored very well in user reviews because there are a large number of reviews and the general sentiment of this popular product is positive.

Lightspeed Restaurant receives the following ratings from these well-known software review websites:

• GetApp: 4.4/5 stars based on 201 reviews
• G2: 4.5/5 stars based on 50 reviews
• TrustRadius: 8.9/10 stars based on 39 reviews

Note: I sifted through paid reviews to find recent, unincentivized user reviews to gauge the software objectively way and still found that Lightspeed Restaurant gets a high rating.

Negative Lightspeed Restaurant Reviews & Complaints

• Bugs: Occasional glitches, such as freezing, have been noted when navigating the front end.
• Outages: Multiple reviewers mentioned frequent interruptions in service, particularly during peak times.
• Lightspeed Payments: Some customers weren’t happy with Lightspeed Payments fees or that you have to pay transaction fees if you choose to work with an external payment processing company.

Positive Lightspeed Restaurant Reviews & Testimonials

• Ease Of Use: Customers like that Lightspeed is easy to use and doesn’t have a high learning curve.
• Customization: Users appreciated that they could easily tailor the system to fit their specific restaurant’s needs and that the system has several important features.
• Integrations: Many reviewers required niche integrations with software such as reservation apps, which Lightspeed provides.

Getting Started With Lightspeed Restaurant

To get started with Lightspeed Restaurant, you’ll have to enter your contact information and wait for a Lightspeed representative to contact you. They’ll discuss your business type, transaction volume, and what Lightspeed has to offer in terms of products and services.

Then you’ll get an account password, which you use to log onto the Lightspeed Restaurant Back Office via web browser. From there, you’ll order POS hardware and other add-ons like Order Anywhere. You’ll also set up your items, menus, floor plans, payment information, employees, and tax information.

After all this initial setup, you’ll install the Lightspeed Restaurant POS app from the App Store onto an iPad, generate a connection code to link your Lightspeed account to your Lightspeed app on your iPad, log onto the Restaurant POS app, and configure your iPad settings.

Alternatives To Lightspeed Restaurant

The top alternatives to Lightspeed Restaurant are Square, Toast, TouchBistro, Revel Systems, and Clover. Each system offers restaurant-specific POS software with varying pricing and features.

Final Verdict Of Lightspeed Restaurant POS

Lightspeed Restaurant is a solid choice for small to midsize single and multi-location food service and hotel businesses with access to steady WiFi. The ideal Lightspeed Restaurant user is also okay with using iPads over more durable restaurant POS hardware. Lightspeed works especially well for quick-serve and fast-casual restaurants that need strong inventory management features and the ability to navigate orders from multiple ordering points.

I am especially a fan of Lightspeed’s loyalty program, software add-ons like the new order status display (great for takeout-heavy restaurants) and delivery manager, and numerous third-party software integrations.

However, Lightspeed is definitely one of the more expensive restaurant POS systems for smaller businesses and may not have everything a larger business or franchise needs to run. In either of these cases, check out some of our other best restaurant POS systems to find a better fit.

Lightspeed Restaurant POS FAQs

Restaurant POS Review Methodology

We evaluate and test each software system that we review at Merchant Maverick, placing special emphasis on certain key software characteristics in order to generate our granular product ratings.

For restaurant POS software in particular, we have a 56-point rubric we use to evaluate the system in terms of its pricing, ease of use, features, and user reviews. These points are based on attributes relevant to the restaurant or foodservice POS niche—such as the availability of features like online ordering, ingredient inventory, table management, tipping, and others.

Our rating system also takes into account attributes that are desirable for POS systems and cloud-based software in general, such as the availability of monthly pricing plans, free trials, and transparent software contracts.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Lightspeed Restaurant	Visit Site

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Lightspeed Restaurant for yourself.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Lightspeed Restaurant	Visit Site

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Lightspeed Restaurant for yourself.

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