Shopify vs. Lightspeed

If you’re invested in growing your business in person and online, Shopify is the better choice.

Brands that migrated from Lightspeed to Shopify report spending too much time maintaining and reconciling data between multiple systems. Shopify built its ecommerce platform and POS system on the same infrastructure, enabling you to manage your physical stores and ecommerce website from the same back office. Inventory, orders, customers, and reporting are centrally managed, and you don’t need APIs or integrations to keep both sales channels in sync.

Brands that moved on from Lightspeed also report having to tolerate clunky workflows and complicated workarounds to support established and emerging ways people shop: like placing an order in store and having it shipped to their home address. Shopify builds ecommerce and POS features together so both sales channels work together seamlessly. This enables more cohesive omnichannel shopping experiences for customers and more straightforward workflows for staff.

Shopify built its ecommerce platform and POS system solutions in-house on the same infrastructure to provide you and your customers with the best experience possible. Get unparalleled interoperability between online and in-store sales channels, all centrally managed from one powerful back office.

Shopify also innovates at a pace no other platform can match so you can create unique shopping experiences and support emerging behaviors before they become table stakes. The proof is in Shopify’s track record, focus, and commitment to innovation. In 2023 alone, Shopify invested $1.7 billion into research and development, and has shipped over 200 product updates every year since 2021.¹

Brands that migrate from Lightspeed to Shopify report feeling limited by Lightspeed’s ecommerce platform. If brands choose to integrate Lightspeed with a third-party ecommerce platform, they report having difficulty unifying in-store and online shopping experiences without tolerating clunky workarounds, excessive administrative tasks, or costly custom development. For brands committed to growing ecommerce and retail sales concurrently, Shopify's unified commerce platform is the top choice. It enables more efficient management of both sales channels while offering customers a more cohesive shopping experience.

¹ Last updated February 2024

While Shopify can integrate with Lightspeed POS using APIs and integrations, using Shopify for both your ecommerce website and POS makes running your business in-store and online more efficient. Brands who sync Lightspeed POS with Shopify report having issues maintaining accurate inventory quantities online and across all store locations, tracking orders across sales channels, having limited omnichannel functionality, and relying on workarounds and custom development to bridge the gap.

Using Shopify’s ecommerce and POS system together will help you win back time that would otherwise be spent managing multiple systems and reconciling inventory, order, and customer data. It will also equip you with more robust omnichannel fulfillment capabilities like endless aisle, unlock streamlined workflows that seamlessly blend online and in-person fulfillment, and give you access to holistic customer insights directly from your point of sale.

Both Shopify and Lightspeed offer different pricing tiers based on the size and needs of your business, with higher-tier plans offering more advanced features and functionality. While Shopify and Lightspeed pricing seems comparable, a closer look shows that Shopify is the more affordable option—especially if you have an ecommerce website, run multiple stores, and want to have multiple POS registers per store location.

In addition to the base plan cost, Lightspeed charges a fee per extra store location as well as per register. With Shopify, you can add an unlimited number of POS registers per store location at no extra cost. Shopify’s lowest plans include ecommerce, POS, payments, reporting, as well as the ability to integrate with accounting and loyalty programs. To get this same feature set on Lightspeed, you must be on more expensive plans.