The 6 Best Lightspeed Competitors

Unlike Lightspeed, Square can be used completely free.

While Square does have paid add-ons available for purchase, Square POS has enough functionality for many small businesses, even without any paid add-ons.

Additionally, Square has free and paid versions of its POS specifically for restaurants, retailers, and appointment-based businesses.

Square’s feature set can suit virtually any type of small business, making this POS a good alternative to Lightspeed Restaurant, Lightspeed Retail, or Lightspeed Golf. Square integrates with several third-party apps to extend its functionality and adapt the POS to fit various niche industries.

Square has a wealth of in-person selling features for brick-and-mortar small businesses, including basic order management and basic inventory management, along with online selling options, including online checkout and a free eCommerce store. The features are a little basic compared to Lightspeed, particularly in terms of retail inventory management, but the feature set is better than what you get with any other free POS.

Square offers its own rewards program, Square Loyalty, but it is not included with the POS. Nevertheless, the program is affordable and easy to use with effortless onboarding. Pricing starts at $45/month.

As mentioned, Square has industry-specific versions of its POS, which include Square for Restaurants, Square for Retail, and Square Appointments, with features tailored toward the food service, retail, and service industries, respectively.

You can use a free Square reader on iPad, iPhone, or Android devices, or a countertop hardware kit (pricing varies) with the tablet of your choice. Square also sells a contactless Bluetooth reader and proprietary POS operating systems like the Square Terminal and the Square Register with equipment costs ranging from $49-$799.

For most businesses, Square has the same in-person processing rate as Lightspeed’s (2.6% + $0.10) but online transactions (2.9% + $0.30) are slightly higher than Lightspeed’s, which is something to consider if you do a lot of online sales.

If you’re on the paid version of Square for Retail or Square Appointments, you’ll receive a 0.1% discount on payment processing.

Square has no contract, but being a third-party processor, Square can be prone to account instability, making this POS less suitable for high-volume and high-risk businesses.

Some users report account or fund holds that take some time to fix and can be disruptive to business operations. This is a fairly common issue for payment processors that do not provide dedicated merchant accounts to their users.

Unlike Lightspeed, Clover offers a free plan (though it just offers payment processing and nothing else).

When purchased through Clover.com, paid Clover plans range from $0 – $84.95/month, but if you want full POS functionality that compares to Lightspeed’s, you’ll need a more advanced plan.

Clover can adapt to any industry, including any kind of retail, restaurant, or service-based business. This makes Clover a suitable replacement for Lightspeed Restaurant, Retail, or Golf.

Features like loyalty and order management are accessed as individual apps on the device’s Android-powered home screen.

Like Square, Clover has an app market with tons of free and paid third-party business software integrations that can expand the system’s functionality.

Clover has several different mix-and-match hardware options, including the Clover Station and Station Duo (Station Duo has a customer-facing display), Clover Mini, Clover Flex, and Clover Go. Indeed, many businesses choose Clover due to its snazzy, if pricey, POS hardware.

The lowest-cost Clover hardware option is its Clover Go contactless reader, which lets you take payments with your mobile device. Countertop POS setups like the Clover Mini are also available, but many businesses will want a complete Clover Station Duo setup. Overall, hardware costs range from $199 – $1,799.

Clover also gives you the option to pay for hardware monthly.

Depending on your Clover software plan, payment processing costs range from 2.3% – 2.6% + $0.10% per transaction. So you could pay a bit less per month using Clover vs. Lightspeed.

Clover does offer contract-free month-to-month plans when you purchase from Clover.com. Another option is to buy through a reputable reseller like Payment Depot or Dharma Merchant Services.

We recommend doing some heavy research into the best Clover resellers so you aren’t being taken advantage of. You should also beware of Clover Station POS scams if you try to purchase used hardware from a reseller.

Some resellers will lock you in with misleading contracts and sneaky extra fees, resulting in you paying more for Clover than you could with a reputable seller like Lightspeed.

Revel Systems is more pricey than Lightspeed on a per-register basis and is almost entirely quote-based with a two-to-three-year contract required in many cases. With that being said, Revel’s feature set is more advanced, so a multilocation QSR might get a better overall value with Revel.

Revel Systems includes loads of features that can be customized for any industry. Some of these features include advanced reporting, employee management, and inventory management, with options such as a customer display system, online ordering, delivery management, digital menu boards, and self-ordering kiosks.

One feature we especially like is Revel’s Always On mode, which allows you to continue operating your POS normally and process payments in the event of an internet outage.

Most cloud POS systems, Lightspeed included, only have a partial offline mode. Revel has a proprietary ethernet connection for iPad, which allows for a faster connection than WiFi.

Revel Systems runs on iPad POS hardware. You can source your hardware yourself or buy it directly from Revel (call them for a quote). Hardware offerings include branded iPad stands, mobile order-takers, drive-thru hardware, and more.

Revel Systems includes in-house flat-rate processing through Revel Advantage, but you can use your preferred payment processor (for a higher monthly charge, similar to Lightspeed). Revel’s standard processing rate for in-person transactions is 2.49% + $0.15.

