Best POS for Michigan Dispensaries: Metrc POS Prices Compared

The short answer

The best POS for a Michigan dispensary is the one that reports every sale to Metrc, applies the right tax to each ticket (10% excise plus 6% sales tax on adult-use, 6% sales tax and no excise on medical), enforces the 2.5 ounce, 15 gram concentrate adult-use limit, and keeps your cost of goods honest now that the 24% wholesale marijuana tax has been built into every wholesale invoice since January 1, 2026. No vendor publishes a Michigan price. The two national rate cards that apply are IndicaOnline at $240 to $850 a month and Cova at $349 to $599 a month. BLAZE, Dutchie and Flowhub quote after a demo.

Page one of Google for this question is almost entirely vendor pages. Cova, Flowhub, Meadow, BLAZE and IndicaOnline each rank their own Michigan page, and the one result titled "best dispensary POS software in Michigan" is IndicaOnline's own blog, which compares nothing and promotes only IndicaOnline. That is ordinary marketing. It is not a comparison, and this is.

How do BLAZE, Dutchie, and Flowhub compare for Michigan dispensaries?

All three report to Metrc and all three sell in Michigan, so compliance is not what separates them. Price transparency, the billing meter and what else is in the stack are. None of the three publishes a price. Third parties report Dutchie at roughly $499 to $1,000 a month per location, Flowhub at $399 to $499 a month, and BLAZE either at $500 a month flat or at $10 to $100 per user, two readings that cannot both be right. Dutchie leads when online ordering is a big share of sales, BLAZE when you run delivery from the same store, and Flowhub when you want a lighter register for a single storefront.

The table sets them beside the vendors that do publish, and records what each one's Michigan material actually says. We opened each page in September 2026.

Cova and IndicaOnline prices come from their own pricing pages. Every other figure is a third-party report that the vendor does not confirm, and we list who published each one on our BLAZE POS pricing, Dutchie pricing and Flowhub pricing pages. For all eleven systems side by side, see the cannabis POS comparison.

What does a Michigan dispensary POS have to calculate?

Three tax lines on the receipt side and one that never reaches the receipt at all. That last one is the reason Michigan asks more of a POS in 2026 than it did a year ago.

The fourth row is the one to test in a demo. The wholesale tax has been in effect since January 1, 2026, after the Court of Claims refused in December 2025 to block it, and the industry's legal challenge has not stopped collection. Growers and processors file it quarterly, by the 20th of the month after each quarter. You never see it as a line item, but it lands in the price your supplier charges you. A POS that carries an old cost per unit on your shelf keeps showing last year's margins while your real ones shrink. Ask the vendor to receive an invoice at a new cost and show you the margin report change on the same screen.

How much cannabis can a Michigan dispensary sell in one transaction?

For adult-use customers, 2.5 ounces per transaction, of which no more than 15 grams may be concentrate. Registered medical patients can buy up to 2.5 ounces a day and 10 ounces a month, which the register has to check against the patient's history, not just the basket in front of it.

That makes Michigan two different limit checks under one roof. The adult-use check looks at one basket. The medical check looks back across the month. Ring both in the demo: a basket of 2 ounces of flower plus 15 grams of concentrate followed by one more gram of concentrate, and a patient who bought 9 ounces earlier in the month trying to buy another 2. The register should stop both.

How much does a dispensary POS cost in Michigan?

Roughly $240 to $1,000 a month per location for software, because no vendor prices Michigan separately. Take a two-register adult-use store. On IndicaOnline's published card the entry tier is $240 a month billed annually, and Cova's Boutique tier covers two workstations at $349 a month with Cova Pay or $389 without. That is about $2,900 to $4,700 a year in software. Two registers of hardware at $1,000 to $3,500 each, itemized in our guide to the dispensary POS bundle, adds $2,000 to $7,000, so year one lands near $5,000 to $12,000 before payment processing.

