Kounta

Kounta was a cloud point of sale for cafes, bars and restaurants in Australia and New Zealand. Its own website now says Kounta POS is Lightspeed POS, so it is sold today as Lightspeed Restaurant. The system covers orders, payments, inventory and reporting, and is sold to venues from small espresso bars to multi-venue restaurants.

Acquired by Lightspeed, announced October 2019 (about US$35M, 7,000+ locations in ANZ); Lightspeed AU page does not mention Kounta.

Last reviewed

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Best for
Cafes, bars and restaurants in Australia and New Zealand, Multi-location restaurant groups
Pricing
From AUD 79 per month
Runs on
Web

Who it is for

  • Cafes, bars and restaurants in Australia and New Zealand

    The Kounta site says its POS is used by over 10,000 venues across Australia and New Zealand, from small espresso bars to multi-venue restaurants.

  • Multi-location restaurant groups

    Lightspeed Restaurant lists multi-location management and centralised recipes across all locations.

  • Venues that want POS and payments from one vendor

    Lightspeed says payments are built into the POS, so the two do not need separate reconciliation.

What it does

  • Cloud POS with offline mode

    Runs the restaurant POS from the cloud and keeps working offline.

  • Order taking at counter, table and by QR

    Takes orders at the counter, from floor staff and from a QR menu, and syncs delivery orders into the same workflow.

  • Bill splitting and pay at the table

    Opens, splits and closes bills at the table, including by amount or by item.

  • Integrated payments

    Accepts card and mobile wallet payments, including Apple Pay and Google Pay, straight from the POS to the terminal.

  • Inventory with recipe costing

    Tracks stock on hand, deliveries due and prep, orders to par, tracks cost of goods and wastage with a recipe costing tool.

  • Reporting and Insights

    Live sales reporting in an Insights app, with custom reports, trends, alerts and scheduled reports on upgraded Insights plans.

  • Bar mode

    Opens tabs with swipe-to-open pre-authorisation and one-click closeouts.

  • Loyalty

    Records who visits and how much they spend so venues can give guests reasons to return.

  • Kitchen display

    Shows all tickets on one screen with preparation times, sold as an add-on per screen.

  • Multi-location management

    Tracks inventory across locations and changes menus in a few clicks, on the higher plan.

  • Accounting integration

    Syncs sales data from the POS to accounting software.

  • Lightspeed Reservations and Tasks add-ons

    Optional paid add-ons for reservations and for staff checklists.

Pricing

Starting price
From AUD 79 per month
Pricing model
Subscription per location
Free plan
No
Free trial
Yes

The Lightspeed Restaurant pricing page for Australia lists Starter at $79 per month (about $3 AUD a day), Essential at $179 and Premium at $359 per month, each with one register. Add-ons are priced extra, for example Inventory +$99/month, Reservations +$69/month, kitchen display +$40/month per screen and an additional register +$39/month. Hardware is extra, and the page says prices may vary by business. The dollar sign is not named beside the monthly figures, but the per-day figures on the same page say AUD.

How it compares

Compared with the 235 products in Restaurant POS that have a profile on this site. These figures describe the category. They are not a recommendation.

  • Names 19 integrations. The median in this category is 8.
  • Does not have a free plan. 28 of the 50 products in this category that say whether they have a free plan do.
  • Has a free trial. 69 of the 70 products in this category that say whether they have a free trial do.
  • Lists Web only. Among the 218 products in this category that state their platforms, 110 list an iOS app and 116 list an Android app.
  • The category's 10 most-named integration partners are Uber Eats, DoorDash, QuickBooks, Xero, Deliverect, Deliveroo, Grubhub, Glovo, Stripe, OpenTable. Of these, this product's listing names Xero, Deliverect, OpenTable.

Works with

Accounting
XeroMYOB AccountRightMYOB Essentials
Delivery
DeliverectOtterDoshii
Inventory
MarketManRestokeSupy
Loyalty
MarselloRitual
Other
MEWSQuantaco
Payroll
TandaEmployment Hero
Reservations
OpenTableSevenRoomsNow Book It
Scheduling
Deputy

Names are from the Lightspeed Restaurant integrations page for Australia, which lists many more (about 60 in total, including property management systems, gift card and kiosk tools). Integrations may carry a separate subscription with the partner.

Where and how it runs

Customers in
Australia, New Zealand
Platforms
Web
Apps
Lightspeed Pulse: Mobile app with a high-level view of restaurant performance
Hardware
Hardware is extra. Lightspeed sells smart terminals, receipt and kitchen docket printers, cash drawers, barcode scanners and iPad and tablet stands, and says the software works on a range of devices, new and old.

The Kounta site says the POS is used by over 10,000 venues in Australia and New Zealand. Lightspeed overall says it serves more than 100 countries.

The company

Headquarters
Montreal, Canada
Customers named by the vendor
Mr Miyagi

Security and support

Security and compliance
PCI-compliant payment terminals and transactions
Support
Lightspeed lists 24/7 support by live chat, phone and email, one-on-one onboarding and a dedicated account manager when switching. Existing Kounta customers can use a support portal.

Listing details

Vendor
Lightspeed Commerce
Built for
Cafés, Restaurants
Focus
Food-specific
Status
Acquired
Website
lightspeedhq.com

Alternatives to Kounta

See all 276 in Restaurant POS

  • Lightspeed Restaurant

    Lightspeed Restaurant is a cloud point of sale for restaurants, bars, cafes and hotel restaurants, run mainly on iPads.

    Runs on iOS, against Web for Kounta.

  • Onetap

    Onetap is a hospitality point of sale from Wizbang Technologies, a family-owned New Zealand company operating since 1998.

    Names 23 integrations, against 19 for Kounta.

  • SwiftPOS

    SwiftPOS is point-of-sale software for hospitality venues, sold mainly in Australia through local distributors.

    Names 24 integrations, against 19 for Kounta.

  • Impos

    Impos is an Australian hospitality point of sale and payments provider, developing POS software since 2006.

    Runs on Web, iOS and Android, against Web for Kounta.

Compare Kounta

Side-by-side tables built from the same profile data.

What we could not confirm

These points were not confirmed when this page was written.

  • Acquisition date and price (not stated on the vendor's site)
  • Contract length, cancellation terms and free trial length
  • Which mobile platforms the Lightspeed Pulse app runs on
  • Whether the Kounta brand and pricing still apply to legacy Kounta accounts

Sources

Facts on this page come from the pages below, checked on 29 September 2026. Prices and features change, so confirm with the vendor before you buy.

  1. Kounta site: now Lightspeed POS, features, venue counthttps://kounta.com
  2. Lightspeed Australia homepagehttps://www.lightspeedhq.com/au/
  3. Restaurant POS overviewhttps://www.lightspeedhq.com/au/restaurant/
  4. Plans, prices and add-onshttps://www.lightspeedhq.com/au/restaurant/pricing/
  5. Integration nameshttps://www.lightspeedhq.com/au/restaurant/integrations/
  6. Hardwarehttps://www.lightspeedhq.com/au/restaurant/hardware/
  7. Payments and securityhttps://www.lightspeedhq.com/au/restaurant/payments/
  8. Company headquartershttps://www.lightspeedhq.com/au/about/