The short version: Bake.Shop costs $19 per month ($149 a year), plus Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 on card payments, and is built specifically for bakers who sell through scheduled "drops." If you are a part-time home baker or cottage food vendor looking for something more affordable, Homegrown offers a simpler storefront at $10 per month (billed yearly, plus 2.9% + $0.30 per card payment) with pre-orders and local pickup built in. Bakesy is another baker-focused option at $9.99 per month with a 30-day free trial, and its optional card payments cost 3.9% + $0.30. Square Online has a free plan (3.3% + $0.30 on each online card sale) that works if you already use Square for in-person sales. The best choice depends on how often you bake, how many orders you handle, and what features actually matter for your setup.
Prices checked September 13, 2026 on each competitor's own pages, and Homegrown's on its signup page on September 12, 2026. Homegrown has no drops feature. You set an order cutoff date and a pickup day instead, and customers make a Homegrown account the first time they order.
Bake.Shop is a solid ordering platform built specifically for bakers. It gives you a branded storefront, inventory tracking, and fulfillment windows that make managing orders easier than juggling DMs and spreadsheets. But it is not the only option out there, and depending on how you run your baking business, a different platform might be a better fit for your budget, your workflow, or the way you sell.
If you are a home baker selling cookies, bread, or cakes on the side and you want to compare your options before committing, this guide breaks down the best Bake.Shop alternatives so you can pick the right one.
Bakeshop is ordering software for home bakers who sell a set menu for pickup or delivery. The company now writes its name as one word, though its web address is still bake.shop. It gives you a storefront at your own bake.shop link, a menu you can release as limited drops, and a cap on every pickup or delivery slot so you never take more orders than you can bake.
Bake.Shop's homepage sums up its pitch as "Total control. Zero chaos." and says it handles the busywork so you can focus on the baking.
Here is what Bake.Shop includes:
Bake.Shop pricing:
Those plan prices match Bake.Shop's pricing page on September 13, 2026, and its FAQ says the Stripe fee of 2.9% + 30¢ goes to Stripe, not to Bakeshop. Subscribing inside the iPhone app costs a little more: its App Store listing shows $19.99 a month or $149.99 a year.
Whether monthly or annual is the better bet depends on how likely you are to still be there in a year, and we have worked that out in Bake.Shop's monthly plan against its annual one. For a straight comparison against one other platform, the head-to-heads are Bakesy against Bake.Shop, Bake.Shop against BakeBug, and Homegrown against Bake.Shop.
The platform does a lot well. The drops system is clever for bakers who release a weekly menu, and the automatic inventory caps prevent the nightmare of accepting more orders than you can fill. But $19 per month adds up fast when you are baking part-time and bringing in a few hundred dollars a month.
A home bakery drop is a short ordering window for a set menu, with a fixed number of each product and one pickup or delivery day. You post the menu, customers order until a product sells out or the window closes, and you bake only what sold.
Drops are the core of Bake.Shop. Its features page lists limited drops, inventory tracking that stops you from overselling, pickup and delivery slots, lead time protection and blackout dates, all on the $19 monthly plan with 0% commission and Stripe card processing on top. Hotplate is another platform built around drops, and our guide to Hotplate alternatives covers how its fees work.
For a part-time baker, three settings do most of the work of a drop: a cap on each product, a clear order cutoff and one pickup day. Our guide to running a weekly food drop walks through the whole routine.
Four things are worth checking before you switch: a $19 monthly price, more features than a part-time baker uses, products beyond baking, and how customers like to pay.
Looking for a Bake.Shop alternative does not have to mean you are unhappy with the platform itself. You may just want a better fit for how you actually run your business.
At $19 per month, Bake.Shop costs $228 per year. For a home baker pulling in $500 to $1,000 a month, that is a meaningful expense. If you bake part-time, selling a few dozen cookies or a handful of cakes each week, you might need something closer to $10 per month to keep your margins healthy. On the yearly plan Bake.Shop is $149, which is still $29 a year more than Homegrown's $120 yearly plan.
The drops system, analytics dashboard, and baker-specific tools are great for someone running a full weekly bake schedule. But if you sell at farmers markets, take pre-orders from your Instagram followers, and just need a simple link where people can browse your products and place an order, you may not use half of what Bake.Shop offers.
