Ohio dispensary POS system and cannabis POS software, compared on what the register has to block

Anything above the adult-use package or serving cap on the DCC's THC content limits. The sheet dated September 2026 sets adult-use edibles at 10 mg a serving and 100 mg a package against 55 mg and 550 mg for medical, cannabis beverages at 110 mg a package for adult-use and 220 mg for medical, and lozenges, liquids and powders for oral use on the same split. Flower, shake and raw single serving units are capped at 35% THC for everyone, concentrates and vape carts at 90%, and infused single serving units are for adult-use sales only.

In practice this is the rule most likely to catch a store out, because the error happens one SKU at a time. A product set up in the POS without the right eligibility flag will ring through on an adult-use ticket without any warning. Maryland's regulator fined a dispensary $100,000 in a consent order that found, among other things, that items had been created in its POS with incorrect values so that sales-limit alerts never fired, and that patient-only edibles had been sold to adult-use customers. The same failure is possible in Ohio. Ask every vendor whether eligibility is set on the product record, whether it can be locked so a budtender cannot override it, and who on your team can change it.

Senate Bill 56 took effect on March 20 2026 and replaced most of the Issue 2 framework. For a dispensary's systems, the main change is product sourcing: intoxicating hemp products are banned, and the DCC reminded the industry that anything above 0.4 mg of total THC per container is marijuana, which may only be sold inside a licensed dispensary and must be grown, processed and tested by DCC-licensed facilities. Hemp beverages and delta-8 products that some stores and gas stations used to carry are gone, and their cannabis equivalents now sit in your Metrc inventory instead.

Law firms and the Ohio State University drug policy center also report that SB 56 caps the number of dispensary licenses at 400 statewide and drops the 50 licenses Issue 2 had set aside for social equity applicants. A hard cap makes each license more valuable and makes the switching decision more important than the first purchase, because most of Ohio's market will be the same stores for years.

About $240 to $1,000 a month per location for software, because no vendor publishes an Ohio price and the national cards apply. On published prices, IndicaOnline Core is $240 a month billed annually or $300 billed monthly with two POS licenses, and Cova's Boutique tier covers two workstations at $349 a month with Cova Pay or $389 without. Third parties report Flowhub at $399 to $499 a month, BLAZE from about $500 a month, and Dutchie at $499 to $1,000 a month per location.

For a two-register store that is roughly $2,900 to $12,000 a year in software, plus $480 a year for the Metrc license. Hardware adds $1,000 to $3,500 per register, and payment processing comes on top. Our page on dispensary POS hardware cost itemizes the register, and cannabis POS pricing lists every published and reported price with who published it.

Ask to see the Ohio limit profile and ring a basket near the top of two buckets at once. Ask where the adult-use or medical-only flag sits on each product, whether it can be locked, and who can change it. Ring a medical edible on an adult-use ticket and confirm it is refused. Ring the same basket for a patient and check the excise line disappears. Ask for a four-day patient bulk purchase and a caregiver attempt at the same thing. Receive a Metrc package live. Ask for the monthly excise and sales tax figures your accountant needs, by location. Then ask for software, hardware, setup and payments as separate lines with the renewal terms attached.

If you are switching rather than buying for the first time, plan the cutover around a full physical count reconciled to Metrc on both sides of the move. Our guide to switching dispensary POS systems covers the sequence, and if you run stores in more than one state, the Illinois dispensary POS page shows how differently the register has to work next door.