Payzium vs Lightspeed
Lightspeed publishes a fee for choosing your own processor. At $40K a month, it is $270. Payzium is a card-processing service; that is the marginal-cost frame.
Last updated: July 12, 2026
where Lightspeed is genuinely the right call
Lightspeed is a Canadian company headquartered in Montreal, publicly listed on the TSX and NYSE, and the POS software is one of the strongest retail and hospitality products on the market. Staff accounts, inventory, purchase orders, e-commerce sync, kitchen printer routing on the restaurant tier: all real product depth. If you run a serious retail or restaurant operation and Lightspeed's software is what runs your business day to day, the platform earns its keep. This page is not about the POS software. It is about the processing economics stapled to it. The page below reads Lightspeed's own legal fee schedule, then does the honest math at $40K a month.
Lightspeed's own legal fee schedule
Lightspeed publishes a monthly transaction fee schedule for merchants who use another processor.
The table below is copied verbatim from Lightspeed's Transaction Fee table (Canada, English), the legal fee schedule Lightspeed applies when a merchant uses Lightspeed POS with any payment processor other than Lightspeed Payments. The schedule is a monthly fee, tiered by estimated monthly transaction volume in CAD.
| Estimated monthly transaction volume (CAD) | Monthly transaction fee (CAD) |
|---|---|
| $6,670 to $46,669 | $270[1] |
| $46,670 to $133,329 | $535[1] |
| $133,330 to $166,669 | $750[1] |
| $166,670 to $199,999 | $910[1] |
| $200,000 to $233,329 | $1,080[1] |
| $233,330 and above | Contact your account manager[1] |
A $40,000-a-month merchant lands in the first tier. That is $270 a month, or $3,240 a year, purely for using a payment processor other than Lightspeed Payments while staying on Lightspeed POS.
a worked example, the assumptions stated up front
$462.72 vs $270 in tax alone. Two independent decisions, both worth doing honestly.
The profile: $40,000 in monthly card volume, 100% card-present, 60% credit and 40% Interac debit, $50 average ticket, 800 transactions. Merchant currently on Lightspeed POS. The Lightspeed tax and the Payzium rate are independent decisions. A merchant who stays on Lightspeed POS pays both. A merchant who moves to Payzium and off Lightspeed POS pays neither.
Lightspeed monthly transaction tax (schedule)
- Volume tier ($6,670 to $46,669): monthly transaction fee = $270.00/mo
- Lightspeed POS subscription: quoted through sales; varies by tier not published
- Third-party processor cost: your choice; example Payzium at Tier 1 = $462.72/mo
- Lightspeed tax alone: $270.00/mo
Payzium wholesale-plus (standalone)
- Card-network pass-through: credit only, with assessment = $345.72/mo
- Interac (flat 5¢/tx): 320 tx × 5¢ = $16.00/mo
- Payzium margin (credit only): 0.30% × $24,000 = $72.00/mo
- Per-transaction fees: 480 credit tx × 5¢ = $24.00/mo
- Monthly account fee: $5.00/mo
- Total: $462.72/mo
The $270 Lightspeed tax at $40K volume, as their own schedule states it: $3,240 per year, if you use Lightspeed POS and any processor other than Lightspeed Payments. The Payzium total above is the standalone card-processing cost at this profile; it matches the homepage volume slider and /calculator to the cent.
Payzium uses the Tier 1 standard interchange schedule (the conservative regime above the Small Merchant / Small Business program ceilings); a merchant under $14,583 a month sees a lower Payzium rate than published here because both SMB programs apply. This page reports the Lightspeed transaction fee schedule verbatim and does not attempt to model Lightspeed Payments' own processing rates: only card-present 1.5% is published on their Canadian pricing page, and Interac, card-not-present, per-transaction fixed fees, and international modifiers are quoted through their sales team. Rather than approximate the missing figures, we do not print them; if you want a Lightspeed Payments quote to compare against Payzium in full, ask them for the complete schedule in writing. Both sides exclude terminal hardware. Annual extrapolation of the $270 schedule figure is Lightspeed's own arithmetic, not a Payzium claim; Pay less or it's free is the guarantee for whether your real Payzium bill is lower than what you left behind.
the Lightspeed Payments rate, what is published and what is not
Lightspeed Payments publishes 1.5% card-present. The rest is quoted through sales.
On lightspeedhq.com/pos/retail/pricing/, Lightspeed Payments' Canadian card-present rate is published as 1.5%. That figure appears next to every plan as a feature callout. Interac in-person, card-not-present rates, per-transaction fixed fees, international-card modifiers, and any surcharges apply to actual settlement are not published on that page; they are quoted through the Lightspeed sales team.[2]
The 1.5% headline is the strongest single-figure published rate in the cluster. It is also the only Lightspeed Payments figure a merchant can verify without a sales call. Payzium is card-present about 1.84% all-in at Tier 1; the credit-line spread on that single verified figure is roughly 34 basis points in Lightspeed Payments' favor if you take their headline at face value. Our published rate covers every line, so we cannot show the full spread here.
what Lightspeed does well, plainly
Three things Lightspeed gets right. We will not pretend otherwise.
Lightspeed's POS is a serious retail and hospitality product; Montreal-headquartered, publicly listed, real engineering behind it. Honesty about Lightspeed's strengths is what makes the fee-schedule teardown above credible.
Strong POS software.
Retail and Restaurant tiers are both mature products with staff accounts, inventory, e-commerce sync, and specialized tooling. If Lightspeed's software runs your business day to day, the platform is real value.
Canadian company, publicly listed.
Lightspeed is headquartered in Montreal, dual-listed on the TSX and NYSE; the company is accountable to Canadian securities regulators and shareholders.[3]
1.5% card-present rate is a real published number.
