FOR LICENSED DISPENSARY OPERATORS

Dispensary self-checkout software and dispensary kiosk software: which kiosk works with Dutchie, Flowhub, Cova and Jane

The short answer

Dispensary self-checkout software is almost never sold separately from your point of sale. Every major cannabis kiosk product, from Dutchie Kiosk to Flowhub Kiosk to the Cova self-serve kiosk, is built by a POS vendor and runs on that vendor own POS, so in practice your POS chooses your kiosk rather than the other way round. The second thing to know is that most of them do not take payment at the screen, because Visa and Mastercard exclude licensed cannabis retail: the kiosk builds the basket and a budtender settles up. The live exception is Dutchie, whose Kiosk Pro checkout runs on its own pay by bank flow rather than a card network, which is currently the only mainstream way a US cannabis kiosk takes money at the unit.

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Pay by bank

The rail Dutchie Kiosk Pro uses to take payment at the screen, because card networks exclude licensed cannabis retail

Any tablet

What Cova says its self-serve kiosk runs on, and it says the feature is free for its own customers

$25

The amount Dispense data cited by Cova puts a kiosk order above a walk-up order

The question dispensary owners actually type into Google is some version of what kiosk works with Dutchie or Flowhub, and it is the right question, because it is the one that decides whether a quote is even relevant to you. Almost nothing published about cannabis kiosks answers it. The category is written up by companies that sell one kiosk each, so every page tells you kiosks are wonderful and none of them tells you the thing that governs the whole purchase.

Here is that thing. Kiosk software in cannabis retail is a feature of a point of sale platform, not an independent product category. That single fact reorders the decision: it means the kiosk shortlist you should be working from is one item long unless you are also willing to change POS, it means a kiosk you buy today is stranded if you switch POS next year, and it means the interesting comparison is not kiosk against kiosk but what each POS vendor includes at no extra charge. We sell directory listings for licensed shops, not kiosks or software, so there is nothing on this page we are trying to move.

Why it works

What to settle before you buy dispensary kiosk software

Start from your POS, not from a kiosk shortlist

Dutchie Kiosk needs Dutchie POS. Flowhub Kiosk needs Flowhub. The Cova self-serve kiosk needs Cova. If you are staying on your current platform, your realistic kiosk options are whatever that vendor ships, plus a hardware enclosure around a tablet running it. Comparing five kiosk vendors when you can only use one of them is how weeks get burned.

Ask whether it is included before you ask what it costs

Cova states plainly that its self-serve kiosk is free for Cova customers and runs on any tablet. That is a very different purchase from a floor-anchored unit quoted at five figures. Find out what your existing subscription already entitles you to before you take a single hardware demo.

Separate order entry from checkout in your own head

Most cannabis kiosks are order-entry stations. The customer browses, builds a basket and joins a queue, then a budtender takes payment and hands over product. That still saves counter time and still lifts basket size, but it does not remove a position from the floor, and any business case built on removing one will disappoint.

Treat the kiosk as part of the POS contract term

Because the software is locked to the platform, the kiosk hardware you buy is only useful for as long as you stay. Price a five year hardware life against a two year software term and you have a mismatch that shows up the day you decide to switch.

Check ID scanning and purchase limits explicitly

A kiosk that lets a customer add more than the state daily limit to a basket creates work at the counter rather than removing it. Cova describes limit monitoring in the basket. Ask every vendor how the unit handles limits, medical registry checks and age verification, and whether that happens at the kiosk or at the register.

Decide who owns the screen when the internet drops

A kiosk that cannot reach the POS is a blank monitor in your lobby. Ask what happens during an outage, whether orders queue locally, and whether staff can fall back to taking orders on the same tablet. This is the single most common operational complaint about self-service in any retail category.

How it works

Four steps, in the order that actually pays

Write down the POS you will still be running in two years

Everything follows from this. If you are certain about your platform, the kiosk question becomes what does my vendor ship and what does it cost to add. If you are not certain, buy nothing anchored to the floor until you are, because the software will not come with you.

Ask your current vendor what is already included

This takes one email and it is the step most owners skip. Cova publishes that its self-serve kiosk is free for existing customers on any tablet. Others bundle a kiosk into a higher tier you may already be on. The answer changes the budget by an order of magnitude.

Decide whether you need payment at the unit at all

If the answer is no, and for most stores it honestly is, you are shopping for a screen and a stand, and the price ceiling drops immediately. If the answer is yes, your options narrow to platforms running a non-card rail, which today means a pay by bank style checkout.

Price the hardware separately from the software

Kiosk software is a line on your POS bill. The enclosure, the mount, the scanner and the install are a capital purchase with their own lifespan and their own repair path. Getting a single blended quote makes both halves impossible to negotiate. Our breakdown of what replacing an aging unit costs sets out the recurring lines in full.

