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Start QuizLightspeed Restaurant is a cloud-based iPad POS system built solely for the food-service industry and is a one-stop-shop for your POS needs.
Total Rating | 4.0 |
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Pricing3.1 | |
Ease Of Use3.8 | |
Features5.0 | |
Customer Service4.3 | |
User Reviews4.7 |
Pricing Range
$189-$399+/monthOnline Ordering
YesEquipment Cost
$129-$519Lightspeed 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.
Table of Contents
Pricing3.1 |
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Software Plans 2.0 |
Hardware Options 4.2 |
Payment Processing Fees 3.5 |
Lightspeed Restaurant earned an average score in pricing.
Lightspeed Restaurant Plans | Price | When To Use |
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Essential | $189/month | Restaurants with one or more locations looking for online ordering capabilities |
Premium | $399/month | Larger restaurants & hotels looking for custom payment processing rates |
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.
Lightspeed Restaurant has two different pricing plans with monthly, yearly, and custom contracts available. The Starter plan was recently eliminated and is no longer available. Here’s what to expect from the two remaining plans:
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.
A custom Enterprise plan is also available, although you will have to contact Lightspeed for a quote.
Lightspeed Restaurant Extra Costs | Price |
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Card Reader | $359-$519 |
iPad Stand | $199 |
Kitchen Bump Bar | $199 |
Receipt Printer | $399 |
Kitchen Printer | $299 |
Kitchen Display Software | Custom Pricing |
Delivery Order Manager | Custom Pricing |
Order Pickup Screen | Custom Pricing |
Self-Ordering Kiosks | Custom Pricing |
Customer-Facing Display | Custom Pricing |
Lightspeed eCom | Custom Pricing |
Third-Party Delivery Platform Manager | Custom Pricing |
Hotel Property Management Integrations | Custom Pricing |
Third-Party Payment Processor | $99/month |
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 one of the best POS systems for:
Features5.0 |
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Ordering System 5.0 |
Kitchen/Order Management 5.0 |
Niche Features 4.8 |
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:
Lightspeed Restaurant Features | Availability |
---|---|
Multi-Store Support | |
Contactless Payments | |
Multi-Channel Selling | Online and third-party delivery platform orders |
Gift Cards | |
Customer Loyalty | |
Marketing Tools | |
Online Ordering | |
Inventory Management | |
Reporting | |
Menu Management | |
Delivery Management | Paid add-on |
EBT Acceptance | |
Employee Management | |
Text Messaging |
Ease Of Use3.8 |
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Initial Setup 3.7 |
Customization 3.6 |
Everyday Use 4.1 |
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.
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 Service4.3 |
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Personal Support 3.9 |
Self-Service 4.6 |
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.
Lightspeed Restaurant Customer Service | Availability |
---|---|
Phone Support | |
Email Support | |
Support Tickets | |
Live Chat | |
Dedicated Support Representative | |
Knowledge Base or Help Center | |
Videos & Tutorials | |
Company Blog | |
Social Media |
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.
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 Essentials plan are:
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 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.
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.
User Reviews4.7 |
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Customer Feedback 4.0 |
Review Site Aggregate 5.0 |
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:
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.
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.
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.
Lightspeed Restaurant Review Summary | |
---|---|
Equipment Cost | $129-$519 |
Pricing Range | $189-$399+/month |
Choose If You Need |
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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.
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 |
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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 |
---|
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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The vendors that appear on this list were chosen by subject matter experts on the basis of product quality, wide usage and availability, and positive reputation.
Merchant Maverick’s ratings are editorial in nature, and are not aggregated from user reviews. Each staff reviewer at Merchant Maverick is a subject matter expert with experience researching, testing, and evaluating small business software and services. The rating of this company or service is based on the author’s expert opinion and analysis of the product, and assessed and seconded by another subject matter expert on staff before publication. Merchant Maverick’s ratings are not influenced by affiliate partnerships.
Our unbiased reviews and content are supported in part by affiliate partnerships, and we adhere to strict guidelines to preserve editorial integrity. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned and has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone.
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