Revel requires a three-year processing agreement to get the best pricing. This is not ideal for businesses looking to test a POS system before making a significant commitment.

If you want to terminate your contract early, you could be looking at a high fee. Users are forced to pay double the amount remaining on the contract or $15,000, whichever number is higher when terminating their contract.

Depending on your plan, Shopify could be a more affordable ecommerce POS system compared to Lightspeed Retail if you’re using the Basic plan. However, the basic plan only offers basic POS functionality.

For advanced in-person POS features that rival Lightspeed’s, you’ll need the Shopify POS Pro add-on. Shopify software plans run from $29 – $299/month.

Use Shopify to easily manage in-store and online inventory, export reports, create gift cards, manage customers, and more. The Shopify mobile app makes it easy to sell at events like fairs, markets, and pop-ups.

The main feature where Shopify excels over Lightspeed is its highly customizable online store that comes included in all plans.

Shopify hardware options range from $0-$459+ and they have a similar reader to Square’s that works with Apple and Android. Shopify also sells complete hardware kits and a proprietary mobile order taker.

Shopify offers a unique free Tap to Pay on iPhone option that lets you accept contactless payments without a card reader.

Like Lightspeed, Shopify provides in-house flat-rate payment processing (in-person rates range from 2.4 – 2.9%) and gives you the option to use a different payment processor for an additional charge. Your payment processing rate depends on your plan level.

If you want to take advantage of Tap to Pay payments using your iPhone, the first 100 transactions per month are processed at Shopify’s standard processing rate (per your plan), and after that, you’ll be charged an additional $0.25 per transaction for the remainder of the month.

Shopify offers month-to-month and annual plans, though you’ll have to subscribe annually to get the best price. Like Square, Shopify Payments (powered by Stripe) is a third-party processor, which can result in less account stability compared to a standard merchant account.

With the month-to-month plans, there are no early termination fees, making it a comparable Lightspeed competitor to Square.

Toast offers a pay-as-you-go starter plan for restaurants with one to two terminals, with options ranging from $0/mo – $69/mo; with custom plans available depending on if you choose the pay-as-you-go plan or the standard starter plan.

The pay-as-you-go plan charges a higher fee for payment processing.

Some features you’ll get with Toast include table management, menu management, restaurant inventory management, employee management, and restaurant reporting. Toast also has a complete lineup of digital ordering features, from an online ordering app and e-gift cards to QR code ordering and handheld tableside ordering.

If you opt for the full feature set, Toast provides more advanced restaurant functionality compared to Lightspeed Restaurant, making Toast one of the best restaurant POS systems.

You can purchase a Countertop Starter Kit that includes a Toast Flex POS terminal, a Toast Tap contactless payment reader, and a router. Some other options include a Handheld Starter Kit and a Guest Self-Service Starter Kit.

There’s also an option to get your hardware for free in exchange for a higher payment processing fee using a pay-as-you-go model and the overall equipment costs range from $0+ if you agree to a higher processing rate.

Toast’s standard payment processing fee for most in-person transactions is 2.49% + $0.15. However, if you choose the free software plan, you’ll pay more. AMEX cards are charged at a higher rate.

Toast requires you to use its in-house payment processor, and the processing contract is two years.

Many customers leave negative reviews regarding the long payment processing contracts. Do not be persuaded by Toast’s sales team without reading the contract carefully. It is common for customers to be misled into believing that their processing fees will remain the same when in reality they can increase over your contract’s life.

Our main concern with Toast is the switch to quote-based custom plans and processing fees. There are reports of Toast raising (or adding) fees without warning and locking customers into long-term contracts without their knowledge. Do your research and make sure you know exactly what you’re getting into with Toast.

Pricing starts at $69/month, but you can purchase additional add-ons such as reservation management, gift cards, loyalty, self-serve kiosks, digital menu boards, a kitchen display system, and a customer-facing display.

In addition to POS functions, TouchBistro handles things like seating and table assignments, menu management, wireless transfer of orders to the kitchen, tableside payments, and daily sales reports.

Overall, TouchBistro’s features are comparable to Lightspeed Restaurant in most areas, but it does have in-house reservation management system (for an added monthly fee).

Using the Standard (single register) TouchBistro subscription, you can manage your entire restaurant directly from a single iPad register.

If you have two or more iPad registers, you need to run the Pro Server Application on a Mac Mini, which will act as a local server. There are also additional hardware options, such as kitchen display systems and self-serve kiosks.

TouchBistro hardware pricing isn’t listed on the website, so you’ll need to call for a quote.

In addition to providing in-house cost-plus payment processing via TouchBistro Payments, TouchBistro integrates with a choice of payment processors—including Square—at no extra charge.

TouchBistro generally requires a one-year contract, but month-to-month pricing may be available.

There are some reports of pushy sales people who convince new users to sign a one-year contract without a clear understanding of the early termination process. Do your research and ask many questions before signing anything.