How to choose dispensary menu software.

Three ways stores run their menus, an honest comparison of each, and the eight questions to ask any vendor — including us.

See Seed Live

300+
Retailers running Seed menus
6,500+
Screens under management
~10 min
POS sync — the real number
~1 week
Signed to screens on the wall

The Landscape

Three ways dispensaries run menus

Every store lands in one of three camps. Each one is the right answer for somebody — here's the honest version of who.

1. DIY slides on a TV

PowerPoint or Google Slides, exported to a screen. Free software, and fine on day one with one store and one person who owns it. The bill shows up on payroll: every price change is a manual edit, and the menu shows sold-out products until somebody notices.

2. Generic signage software

Tools built for restaurants and retail lobbies. Real scheduling, decent templates — but they can't see your POS, so you're still typing product lists by hand, and none of them format THC, strain types, or the fields cannabis shoppers actually read.

3. Cannabis-specific platforms

Built to read a dispensary POS. Menus update themselves when prices change or products sell out, layouts are designed around cannabis fields, and TV menus, promo screens, and kiosks run from one dashboard. This is the category Seed is in.

What matters DIY slides Generic signage Cannabis-specific
Menu accuracy when you sell out Wrong until someone edits the file Wrong until someone edits the layout Item drops off on its own
Time per price change Minutes, times every screen Minutes, times every screen Zero — synced from POS
THC / strain / brand formatting Hand-typed Hand-typed Pulled from POS, formatted for you
Design work Whoever's good at slides Templates, or hire out Included with Seed — a design team on call
Multi-store Copy the file, hope Possible, still hand-fed One dashboard, every location
Software cost Free — you pay in hours Low per screen, adds up Per location with Seed, unlimited screens

Fair caveat: if you run one screen, change prices twice a year, and love making slides — DIY is genuinely fine. The math flips when menus change daily. Here's the calculator.

The Checklist

Eight questions to ask any vendor

Print this and take it into every demo — ours included. A good vendor answers all eight without flinching.

  1. Does it read from my POS — and how fast?

    The whole point of menu software is that the menu stops lying. Ask for the real sync interval, not "real-time." Ours is about 10 minutes; anyone claiming instant is rounding down.

  2. Is pricing per screen or per location?

    Per-screen pricing looks cheap at one TV and gets expensive the day you add a queue board and two more menus. Get the all-in number for the screen count you'll actually run.

  3. Is design included, or an add-on?

    A menu tool without design help means your menus look like the template everyone else uses — or you're paying a freelancer on the side. Ask who builds your first set of menus, and who updates them for 4/20.

  4. What happens when the internet drops?

    Screens should keep playing from a local cache, not go black in front of a full store. Ask the vendor to unplug the router during the demo.

  5. Can it schedule content by time of day?

    Morning medical shoppers and Friday-night lines want different screens. Dayparting should be built in, not a workaround.

  6. How long from contract to screens on the wall?

    Get a commitment in writing. Seed's typical timeline is about a week, including menu styling and the POS hookup.

  7. Do TV menus and kiosks run from one dashboard?

    If self-service is anywhere in your plan, buying menus and kiosks from different vendors means two logins, two support lines, and two versions of the truth.

  8. Who picks up when a screen goes down?

    A dark menu on a Saturday costs real money. Ask how support works after onboarding — and whether it costs extra.

Seed TV menus running in a dispensary

Where Seed fits

Seed is cannabis-specific menu software: TV menus, promo screens, queue boards, and self-service kiosks, synced to your POS and priced per location. Menus stay register-correct on their own, and a design team is included — 300+ retailers run it across 950+ storefronts in 36 states and D.C.

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Choosing menu software: questions, answered

What is dispensary menu software?
Software that turns the TVs in your store into live menus: it reads products, prices, and stock from your point of sale and keeps every screen current without anyone retyping anything. The same platform usually handles promo screens, queue boards, and self-service kiosks. It exists because the alternative — slides somebody edits by hand — falls out of date the moment you sell out of something.

Can I just use PowerPoint or Google Slides for my menu?
You can, and plenty of stores start there. It works right up until it doesn't: every price change means somebody finds the file, edits it, re-exports it, and gets it back onto the TV — and the menu still shows products you sold out of an hour ago. Run your own numbers with our menu labor calculator; for most stores the "free" option is the most expensive one on payroll.

How is cannabis menu software different from restaurant menu boards?
Restaurant boards assume a menu that changes quarterly. A dispensary menu changes by the hour — inventory churns, weights and potencies matter, and the fields shoppers care about (THC, strain type, brand) don't exist in generic templates. Cannabis-specific software formats those fields automatically and pulls them straight from your POS, so the board is always register-correct.

How much does dispensary menu software cost?
The industry splits between per-screen and per-location pricing, roughly $30 per screen per month on the low end to a few hundred per location for cannabis-specific platforms. Seed prices per location with unlimited screens and users, and quotes your exact number on a demo call. Budgeting for kiosks too? There's a separate kiosk cost guide.

What POS systems does menu software work with?
Check the vendor's list against your POS before anything else — a menu tool that can't read your point of sale is a slideshow. Seed syncs with Dutchie, Treez, Flowhub, BLAZE, COVA, Meadow, and the rest of the majors — the full list is on our integrations page.

Do I need special TVs to run digital menus?
No — any TV with an HDMI port works. Most stores add an Amazon Signage Stick or Apple TV per screen. Our TV buying guide covers sizes, consumer vs. commercial panels, and what to skip.

Keep researching: what manual menu updates cost you, which TVs to buy, what kiosks cost, and how POS sync actually works.

THE EASY WAY TO DECIDE

Watch your own menu run on Seed.

Bring your POS to the demo and we'll show your live products on a real menu — not a mockup. You'll know in twenty minutes.

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