Lightspeed
Mid-market positioning. Retail and Restaurant separate product lines. Tiered as Basic / Core / Plus. Strongest in multi-location retail and hospitality.
What this POS actually costs in Year 1.
*Representative buyer: 1 location · 2 terminals · $40K/mo card volume · ~600 transactions/mo.
Basic $89/mo, Core $149/mo, Plus $289/mo software (annual billing; month-to-month runs ~$109/$179/$339). Hardware $800-$2,000 mid-market kit. Processing 2.6% + $0.10. $40K/mo × 2.6% + $0.10 × 600 tx = $1,100/mo = $13,200/yr. Year-1 TCO: $15,000-$19,000.
Why this POS is priced this way.
Lightspeed Commerce is the mid-market specialist for multi-location retail and hospitality. Lightspeed has two product lines — Lightspeed Retail and Lightspeed Restaurant — each with deeper feature sets than Square or Clover at the mid-market tier (inventory management, multi-store reporting, advanced reporting). The $89/mo software floor is materially higher than the cohort low end because Lightspeed targets buyers who will pay for the product depth, not buyers shopping for the cheapest POS.
What first-time buyers miss.
The Plus tier ($289/mo) is required for full multi-location features. Buyers who start on Basic or Core often find they need Plus within 6-12 months as their operation grows. No lease lock-in (positive vs Clover) but the upgrade path is real and the price difference compounds at multi-location scale.
Who this POS fits.
Multi-location retail (2-10 stores). Mid-market hospitality. Buyers who need genuine inventory management and reporting depth. Not the cheapest first POS but the rational mid-market choice over Square (which lacks the multi-location depth) or Clover (which has the lease trap).