The numbers

Which dispensary kiosk software runs on which POS, and which of them take payment at the unit

POS platform	Its kiosk product	Runs on an ordinary tablet?	Takes payment at the unit?	What you are actually buying
Dutchie	In-store Kiosk, plus an upgraded Kiosk Pro	Not stated by Dutchie	Yes. Dutchie says kiosk checkout includes its built-in pay by bank flow, which is a bank transfer rather than a card payment.	Kiosk software tied to Dutchie POS. Kiosk Pro adds personalized recommendations, buy-again ordering, loyalty status on screen and the pay by bank checkout.
Flowhub	Flowhub Kiosk	A handheld option sits alongside standing and mounted units	No. Flowhub describes the customer sending the order to fulfillment, so a budtender completes the sale.	Kiosk software that syncs with Flowhub POS in real time, with the customer matching an existing profile by phone number or creating one at the screen.
Cova	Self-serve kiosk	Yes. Cova says any tablet.	No. The customer adds to cart, monitors their purchase limit and sends the order for express checkout.	A feature Cova states is free for Cova customers, which makes it the cheapest genuine route into self-service if you are already on the platform.
Meadow	Kiosk, inside the all-in-one platform	Not stated	Not stated	Kiosk sits alongside in-store, delivery, pickup, lounge and ecommerce on one Meadow subscription rather than being priced as an add-on.
Jane	Self-serve kiosk mode	Not stated	Not stated	Menu first. Jane strength is the ecommerce catalog, and the kiosk is effectively that menu running on a screen inside the store.
Blaze, Treez and the rest	Not published in any form we could verify	Unknown	Unknown	Nothing. Neither publishes kiosk detail we were able to confirm, so treat parity claims from a reseller as unverified and get the answer in writing.
Third-party kiosk builders	Hardware enclosure plus an integration project	No, this is the opposite of a tablet	Depends entirely on the POS behind it	The physical unit and the work to connect it, not a kiosk app. Frank Mayer reports more than 1,000 cannabis kiosks deployed, which makes it the most established name in the hardware half of this market.

Every claim in this table comes from the vendor own published material, and vendors describe their products favorably. Blank cells mean the vendor does not publish the answer, not that the answer is no. We are a directory for state-licensed dispensaries and sell no kiosk, POS or payment product, so we have nothing riding on which platform you pick. General information for US operators, not legal advice.

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What kiosk works with Dutchie or Flowhub?

Dutchie own kiosk works with Dutchie, and Flowhub own kiosk works with Flowhub. That sounds like a non-answer and it is in fact the whole answer, because cannabis kiosk software is not an open market. Each major POS vendor builds and sells a kiosk that talks to its own platform, and there is no meaningful independent kiosk app you can point at whichever POS you happen to run.

The reason is structural rather than commercial. A cannabis kiosk has to read live inventory, apply state purchase limits to a basket in real time, attach the order to a customer profile and hand a compliant order to the register, all of which means deep write access to the POS and to whatever traceability system the state runs. Vendors build that once, for themselves. Nobody has an incentive to build it five times for competitors.

What does exist in the middle is a small number of integrated in-store apps, such as Jointly Spark Pro, which runs on a tablet, an iPad or a self-service kiosk and integrates with Dutchie POS. Those are worth knowing about, but note that they still name a specific POS. The pattern holds even for the exceptions.

So the practical shortlist for most operators has one item on it. If you run Cova, your kiosk is the Cova self-serve kiosk. If you run Flowhub, it is Flowhub Kiosk. The genuinely useful comparison is not which kiosk is best in the abstract, it is what your own vendor includes and what it charges to switch it on, and that is a five minute email rather than a month of demos.

Can a dispensary kiosk take payment?

Usually not, and the reason has nothing to do with the kiosk. Visa and Mastercard rules exclude licensed cannabis retail from their networks regardless of state law, so there is no compliant way to put a card reader on a dispensary kiosk and process an ordinary card sale. That is why almost every cannabis kiosk on the market is an order-entry station: it builds the basket and passes it to a human who takes the money.

The exception worth knowing in 2026 is a payment rail rather than a payment card. Dutchie states that kiosk checkout includes its built-in pay by bank flow, letting the customer pay from their phone. Pay by bank is an ACH debit from a linked checking account, which runs on regulated banking rails with no card network involved, so none of the card exclusions apply. That is currently the only mainstream route to genuine self-checkout in a US dispensary.

Separately, and it is a different thing that gets confused with this constantly, the California Department of Cannabis Control approved an RFID-based cannabis self-checkout in early August 2026, deployed at Perfect Union Northside in Sacramento by MWG Holdings Group and required to be compatible with both the payment platform and Metrc. That is one approval in one state and it does not change any card network rule. Treat it as a proof point that regulators will entertain the format, not as evidence that self-checkout is now available to you.

