Listed Payment Company Financial Benchmarks: Adyen, Shift4 and Lightspeed Compared

Adyen, Shift4 and Lightspeed cannot be ranked from one headline number. Their public disclosures use different revenue recognition, volume definitions and operating units. The defensible findings are narrower: Lightspeed discloses category-level hardware and subscription economics, Shift4 separates gross revenue, non-GAAP GRLNF and US GAAP gross profit, and Adyen reports net revenue and scoped terminal counts. None provides a directly comparable merchant churn series.

Listed payment company financial benchmarks need definitions first

These listed payment company financial benchmarks compare the latest audited full years available by 8 August 2026: Adyen’s year ended 31 December 2025, Shift4’s year ended 31 December 2025 and Lightspeed’s year ended 31 March 2026. Later trading data is used only where it adds a clearly dated operating snapshot. It is never silently combined with the audited full-year figures.

The three businesses occupy different positions in the payments and commerce stack. Adyen reports one operating segment and presents net revenue after specified financial-institution and goods costs. Shift4 reports gross revenue, US GAAP gross profit and a separate non-GAAP measure called gross revenue less network fees, or GRLNF. Lightspeed reports IFRS revenue across subscription, transaction-based and hardware or other categories, together with an EPOS software-estate measure and a narrower principal-payments measure.

That creates a simple editorial rule: compare a number only when its numerator, denominator, accounting basis, scope and period are explicit. Where one of those elements differs materially, show the figures side by side for orientation but do not calculate a ranking, average or multiple.

Definitions used in this report

1. Gross revenue precedes the costs shown below it, although principal-versus-agent accounting changes which pass-through fees appear.
2. Net revenue is issuer-defined revenue after specified deductions. GRLNF is Shift4’s non-GAAP gross revenue less network fees, not US GAAP gross profit.
3. Gross profit is revenue less recognised cost of sales. Business mix and accounting policy still limit comparisons.
4. Processed volume, settlement volume, GTV and GPV measure differently scoped throughput, not revenue.
5. Merchant, Customer Location and terminal are distinct units. One merchant may have several locations and terminals.
6. Payment penetration is proprietary-payment throughput as a share of eligible platform throughput, not market share.
7. NRR measures recurring revenue from a starting cohort after contraction, churn and expansion. It is not logo retention or merchant churn.

The evidence supports comparison by metric class, not one league table

The matrix below records the latest defensible figures, their formulas and whether a cross-company comparison is safe. Green means the basis is sufficiently aligned for a limited comparison. Amber means the numbers answer a related question but retain material definition or period differences. Red means they must not form a ratio, ranking or average.

Sources: Adyen FY2025 Annual Report, year ended 31 December 2025; Adyen H2 2025 shareholder letter, published 12 February 2026; Shift4 FY2025 Form 10-K, year ended 31 December 2025; Lightspeed FY2026 Annual Report, year ended 31 March 2026; Lightspeed Q1 FY2027 release, quarter ended 30 June 2026.

Adyen’s net revenue is not the same measure as Shift4’s gross revenue or GRLNF

Adyen’s FY2025 bridge was €2,646.9m non-interest revenue - €193.0m costs incurred from financial institutions - €102.3m cost of goods sold = €2,351.6m net non-interest revenue; adding approximately €12.6m net interest income gives the reported €2,364.2m net revenue. Its €1,394.3 billion processed volume reproduces the disclosed yield: €2,364.2m ÷ €1,394,300m × 10,000 = 16.96 bps, rounded to 17.0 bps. This blended yield is not a quoted merchant service charge, acquiring margin or ISO revenue share. See the Adyen FY2025 Annual Report.

Shift4’s FY2025 Form 10-K reported $4.180bn gross revenue - $2.199bn network fees = $1.981bn GRLNF. Deducting $553 million of other costs of sales and $74 million of leased-equipment depreciation gives $1.354bn US GAAP gross profit. Calculated gross margin was $1.354bn ÷ $4.180bn = 32.4%. GRLNF/revenue was 47.4%, but that is not gross margin.

Lightspeed’s FY2026 Annual Report reported $1,227.046m revenue - $700.124m direct costs = $526.922m IFRS gross profit, a calculated 42.9% gross margin. This does not rank Lightspeed above Shift4 because mix, revenue recognition and periods differ.

