What Is Metrc?

Metrc in plain language

Metrc is a track-and-trace platform. State regulators use it to follow regulated cannabis from cultivation to sale, and licensed businesses use it to report what they do with every plant and product in their care. Metrc runs a separate site for each state, which is why users log in at addresses like ca.metrc.com or or.metrc.com, and why rules and workflows can differ from one state to the next.

The point is accountability. When a product fails a lab test, is recalled, or goes missing, the records in Metrc show where it came from and where it went.

What seed-to-sale tracking means

“Seed to sale” means every step in the life of cannabis is recorded. A plant is started, grows through vegetative and flowering phases, and is harvested. The harvest is processed into packages, the packages are tested by a lab, transferred between licensed businesses, and finally sold or destroyed. Each step creates a record, and each record ties back to a unique identifier.

RFID tags: the unique ID on everything

Those identifiers come from Metrc tags. Licensed businesses order plant tags and package tags through Metrc, attach them to plants and packages, and record each tag as it is used. Each tag carries a 24-character ID, such as 1A4080900000928300004829, printed as text and as a barcode and stored on an RFID chip, so tags can be read by scanners as well as by eye. Metrc tracks every tag’s status, such as available, used, or voided.

What gets tracked in Metrc

• Plants and plant batches: individual plants by growth phase, and germination or cloning batches tracked as a group.
• Harvests: harvested plant material, waste, and the packages created from it.
• Packages: the core unit of inventory, with an item, quantity, location, and lab testing state.
• Items and strains: the product catalog and strain definitions that packages refer to.
• Lab results: test results attached to tested packages.
• Transfers: movements of product between licenses, documented with manifests.
• Sales: retail sales receipts and their transactions.
• Everything around them: processing jobs, locations, tags, and tag orders.

Who works with Metrc day to day

Compliance teams

Compliance staff keep Metrc accurate. They reconcile physical inventory against what Metrc says, record adjustments and waste, chase down discrepancies, and prepare for audits and inspections.

Operations staff

Cultivation, manufacturing, distribution, and retail teams record the work as it happens: plantings, harvests, packaging, transfers, and sales. Much of that happens by hand in the Metrc web interface.

Developers and data teams

Developers connect Metrc to the rest of the business: ERP and POS systems, BI dashboards, label printing, and internal tools. They need reliable programmatic access to read and write Metrc data, which is exactly what the T3 API for developers provides.

Why Metrc can be hard to work with

Metrc is built to satisfy regulators, which is not the same as being built around the daily needs of a business. Teams commonly run into:

• Repetitive manual data entry for routine workflows.
• Working one license at a time across a multi-license business.
• Getting complete datasets out for analysis, audits, and reconciliation.
• Gaining programmatic access, since Metrc’s official API is aimed at approved software integrators.
• Rules and behavior that vary from state to state.

How T3 helps

Track & Trace Tools (T3) is a suite of tools that makes Metrc useful. More than 8,000 licenses use T3, at businesses in 25 states, from multi-state operators to single-license grows.

T3 Chrome extension

The free Track & Trace Tools extension adds tools directly to Metrc in the browser, so teams can search, filter, and manage packages, plants, transfers, and tags with advanced tools and automation.

T3 API

The T3 API is the best way to talk to Metrc: one consistent REST interface across every Metrc state, with interactive documentation, normalized lab results, and reports that export full datasets in one request. It does not require Metrc API keys.

OpenTag

OpenTag is a free, open-source app for scanning Metrc tags with a phone, a browser, or an affordable RFID scanner. Scan a tag, look up its data, save it to a tag list, or send it to the T3 extension.

Labels

T3 Label Studio creates compliance labels from Metrc data, including lab test results, and works with all major label printer brands.

Reports

T3 Super Reports export entire Metrc datasets in a single request, and Spreadsheet Sync keeps Google Sheets and Excel up to date with Metrc automatically.

Where to go next

If you are a developer or technical operator, the Metrc API guides cover authentication, Python, exports, and lab results in detail. The documentation map is a good first stop for seeing everything you can reach, and when you are ready to build, start with the T3 API overview.