The practical consequence for your business case is worth stating bluntly. A kiosk that cannot take payment shifts labor rather than removing it. Your budtender spends less time reading the menu aloud and more time checking ID and settling up, which is a real gain in throughput and basket size, but it is not a headcount reduction, and a plan that assumes one will not survive contact with a Saturday afternoon. The rails a licensed dispensary can actually run is the other half of this decision.

Do you need dispensary self-checkout software, or will a tablet do?

For a large share of stores a tablet genuinely does. Cova says its self-serve kiosk runs on any tablet and is free for Cova customers, which means the entire cost of testing self-service on that platform is a tablet, a locking stand and an afternoon. If your POS offers the same thing, running that trial before you price a floor-anchored unit is close to free information.

Where a purpose-built unit earns its price is durability and traffic. A consumer tablet in a busy lobby takes abuse that it was not designed for: dropped, unplugged, walked off with, and screen-burned by a menu that never changes. A commercial enclosure with a proper mount, a hardened screen and a serviceable power path is not a luxury at a few hundred transactions a day, and the failure mode of the cheap option is a dead screen in your entrance during a rush.

The second thing a dedicated unit buys you is peripherals. If you want ID scanning at the kiosk rather than at the door, or a printed order ticket that routes to fulfillment, you need hardware a tablet does not have. Decide whether those two jobs belong at the kiosk before you spend, because each one moves the price bracket.

The honest sequencing is to start on a tablet, run it for a quarter, and measure two numbers: how many orders actually start at the screen, and what those baskets look like against walk-ups. Cova cites Dispense data putting kiosk orders about $25 above a walk-up order. If you see anything like that in your own numbers, the hardware upgrade justifies itself. If nobody touches the screen, you have learned that for the price of a tablet.

How much does dispensary kiosk software cost?

No cannabis kiosk vendor publishes a rate card for the software, and the honest reason is that most of them do not price it as a separate product at all. It is either included in your POS tier, included outright as Cova says it is for its customers, or bundled into a hardware and install quote where the software line is not broken out. Asking for the software price on its own will usually get you a discovery call.

What you can budget against is the wider self-service kiosk market, where the numbers are published. Standing retail kiosks are commonly reported at roughly $2,000 to $15,000 per unit, hardware alone at $1,500 to $6,000, kiosk software as a service at $20 to $500 a month per screen, installation at $200 to $2,000 and maintenance at $500 to $3,000 a year. Those are general retail figures, not cannabis quotes, and the cannabis premium tends to sit in integration and compliance rather than in the metal.

The number that actually decides your budget is the one nobody asks about: what your current POS contract already includes. The gap between a free tablet feature and a five figure floor unit is not a difference in kiosk quality, it is a difference in what you are buying. Our page on what a dispensary kiosk costs, line by line works through the whole quote including install and recurring maintenance.

One more line belongs in the model and it is routinely left out. Kiosk software is a subscription and kiosk hardware is an asset with a service life, and the two do not expire together. Budget for the recurring half from day one rather than treating the purchase as a one-off, because the annual maintenance and warranty lines are where owners get surprised in year three.

Dispensary kiosk vs tablet POS: which should you buy?

These solve different problems and the names make them sound like alternatives, which they are not. A tablet POS is a register your staff use. A kiosk is a screen your customers use. Buying a kiosk to save on registers is the mistake this comparison invites, and it does not work, because in most states a licensed sale still ends with a human checking an ID and handing over product.

The case for adding a kiosk is queue management and basket size, not staffing. A customer who browses at a screen instead of at the counter frees the counter, and a customer who browses unhurried tends to add more, which is the mechanism behind the roughly $25 uplift Cova cites. A store with a lobby, a door queue at four in the afternoon and a menu long enough to need explaining is the profile where this pays.

The case for another tablet register is throughput at the point where the transaction completes. If your bottleneck is settling up rather than choosing, a kiosk moves the queue rather than shortening it, and you have spent thousands to relocate a problem by six feet. Watch where people actually wait for a week before you decide, because most owners guess this wrong.

If your bottleneck is check-in rather than either of those, neither is the answer and a door kiosk is. The three products get sold under one word, and the differences are the whole decision. We separate them properly on our page covering the three products sold as a dispensary kiosk.

What happens to your kiosk if you switch POS?

The software stops working, and this is the part of the purchase that almost nobody prices. Because kiosk software is a feature of a POS platform rather than an independent product, migrating from Dutchie to Cova or from Flowhub to Meadow does not carry your kiosk across. At best the physical enclosure is reusable and the new vendor kiosk app runs on the same screen. At worst the unit was built around peripherals your new platform does not support.