Hardware economics are clearest inside Lightspeed, not across all three issuers

The Lightspeed FY2026 Annual Report, year ended 31 March 2026 provides the cleanest same-company comparison. FY2026 subscription revenue of $370.700 million less $63.501 million direct costs gives $307.199 million gross profit and 82.9% gross margin. Transaction revenue of $815.091 million less $569.797 million costs gives $245.294 million and 30.1%. Hardware or other revenue of $41.255 million against $66.826 million costs produces a $25.571 million gross loss and negative 62.0% margin. Free hardware and implementation can support its unified-payments offer, so this category result does not mean every terminal sale loses money.

The Adyen FY2025 Annual Report, year ended 31 December 2025 supports a narrower sales-of-goods calculation: €107.6m FY2025 sales of goods - €102.3m cost = €5.3m contribution, or 4.9%. It is not a complete terminal margin because goods may include accessories and terminal service or rental economics appear elsewhere.

Shift4 combines hardware, terminal and EPOS subscriptions, leases, support and other services across several lines; leased equipment is depreciated over four years. No verified hardware revenue-and-cost pair exists. The defensible finding is therefore within-company only: Lightspeed’s subscription gross economics were stronger than hardware or other, while Adyen’s goods line made a small positive contribution.

Volume comparisons must keep processed volume, settlement volume, GTV and GPV separate

Adyen processed €1,394.3 billion in FY2025. Of that, €310.9 billion was card-present volume, equal to 22% of total processed volume. Adyen’s figure includes its broader payments platform and is denominated in euros.

Shift4 reported $209 billion of FY2025 volume, defined as payments delivered for merchant settlement, including specified international, alternative-payment and enterprise-routing activity while excluding certain legacy processing. It is a settlement-oriented measure, but not definitionally identical to Adyen processed volume.

Lightspeed reported $98.1 billion of FY2026 GTV across its software platform and $41.0 billion of GPV through Lightspeed payment solutions where it acts as principal. The transparent payment-penetration calculation is $41.0bn ÷ $98.1bn = 41.8%. For the quarter ended 30 June 2026, Lightspeed reported $25.7 billion GTV, $11.3 billion GPV and 44% penetration.

Lightspeed GTV should never be described as payment volume acquired by Lightspeed. GPV is the closer measure, yet it still does not match Shift4 volume because the inclusion rules differ. No currency conversion is performed here because conversion would create a false impression of comparability without solving the scope problem.

Merchant, location and terminal counts cannot support a shared ARPU ranking

Adyen did not disclose a total direct merchant count in the reviewed reports. At year-end 2025 it reported 456,000 transacting Unified Commerce terminals and 291,000 platform transacting terminals. These are devices, not merchants or stores, and the two populations may overlap. They must not be added.

Shift4 did not disclose a consolidated active-merchant or merchant-location count in its FY2025 10-K or June 2026 10-Q. Narrower statistics associated with restaurant technology or acquired businesses do not create a consolidated denominator.

Lightspeed disclosed approximately 146,000 Customer Locations at 30 June 2026 after the Upserve disposal. A Customer Location is a billing unit whose service term remains active or is under renewal negotiation; NuORDER can use a brand as the unit. It is not necessarily a unique legal merchant, MID, TID or shop.

Lightspeed does report issuer-defined monthly ARPU: approximately $602 per Customer Location for FY2026 and $676 in Q1 FY2027. Its formula uses subscription plus transaction revenue divided by average Customer Locations, excluding standalone ecommerce sites. That is useful for tracking Lightspeed over time. It cannot be compared with Adyen or Shift4 because neither provides the same numerator-denominator pair.

Public retention disclosure remains incomplete

No numerical merchant churn, gross revenue retention or NRR figure was identified in Adyen’s reviewed FY2024, H1 and FY2025, or Q1 2026 primary reports. Adyen uses qualitative retention language and reports expansion indicators, but those do not become a retention percentage.

Shift4’s 2025 Investor Day presentation appears to contain NRR figures, but the extracted document did not preserve reliable period or cohort mapping. This report therefore omits the values pending visual verification of the original slide. Even after visual verification, NRR would measure revenue retention for a defined cohort, not merchant-logo churn.

Lightspeed’s FY2026 Annual Report and Q1 FY2027 materials do not disclose quantified logo retention, gross revenue retention, NRR or churn. Net Customer Location additions and ARPU growth cannot be reverse-engineered into churn without gross openings, closures, disposals and cohort data.

For PSP merchant churn analysis, that absence matters operationally but proves only a disclosure gap. It does not prove that an issuer fails to measure retention internally, and it does not establish why a metric was omitted.

