HomeStack Choices
POS Stack Choices for a Single Store That Sells Online
Choose the right POS stack for one store: POS Lite vs Pro break-even, Shopify POS vs Lightspeed, and an offline payments outage routine.
The right POS stack for a single store keeps one clean inventory record and handles the in-store jobs you do daily. It also keeps selling when the internet drops. These guides help you decide three things. Does Shopify POS Pro pay for itself? Does Shopify POS or Lightspeed Retail fit your buying? And what do you do at the counter during an outage?
How we compare stacks
Every comparison here is written from the vendor’s own pricing and help pages, fetched on the date shown in the guide’s sources. Prices are quoted as each vendor prints them, in USD or CAD, with the billing term. When a vendor doesn’t print a number, we describe the tier instead.
We judge each stack against a single store’s reality: one register, one buyer, an owner who also runs the marketing, and no developer. A feature that matters to a 40-location chain may not matter to you, and a small gap can matter a lot.
The question under every choice
Most stack decisions come down to one question: how many systems hold your inventory? Shopify POS shares one record with your online store. A third-party POS like Lightspeed Retail keeps its own record and syncs to Shopify. Lightspeed’s own help says “Retail POS is the system of record,” and that most sync problems come from editing a product in both places.
Neither answer is wrong. Two records buy you better purchasing tools at the cost of a sync rule everyone must follow. Our inventory pillar’s sync failures guide shows what breaks when the rule slips.
Canada and the US
Card rates, reader support and offline rules differ by country. Interac debit, for example, can’t be taken offline on either Shopify POS or Lightspeed in Canada. Each guide notes where the country changes the answer.
Guides in this pillar
Guides in Stack Choices
- Shopify POS Lite vs Pro for a Single Store: The Break-Even Test
What POS Pro adds over the free in-person tier, what it costs per location in USD and CAD, and the margin test that tells one store if it pays.
- Shopify POS vs Lightspeed Retail for a Single Store That Sells Online
One record or two: compare Shopify POS Pro and Lightspeed Retail X-Series on sync, buying tools, offline cards and published price for one store.
- Shopify POS Internet Outage Procedure: Offline Payments for One Register
Set up Shopify POS offline card payments before the outage, then follow a one-page routine at the counter and after reconnecting.