Lightspeed vs Medusa: plan limits, B2B and the POS

Lightspeed is best known in the Benelux and beyond for its POS systems in retail and hospitality. Lightspeed eCom is the webshop that goes with it. Many retailers choose it because stock, products and sales then live in one ecosystem. That is a strong argument. The question changes once the webshop becomes bigger than the store: more variants, more countries, business customers with their own prices or integrations that go beyond the POS.

We compare Lightspeed eCom and Medusa on licence and transaction costs, extensions, hosting, cost over three years and flexibility for B2B, multiple stores and regions.

The comparison in one table

Sources: Lightspeed eCom pricing (Netherlands) and Medusa pricing, read on 5 November 2026.

Licence and transaction costs

In the Netherlands Lightspeed eCom has three fixed plans and an Enterprise plan on request. Essential costs €68 per month, with 250 variants, one user and one language. Advanced costs €120 per month, with 5,000 variants, three users and three languages. Professional costs €259 per month, with 15,000 variants, unlimited users and seven languages. B2B, bundles and discount rules are included from Professional (Lightspeed eCom pricing). According to the Belgian agency VBS Marketing these amounts apply to an annual subscription; paying monthly costs €79, €138 and €299 per month in Belgium (VBS Marketing). According to the Belgian pricing page, Enterprise goes up to 65,000 products with a maximum of 100 variants per product, with extra API keys and higher API limits (Lightspeed Belgium).

Lightspeed is clear about transaction costs: if you connect an external payment provider, Lightspeed charges no extra transaction fee (Lightspeed payment methods). That is better than Shopify, where you pay an extra fee without Shopify Payments. So you only pay your provider. At Mollie that is €0.32 per iDEAL payment (Mollie pricing).

Medusa is similar: no platform fee, only the costs of your payment provider. The difference is in the subscription. Medusa Cloud costs €26 (Develop), €88 (Launch) or €266 (Scale) per month, with unlimited orders, products, sales channels, regions and admin users (Medusa pricing). Self-hosting costs no licence.

Extensions and apps

Lightspeed eCom has an app store with integrations for accounting, shipping and marketing, among others. For most retailers that is enough. What is not in an app or in the plan is hard to build yourself: it is a closed platform, and you depend on what Lightspeed and app makers offer.

With Medusa it is the other way round. There is less ready-made, but anything missing can be built as a module or workflow (Medusa documentation). You write integrations with your ERP, WMS or PIM directly against the APIs. How we approach that is described under Medusa integrations.

Hosting and operations

Lightspeed handles hosting, security and updates. You do not have to think about it, and for a retailer without a technical team that is exactly the point.

With Medusa you host it yourself or via Medusa Cloud, with a separate storefront. That means more freedom, but also that someone has to look after the technology. Without an agency or developer Medusa is not a good choice. We do it through Medusa maintenance and support.

Count your variants, not your products

The variant limit is the first wall many Lightspeed shops hit. A variant is every combination of size, colour or version. A clothing store with 40 models in 3 colours and 5 sizes already has 600, so it no longer fits Essential. A wholesaler with 2,000 items in three pack sizes has 6,000 variants, above Advanced. That takes you to Professional, and beyond that to Enterprise on quote.

That is not a flaw in Lightspeed. It is how a SaaS plan works: you pay for the room you use. But it means the growth of your assortment directly determines your subscription. With Medusa you pay for capacity, not for the number of variants, languages or users. An assortment that grows from 5,000 to 50,000 variants needs at most more server power, not a different plan.

The same goes for languages. If you sell in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, you quickly need Dutch, French, German and English: four languages, so Professional. With Medusa you manage regions, currencies and tax rules per country in one backend.

What does it cost over three years?

Subscription costs only, billed yearly (Dutch prices):

On subscription costs they are close. The big difference is in the build. You set up a Lightspeed shop with a theme and apps. A Medusa shop needs its own storefront and development work, and maintenance afterwards. For a store with a standard assortment, Lightspeed is therefore almost always cheaper over three years. Medusa only becomes interesting when you hit the limits of the plans or when your processes do not fit a standard shop.

Flexibility: B2B, multiple stores and regions

This is the real difference. With Lightspeed, variants, languages and B2B are tied to your plan. A shop with 20,000 variants in eight languages does not fit Professional and ends up at Enterprise on request. B2B only comes from €259 per month, and then within what Lightspeed offers.

Medusa has no such limits. Regions, currencies, sales channels, customer groups and price lists are in the core. A few Medusa customer stories show what that means in practice:

• Wipertech migrated from Craft Commerce to Medusa (live in June 2026) for a multi-region storefront in Australia and New Zealand, with more than 6,000 vehicle-specific variants and kits, more than 3,000 vehicle applications and thousands of fitment relationships, managed from one platform (Medusa: Wipertech).
• Tekla, a textile brand from Copenhagen, sells through Medusa in more than 50 countries and opened a physical store in 2023. Partner Agilo built a POS app on Medusa, with payments via Stripe Terminal and returns and exchanges across online and in-store purchases (Medusa: Tekla POS).

That second example matters, because it shows what it costs. Tekla had its own POS app built. With Lightspeed, the POS is already there. If you want store and webshop in one system without development work, Lightspeed wins.

These are Medusa customer stories, with Medusa's figures. They are not Alpha Digital projects.

When should you choose Lightspeed?

Lightspeed eCom remains the better choice if:

• you have a physical store with the Lightspeed POS and want stock in one system;
• your assortment stays within the variant limits of your plan;
• you sell in one to three languages and have no complex B2B pricing;
• you do not want a technical team or a regular agency;
• local-language support and a fixed monthly price matter to you.

When should you choose Medusa?

Medusa fits if:

• you are hitting the variant, language or user limits of your plan;
• you want to serve business customers with their own prices, quotes or approvals;
• you want to manage several countries, brands or stores from one backend;
• you need integrations with your ERP, WMS or PIM that go beyond the app store;
• you want to own the code, data and storefront yourself.

Where Medusa is not the best choice

• POS. Medusa has no POS of its own. You integrate one or have one built, as Tekla did.
• Convenience. Lightspeed can be set up in a few days. A Medusa shop is a build project.
• Cost for a small shop. For a store with a few hundred products, Lightspeed is cheaper.
• Your own responsibility. Hosting, updates and monitoring are with you or your agency.

From Lightspeed to Medusa

When you switch, products, customers and URLs come along, and you have to think about the POS: does it stay on Lightspeed with an integration, or does it move too? How a migration works is covered in Migrating to Medusa and under Migrating to Medusa. Business customers: Medusa B2B webshop. Other comparisons: Shopify vs Medusa and WooCommerce vs Medusa. Request a callback or book an intro call.

Sources

Dollar amounts from the sources are converted to euros at the ECB rate of 5 November 2026 (1 euro = 1.1224 US dollars) and rounded.