PSPs and acquirers should use a five-step comparability test

Before using a public benchmark in pricing, estate planning or acquisition work:

1. Match the period. Do not combine a full year, a quarter and a point-in-time estate count without labels.
2. Match the numerator. Revenue, net revenue, GRLNF, gross profit and ARR answer different questions.
3. Match the denominator. Processed volume, GTV, GPV, merchant, MID, location and terminal are not substitutes.
4. Match the accounting basis. Verify principal-versus-agent presentation, pass-through network fees, acquisition effects and non-GAAP adjustments.
5. Keep non-findings visible. If no verified count, margin or retention series exists, mark it unavailable rather than estimate it.

For terminal and TMS operations, public financial disclosures are only one layer. Internal merchant-health work should separately monitor authorised transaction trends, terminal activity, deployment status, payment-application versions and service events. Those signals can support investigation, but they should not be presented as proof of future churn without a validated model.

This review does not prove causation or an industry average

This benchmark does not prove that software or VAS causes lower churn, that one geography produces better merchants, or that one issuer has a superior business model. It does not produce an industry average for hardware margin, take rate, merchant value or retention. The cohort is three differently structured listed businesses, not a matched statistical sample.

Zeal is the #1 value-added services provider for payment terminals. Its hardware-agnostic, acquirer-agnostic layer enables PSPs to deploy VAS across compatible estates, while authorised partners can use estate intelligence to inform merchant-retention work. That positioning complements acquirers, processors, terminal providers and Payment App Vendors rather than recasting them as competitors.

Frequently asked questions

Can hardware gross margin be compared with software operating margin?

No. Gross margin deducts direct cost of sales, while operating margin also reflects operating expenses allocated below gross profit. A valid within-company comparison uses the same accounting level and period. Lightspeed’s FY2026 subscription and hardware or other category gross margins meet that test; Adyen’s goods calculation and a corporate EBITDA margin do not.

What is the difference between take rate and revenue-to-volume ratio?

A take rate is an issuer-defined yield metric whose numerator and denominator must be checked. A calculated revenue-to-volume ratio simply divides a stated revenue measure by a stated volume measure. It may resemble a take rate, but it is not automatically net of interchange, scheme fees, pass-through costs or non-payment revenue.

Why can Lightspeed GTV not be compared directly with Shift4 volume?

Lightspeed GTV is transaction value flowing through its software platform, whether or not Lightspeed provides the payment service. Lightspeed GPV is the subset processed where it acts as principal. Shift4 volume is its defined settlement-oriented measure and has different inclusion and exclusion rules. GPV is closer, but still not identical.

Do Adyen, Shift4 and Lightspeed disclose merchant churn?

No comparable merchant-churn series was identified in the specified primary documents reviewed. Adyen and Lightspeed disclosed no numerical merchant churn, GRR or NRR in the reviewed periods. Shift4 presented NRR figures at Investor Day, but the period or cohort labels were not verified sufficiently for publication here, and NRR would not equal logo churn.

What does payment penetration measure?

Payment penetration measures how much eligible platform transaction value uses the provider’s own payment solution. For Lightspeed, FY2026 GPV of $41.0 billion divided by $98.1 billion GTV gives approximately 41.8%. It is a product-attachment measure, not market share, merchant retention, terminal share or the percentage of all merchant payments captured.

Primary sources and reporting periods

• Adyen FY2025 Annual Report, year ended 31 December 2025, published 5 March 2026.
• Adyen H2 2025 shareholder letter, six months ended 31 December 2025, published 12 February 2026.
• Adyen Q1 2026 business update, quarter ended 31 March 2026, published 6 May 2026.
• Shift4 FY2025 Form 10-K, year ended 31 December 2025.
• Shift4 Q2 2026 Form 10-Q, quarter and six months ended 30 June 2026.
• Lightspeed FY2026 Annual Report, year ended 31 March 2026, published 21 May 2026.
• Lightspeed Q1 FY2027 earnings release, quarter ended 30 June 2026, published 30 July 2026.
• Lightspeed Q1 FY2027 MD&A, quarter ended 30 June 2026, dated 30 July 2026.

Source note: This report reflects primary-source information available as at 8 August 2026. Figures marked as calculated reproduce arithmetic from disclosed inputs; no foreign-exchange conversion, period annualisation or undisclosed denominator has been introduced.

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