Square vs Lightspeed for restaurants

Start with Square if you want to price the whole system before a sales call and keep the right to cancel in any month. Start with Lightspeed Restaurant if you run several locations or a hotel outlet, want ingredient-level inventory, and will sign a term. Lightspeed prints 69, 189 and 399 USD for its plans with no billing term beside them, and no card rate.

The payments rule decides much of the cost. Lightspeed now requires its own processor, Lightspeed Payments, and charges a monthly fee if you keep another one: $400 a month at $35,000 to $99,999 in monthly card volume. Square charges every card brand the same printed rate on each plan. So the Lightspeed side of the sum turns on the rate in its quote.

Question	Square	Lightspeed Restaurant	Start here if
Plan price	Square Free $0/mo., Square Plus $49/mo. and Square Premium $149/mo., each per location	Starter 69 USD, Essential 189 USD, Premium 399 USD, with no billing term shown; Enterprise by quote	Square, if you want the monthly bill in writing before any call
Card tapped, dipped or swiped	2.6% + 15¢ on Free, 2.5% + 15¢ on Plus, 2.4% + 15¢ on Premium	No rate printed; the plan table marks integrated payments "Default" on Starter and "Custom" on Essential and Premium	Square, if you want a rate you can check today
Card typed in, as on a phone order	3.5% + 15¢ on every plan	No rate printed	Square, if phone orders are a large share of sales and you want that cost known up front
Keeping your current processor	Square's printed rates cover every card brand	Lightspeed Payments required; another processor costs $200 to $1,120 a month by volume	Lightspeed, if you are ready to move your card processing to it
Kitchen screens	Square KDS app: $30/mo. per device on Plus, $20/mo. per device on Premium, not on Free	Kitchen Display System: $30/screen per month on every plan	Square Premium, if you run many screens
Hardware	Register $899, Handheld $399, Terminal $299, Stand $149	No prices printed; the iPad kit leaves out the iPad and the payment terminal	Square, if you want to price devices yourself
Contract	Cancel or switch plans anytime; Square lists no early termination fee	The order form sets the term, which renews for the same length unless you give 90 days' notice	Square, if your lease or concept might change
Several locations	Plus and Premium fees apply to each location	Its restaurant page says you manage all locations or revenue centers from one platform	Lightspeed, if you run several stores or a hotel outlet from one menu

Square's figures come from its restaurant pricing page, its fees help article and its hardware page. Lightspeed's come from its restaurant pricing page, its Lightspeed Payments FAQ, its US transaction fee table, its hardware page and its service agreement. For every fee on one system, see our Square pricing guide and Lightspeed pricing guide. For features, see the Square review and Lightspeed review.

What would a month cost on each? A worked example

Every figure below is made up. One full-service restaurant takes $60,000 a month in card sales across 1,500 payments at $40 each, all tapped or dipped, and runs two kitchen screens. The example reads Lightspeed's 189 USD as a monthly fee, and leaves out hardware, cash, tax and other add-ons. Lightspeed prints no card rate, so its card line stays open until you have a quote.

Line	Square Plus	Square Premium	Lightspeed Essential
Plan	Square Plus plan: $49	Square Premium plan: $149	Essential plan: 189 USD, read as monthly
Two kitchen screens	Square Plus screens: $60	Square Premium screens: $40	Lightspeed screens: $60
Card fees on $60,000	Square Plus card fees: $1,725	Square Premium card fees: $1,665	From your quote
Month	Square Plus month: $1,834	Square Premium month: $1,854	Lightspeed month: $249 plus card fees

Square Premium saves $60 on card fees and $20 on screens, and adds $100 in plan fee, so at this volume Square Plus costs $20 a month less.

What card rate must a Lightspeed quote beat?

For Lightspeed Essential to match Square Plus in this example, its card fees must come in under $1,585 a month ($1,834 less $249). That is about 2.64% of card sales, counting every fee. If Lightspeed quotes 15¢ per payment, the percentage must be under about 2.27%. At 10¢ per payment, it must be under about 2.39%. Rerun the sum with your own card sales and payment count.

If you keep your current processor on Lightspeed, add the fee from its transaction fee table. At $60,000 a month the tier is $400, or $4,800 a year, on top of what that processor charges. Square says a business that processes over $250,000 a year can ask its team about custom pricing, so a large restaurant should get a written offer from both.

What do you sign with each?

Square's pricing FAQ says Square Plus and Square Premium each start with a free 30-day trial, and you can cancel or switch plans anytime. Its fees article lists early termination among the things Square charges nothing for. Square's monthly hardware plans are credit sales from Block, Inc. at a 15% APR, and are not offered in Alabama, Delaware, Missouri, Mississippi, New Hampshire or Tennessee.

The Lightspeed Service Agreement (last updated February 26, 2026) sets these rules:

1. Term: your order form sets it. The agreement renews for the same length unless you give written notice 90 days before the end of a term longer than 90 days, or 30 days if there is no order form.
2. Leaving early: the early termination fee adds unpaid one-time fees, the recurring fees left in the term, and the gap between list price and any discount you got on software or hardware.
3. Discounted hardware: it depends on 24 months of the POS and Lightspeed Payments, starting Payments within 30 days, and a minimum daily average of 100 in local currency. Miss one and you repay the hardware's value plus shipping.
4. Changes: Lightspeed can amend the agreement, including fees, with 30 days' written notice.

Suppose the order form sets a 12-month term and the restaurant above closes after month 6. The recurring fees left come to 6 × $249, or $1,494, plus any list-price gap.

What happens when the internet drops?

Square's pricing page says offline payments go through when you reconnect, and are declined if you do not reconnect within 24 hours of the first offline payment. You carry the loss on any payment declined that way.

Lightspeed's help article on offline POS functionality says devices keep talking over the local network, so staff can take orders, print kitchen tickets and use the KDS. Integrated card payments stop working in real time: you take cards on the terminal in standalone mode over LTE or 4G, and terminals without a cell connection stop. Allergens in item descriptions are not visible, and online ordering and delivery integrations are unavailable until the connection returns.

What should you ask before you choose?

1. Ask Lightspeed whether 69, 189 or 399 USD is a monthly fee, and whether it is billed monthly or upfront.
2. Get Lightspeed Payments rates in writing for tapped, typed-in, online and American Express cards, then put them into the sum above.
3. If you process over $250,000 a year, ask Square for custom pricing in writing.
4. Count your kitchen screens and price them on each Square plan.
5. Write down Lightspeed's initial term and the date 90 days before it ends.
6. Check that your delivery, payroll and phone-ordering tools connect to both. Maple Pro, for example, writes phone orders into both Square and Lightspeed, per Maple's integrations list.

If Toast or Clover is also on your list, see Toast vs Square and Square vs Clover. For three-year totals across vendors, see what a restaurant POS costs.

Published by Maple. This AI-assisted comparison combines Square's and Lightspeed's own US pricing, fee, hardware, help-center and agreement pages with an original worked example and break-even rate using made-up sales and an assumed billing term. It does not include a quote from either company, and it does not claim anyone tested either system.