Lightspeed's restaurant page sells $69, $189 and $399 a month — and then $30 a screen for the kitchen display, reservations as an add-on on every plan, hardware sold separately and a card rate that is quoted rather than printed. Three years of Essential is $6,804 before any of that. ShopLaunch builds the page and the QR menu for $199, once, and leaves the register question exactly where you left it.
Lightspeed's restaurant page is a ladder, and the price at the top of the ladder is not the price of the system. Each rung adds back-office depth; none of them adds a website, a kitchen screen or a card rate you can read.
The published prices are honest as far as they go; the bill is the sum of the rows under them. A café on Starter with three kitchen screens pays $159 a month before hardware and processing — $5,724 over three years, not $2,484. A restaurant on Essential that wants reservations adds a line the page does not price.
Outside every figure above: the iPad and stand, the kitchen and receipt printers, the payment terminal, the cash drawer, the card rate (quoted, not published) and reservations. Those are not small; a restaurant hardware kit is a four-figure purchase, and the card rate decides more of your month than the subscription does.
The subscription buys a real back office — inventory, labour, multi-location reporting, an API on the top plan, POS hardware that is standard in hospitality. What it does not buy, at any of the three prices, is a page with your hours, your photos and a menu a guest can read from a QR code at the table. That is the line we sell, once, for $199.
| Lightspeed Restaurant | ShopLaunch | |
|---|---|---|
| What it costs | $69 Starter / $189 Essential / $399 Premium a month, plus $30 a screen for the kitchen | $199, once |
| Add-ons | Reservations on every plan; inventory and task management on the lower plans | None |
| Hardware | Separate: iPad, stand, printers, terminal, drawer | None; the page runs on any phone |
| Card processing | “Default” on Starter, “custom” above — no published rate | We process nothing |
| The website | Not part of the restaurant plans on that page — ask what they offer | The product |
| Contract | Not stated; prices “may vary depending on the nature of the business and the industry” | No contract |
| Who builds it | You configure the back office; onboarding and pro services are paid options | We do, from one five-minute form |
| Time to live | Hardware, install, menu and floor-plan setup | 24 hours |
| Table QR menu | Order-and-pay at the table on the higher plans | A printed QR that opens your menu — no ordering |
| What you keep | A system you rent, on hardware you buy | The page, the PDFs, the PNGs |
Lightspeed Restaurant figures from lightspeedhq.com/pos/restaurant/pricing, read 11 November 2026: Starter $69, Essential $189, Premium $399 USD a month, Enterprise quoted, kitchen display $30 per screen per month on every plan, reservations an add-on on every plan, hardware sold separately, card rates shown as default or custom without a number. The retail Basic $89 / Core $149 / Plus $289 line is from lightspeedhq.com/pricing on the same date. ShopLaunch prices are the ones on this site, in US dollars, before tax.
Lightspeed is built for operators, not for a shop that wants a menu on the internet, and that difference is the whole comparison.
Not a template you fill in. We take your hours, prices and photos, build each piece, and hand back files and a live link.
One form, five minutes. Live the next business day. No app for you or your guests, no monthly fee, and no cut of anything you sell.
The page and the menu are the Local Pack. Nothing here is a subscription, and nothing renews.
One page, one business day.
The one most shops order.
Everything, plus 30 days of us on call.
Payment is taken by Polar Software, Inc., our merchant of record, on their checkout page — we never see your card. By ordering you agree to our terms and refund policy. One round of edits is included; the files are yours to keep and reprint.
Its US restaurant pricing page lists three plans: Starter at $69, Essential at $189 and Premium at $399 a month, with an Enterprise tier quoted. On every plan the kitchen display is another $30 a screen a month, reservations are an add-on, and the hardware is separate. The page adds one line under the table: "Prices may vary depending on the nature of the business and the industry." Three years of Essential is $6,804 before hardware, screens and processing.
$89 is Basic on Lightspeed's retail pricing — the shop register, not the restaurant one. The retail line runs $89 Basic, $149 Core and $289 Plus; the restaurant line runs $69 Starter, $189 Essential and $399 Premium. Both are Lightspeed, and they are not the same product, so the first question to ask about any quote is which line it is for.
The restaurant plans are the register and its back office: menus, floor plans, reports, payments, and the add-ons above. A website for your shop — the page a guest opens from Instagram, the menu behind a QR code on the table — is not one of the line items on that page. Ask them what they offer and what it costs; if the answer is another subscription, compare it with a page that is paid for once.
The restaurant pricing page does not state a term, and it says prices may vary by business and industry — which usually means the quote carries the term. Ask for the term, the renewal rule, the notice period and the exit price in writing before you sign anything.
Polar Software, Inc., our merchant of record, takes it on their checkout page. Your card details are entered there, never on this site, and they handle the receipt and the tax. We never see your card number.
The three plans, the per-screen and add-on lines, the three-year arithmetic and what the price leaves out, on one printable page.
Want all eleven on one page? The 2026 cost comparison puts them side by side.
Send your shop once. We build the page, the QR menu, the posters and the posts, and hand it back the next business day. If you already pay a platform for a page like this, this is the line you can take off the bill.