Most bundled-POS competitors bury their processing rates behind a sales call. Lightspeed publishes at least one headline figure; that is credit worth extending.[2]
the $5 monthly account fee, surfaced honestly
Payzium charges a $5 monthly account fee. Lightspeed does not, as a separate line.
Lightspeed does not publish a separate monthly processing fee beyond the POS subscription and the third-party transaction fee schedule[1]. Payzium publishes a $5 monthly account fee on every account. The same honesty standard we apply to the fee-schedule section applies here: we will not spotlight the $270 Lightspeed tax while staying quiet on a fixed $5 monthly fee.
The $5 account fee is immaterial next to either the Lightspeed subscription (quoted through sales) or the $270 monthly transaction fee. It clears with a few hundred dollars of monthly card volume, which any active merchant reaches in days. Above that, every dollar of credit volume is net savings against a flat-rate processor.
If your monthly card volume is small enough that $5 a month is a real consideration, this comparison is not the decision you are making.
the real cost of switching processors on Lightspeed is the schedule, not the contract
Lightspeed POS does not charge a cancellation fee for switching your processor.
Turning off Lightspeed Payments and using a third-party processor triggers the monthly transaction fee schedule above; that is the operative economics, not a contract penalty. Leaving Lightspeed POS entirely is a separate move with its own operational cost, mostly around retraining staff and migrating catalog and inventory data. Payzium is a card-processing service, not a POS system; if the value in your Lightspeed subscription is the POS software, we tell you that plainly and you decide what to leave and what to keep.
Pay less or it's free covers up to CA$1,000 of your switch-out cost. If Payzium has not lowered your processing cost in the first 90 days, every Payzium fee is refunded.
Honest math
Honest math. Decide from there.
Wholesale-plus pricing at interchange + 0.30% + 5 cents Tier 1 margin. The Honest Rate Promise and Pay less or it's free. $5 monthly account fee disclosed; no setup fee, no PCI fee, no monthly minimum, no junk fees.
common questions
Questions merchants ask before leaving Lightspeed's payment stack
Can I use Payzium and keep my Lightspeed POS?
Yes, but Lightspeed then applies the monthly transaction fee schedule: $270 a month at $40K volume in the first tier. The comparison is honest: if the POS software is worth $270 a month to you, keep Lightspeed POS and swap only the processor. If it is not, the honest answer is to leave both. Payzium does not run POS software; we are a card-processing service.
Why does Lightspeed charge merchants for choosing another processor?
That is the size of the vendor economics stapled to a bundled POS-plus-Payments product. Lightspeed's stated position (per the CAEN fee table) is that a merchant using their POS but processing through someone else pays a monthly fee, tiered by volume. It is a legitimate structure, and Lightspeed is transparent about it in the legal fee table; other bundled-POS competitors leave the same economics undisclosed until a sales call. We think Lightspeed publishing the schedule is the honest move; whether the schedule itself is worth paying is the merchant's decision.
Why does Payzium not publish an all-in comparison against Lightspeed Payments?
Because we cannot verify Lightspeed Payments' full rate structure from published material. Only the 1.5% card-present rate is published on Lightspeed's Canadian pricing page; Interac, card-not-present, and per-transaction fixed fees are quoted through their sales team. Rather than approximate the missing lines, we do not print an all-in comparison. If you want a Lightspeed Payments quote to compare against Payzium in full, ask them for the complete schedule in writing.
Are these rates guaranteed?
Yes, two ways. The Honest Rate Promise: if we ever charge a junk fee, we refund it twice. Pay less or it's free: if you have not saved money on processing within the first 90 days, every Payzium fee is refunded and we cover up to CA$1,000 of your switching costs, to move to any processor you want. The published rate is the rate on the statement.
What is interchange and why does Payzium charge it at cost?
Interchange is the fee the card networks (Visa, Mastercard, Interac) set and collect on every card transaction. Every processor pays interchange to the customer's card-issuing bank. Payzium passes it through at cost, so you pay what the network actually charges, no markup, and on top of that we charge our published margin. That structure is why our all-in rate is defensible line by line: there is no spread between wholesale interchange and the rate on the statement.
What does Pay less or it's free cover if I am coming from Lightspeed?
Two things. It covers up to CA$1,000 of your switch-out cost. And if Payzium has not lowered your processing cost within the first 90 days, every Payzium fee is refunded. The guarantee runs for the first 90 days and is not rolling.
Sources
- [1] Lightspeed Canada Transaction Fee table (Canada, English) monthly fee schedule for merchants using a third-party payment provider. $6,670-$46,669 CAD/mo tier is $270 CAD/mo; $46,670-$133,329 is $535; $133,330-$166,669 is $750; $166,670-$199,999 is $910; $200,000-$233,329 is $1,080; $233,330 and above requires contacting an account manager. Filed at ~/Prolificorp-Vaults/payzium/sources/lightspeed-transaction-fee-table-CAEN-2026-07-11.pdf, SHA-256 10e681d7a25b4439bc797950b314fcb9a8f7c6f42d2c636a5e8f59ccad69277b. https://www.lightspeedhq.com/legal/. Verified 2026-07-12.
- [2] Lightspeed Payments Canada in-person card-present rate 1.5% (all plans, feature callout on the Canadian pricing table). Interac in-person, card-not-present, per-transaction fixed fees, and international modifiers are not published on this page; they are quoted through the Lightspeed sales team. https://www.lightspeedhq.com/pos/retail/pricing/. Verified 2026-07-12.
- [3] Lightspeed Commerce Inc. is a Canadian company headquartered in Montreal, dual-listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (LSPD) and the New York Stock Exchange (LSPD). https://www.lightspeedhq.com/about/. Verified 2026-07-12.