That makes the kiosk decision downstream of the POS decision in a way that matters financially. A five figure kiosk depreciated over five years, sitting on a POS contract you may want to leave in two, is a bet on the platform as much as on self-service. If you are anywhere near unhappy with your POS, resolve that first and buy the kiosk afterwards.

If you are already committed to a switch, sequence it deliberately. Choose the platform, confirm in writing what its kiosk supports and what hardware it certifies, and only then buy metal. Our walkthrough of how to switch dispensary POS systems without losing a trading day covers the migration order, and Dutchie alternatives compared on reported price and lock-in covers the platform shortlist itself.

One question to put to any vendor before you sign either contract: if we leave, what happens to the kiosk hardware. A vendor that certifies standard commercial enclosures rather than proprietary ones is handing you an exit that costs a screen replacement instead of a rebuild. That answer is worth more than a discount on the first year.

Questions owners ask

Dispensary self-checkout software, answered

Dutchie own kiosk. Dutchie sells an In-store Kiosk and an upgraded Kiosk Pro that run on Dutchie POS, and Kiosk Pro adds personalized recommendations, buy-again ordering, loyalty status on screen and a built-in pay by bank checkout. Third-party in-store apps such as Jointly Spark Pro also integrate with Dutchie POS, but there is no general-purpose cannabis kiosk app that works across platforms.

Flowhub Kiosk, which syncs with Flowhub POS in real time and comes in standing, mounted and handheld formats. Flowhub describes the customer matching an existing profile by phone number or creating a new one at the screen, then sending the order to fulfillment, which means a budtender completes the sale rather than the kiosk taking payment.

Usually not. Visa and Mastercard exclude licensed cannabis retail from their networks regardless of state law, so a card sale at the kiosk is not available. The exception is a non-card rail: Dutchie states its kiosk checkout includes a built-in pay by bank flow, which is an ACH debit from a linked checking account and therefore outside the card networks entirely.

Effectively no. Every major cannabis kiosk product is built by a POS vendor for its own platform, because the kiosk needs live inventory, real-time purchase limit enforcement and compliant order handoff, which all require deep access to the POS and to state traceability. Your POS choice determines your kiosk options rather than the other way round.

No cannabis vendor publishes a software rate card, and several do not price it separately at all. Cova says its self-serve kiosk is free for Cova customers and runs on any tablet. For budgeting against the wider market, self-service kiosk software is commonly reported at $20 to $500 a month per screen, with the hardware a separate capital line.

On some platforms, yes. Cova states its self-serve kiosk runs on any tablet. A tablet in a locking stand is the cheapest way to test whether customers use self-service at all before committing to a floor-anchored unit. The reasons to move beyond one are durability in a busy lobby and peripherals such as ID scanning or ticket printing.

Not in most states, because the sale still ends with a person checking ID and handing over product. A kiosk shifts labor from explaining the menu to checking out, which improves throughput and tends to raise basket size. Cova cites Dispense data putting kiosk orders about $25 above walk-up orders. Build the case on revenue per order and queue time, not headcount.

Ask, and get it in writing. A kiosk is a client of your point of sale, so an outage that takes the POS offline generally takes the kiosk with it. What varies between vendors is whether orders queue locally and whether staff can fall back to using the same device as a register, and that difference matters more on a busy Saturday than any feature on the datasheet.

The kiosk software stops working, because it belongs to the platform you are leaving. The enclosure may be reusable if the new vendor certifies standard commercial hardware, which is worth confirming before you buy either contract. This is why the kiosk decision should follow the POS decision rather than run alongside it.

Payment at the unit is limited by card network rules rather than by a general prohibition, and those rules exclude licensed cannabis retail everywhere. The California Department of Cannabis Control approved an RFID-based cannabis self-checkout in early August 2026 at a Sacramento store, required to be compatible with both the payment platform and Metrc. That is one approval in one state and it does not change what the card networks permit.

Keep reading

More for licensed dispensary owners

Dispensary kiosk types

Check-in, self-service ordering and true self-checkout are three different products sold under one word.

Dispensary kiosk pricing

What a unit costs, line by line, including install and the recurring maintenance most quotes leave out.

Best dispensary kiosk

Which vendor fits which kind of store, and why almost every cannabis kiosk takes orders rather than payment.

Dispensary kiosk replacement cost

What ends a kiosk service life, what maintenance and warranty really run per year, and when replacing beats repairing.

Dutchie alternatives

The platform shortlist, compared on reported price, payment lock-in and which dispensary each one fits.

Dispensary POS systems

How the platform decision works, and why it now decides your kiosk options too.

Cannabis payment processing

Every rail a licensed dispensary can run, including the pay by bank flow that makes kiosk checkout possible.

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State-licensed dispensaries only · 21+ · Dispensaries is a directory and ad platform, we never sell, ship or process cannabis orders · cannabis laws vary, check your local laws · general information, not legal advice