Michigan is one of the most price-competitive retail cannabis markets in the country, and the wholesale tax squeezed margins further. In a market like that the software line matters less than two things around it: whether the POS lets you change prices and promotions fast enough to match the shop down the road, and whether its reporting tells you the truth about margin. If your team already checks rival menus by hand every morning, a tool that can track competitor prices and menu changes automatically saves those hours and tells you when to reprice, which feeds straight into the promotions your POS has to run.

Does a Michigan dispensary need a Metrc-integrated POS?

In practice, yes. Michigan uses Metrc as its statewide monitoring system, and licensees are expected to run a third-party inventory and point of sale system that integrates with it so every sale and inventory movement reconciles with the state record. Every vendor in the table above integrates. What differs is how: whether sales post to Metrc in real time or in batches, how the system handles a rejected package, and how long receiving an inbound manifest takes at the back door.

Ask each vendor to receive a manifest live and time it, then make one sale fail against Metrc and show you the error screen. A register that hides sync errors until end of day turns one mistake into a reconciliation project.

What should a Michigan dispensary ask in a POS demo?

• Ring one adult-use ticket and one patient ticket back to back and show the tax on each. The patient ticket should carry 6% sales tax and no excise.
• Receive a wholesale invoice at a higher cost per unit and show the margin report update without manual edits.
• Run the two purchase-limit baskets above and show both being stopped.
• Send a batch of sales to Metrc, force one to fail, and show how the error surfaces.
• Quote software, hardware, setup and payments as separate lines, with the billing meter named and the renewal terms attached.

Ask as well what the register does when the internet drops, because a store that cannot sell offline closes for as long as the outage lasts. Our guide to dispensary POS offline mode covers the questions to ask.

Which POS is cheapest for a Michigan dispensary?

On published prices, IndicaOnline Core at $240 a month billed annually, or $300 billed monthly, followed by Cova Boutique at $349. The order can flip with register count: IndicaOnline charges $50 a month for each additional register, while Cova's tiers are set by workstation count, so a store with several registers should run both cards at its real count. Any quote-only vendor may come in lower, but you cannot know that until after the demo, which is the point of holding a published number when you walk in. The detail is on our IndicaOnline pricing and Cova pricing pages.

What about vendors that focus on one state?

Some POS companies build their business around a single state rather than selling nationally. POSaBIT, for example, describes Washington as its deliberate focus, which is good for a Washington store and a question mark for a Michigan one. Before you sign with a regional vendor, confirm it supports Michigan's Metrc setup and the medical monthly limit, and ask how many Michigan stores it runs today. Our page on POSaBIT pricing works through what that company publishes about itself.

If you operate in more than one state, the rules change at every border. We cover the other big markets on the New York cannabis dispensary POS page and in the New Jersey dispensary POS guide.

Frequently asked questions

What POS system do most Michigan dispensaries use?

No public source counts POS market share by state, so any "most used" claim is a vendor claim. Cova, Flowhub, Meadow, BLAZE, IndicaOnline and Dutchie all actively sell in Michigan and all integrate with Metrc. Choose on price, billing meter and how each one handles the tax and limit tests above.

Does the 24% wholesale tax show on a Michigan receipt?

No. The wholesaler pays it on the first sale or transfer to a retail licensee, so it reaches the retailer inside the wholesale price. Customers see only the 10% excise and 6% sales tax on adult-use purchases, or the 6% sales tax on medical purchases.

Is medical cannabis taxed in Michigan?

Medical cannabis carries Michigan's 6% sales tax but not the 10% excise tax that applies to adult-use sales. Your POS has to tell the two apart on every ticket, which is why checking patient status at the counter matters.

How much does a POS system cost for a dispensary in Michigan?

Software runs about $240 to $1,000 a month per location. Published cards are IndicaOnline at $240 to $850 and Cova at $349 to $599. Add $1,000 to $3,500 of hardware per register and payment processing on top.