If you sell more than baked goods, pick a platform that lists any food product, since a baker-only tool has no natural place for your jam or eggs.
Some cottage food vendors sell a mix of products. You might sell sourdough bread alongside homemade jam, honey, or granola. Bake.Shop is built for bakers specifically, so if you want a storefront that works for any type of local food product, a more general platform makes more sense.
In a pull of the Homegrown catalog on August 14, 2026, 122 of the 219 vendors listed at least one bakery product, and 876 of the 1,804 products were bakery products. Of those 122 bakery vendors, 25 also listed products outside the bakery category, 166 products in all. Pantry products were the most common extra, listed by 15 of them.
What else the 25 bakery vendors who sell more than baked goods list
Vendors with at least one product in each category, from the Homegrown catalog pulled August 14, 2026.
On Bake.Shop, each card payment costs $0.30 plus 2.9% through Stripe, and Venmo, Zelle and Cash App orders get marked paid by hand.
Bake.Shop processes credit card payments through Stripe, and every card order pays Stripe's processing fees of 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction. If most of your regulars pay by Venmo, Zelle or cash, Bakesy Standard tracks those payments for a flat $9.99 a month with no card fee from Bakesy. If you would rather have every order paid when it is placed, Homegrown takes cards only, at 2.9% plus $0.30 per payment, so every order is paid before the customer picks it up.
Three platforms stand out as strong alternatives depending on what you need: Homegrown for affordable pre-order storefronts, Bakesy for baker-specific business management, and Square Online for vendors who already use Square in person.
Homegrown fits part-time bakers who want one storefront link where customers order ahead and pick up locally, at $10 a month billed yearly with 0% commission and 2.9% + $0.30 per card payment.
Homegrown is an online storefront built for small, local food vendors, and that includes home bakers. Where Bake.Shop focuses specifically on the baking workflow, Homegrown focuses on the selling workflow: giving you a clean, shareable link where customers can browse your products, place pre-orders, and pick up locally.
Key features for home bakers:
Pricing:
Best for: Part-time home bakers and cottage food vendors who want a simple, affordable way to take pre-orders online and coordinate local pickup. If you sell at farmers markets and also want customers to order between market days, Homegrown handles both. It works especially well if you sell cookies from home or run any cottage food operation where customers order ahead and pick up locally.
Why bakers choose it over Bake.Shop: Homegrown costs $6.50 less per month than Bake.Shop on monthly plans ($12.50 against $19) and $29 less a year on yearly plans ($120 against $149), sets up just as quickly, and works for vendors who sell more than just baked goods. You do not need baker-specific features like drops or baking analytics if your main goal is getting a link where people can order your products.
Customers need a Homegrown account to place an order, so tell your regulars they will make one the first time they buy. Homegrown also lists your storefront in its marketplace, but plan on most orders coming from the people you send to your own link.
Bakesy fits home bakers who take custom orders, with order request forms, branded invoices and an availability calendar for $9.99 a month on its Standard plan, plus 3.9% + $0.30 on card payments made through the app.
Bakesy is a mobile app designed specifically for home bakery businesses. It focuses on the business management side of baking: order inquiries, scheduling, invoicing, and customer communication.
Key features for home bakers:
Pricing:
Best for: Home bakers who take custom cake and pastry orders and need a system to manage order requests, scheduling, and invoicing. Bakesy works well when each order involves a conversation, like custom birthday cakes or wedding dessert tables, rather than standard menu products.
Why bakers choose it over Bake.Shop: Bakesy Standard costs $9.01 less per month ($9.99 against $19, before card processing), offers a longer trial period (30 days vs. 14 days), and is built around the custom order workflow rather than the menu drop model. If your business is more "tell me what you want and I will quote you a price" than "here is this week's menu," Bakesy fits better.
Square Online is a free e-commerce platform from the company behind Square's point-of-sale system. It is not baker-specific, but it works well for vendors who already use Square at farmers markets or for in-person sales.
Key features for home bakers:
Pricing:
Best for: Home bakers who already sell at farmers markets using Square and want to add online ordering without paying a separate monthly fee. The free plan covers the basics, and the transaction fees only kick in when you actually make sales.
Why bakers choose it over Bake.Shop: The free plan means no monthly cost at all if you are just getting started. And if you already use Square's card reader at farmers markets, having everything in one ecosystem simplifies your life. The trade-off is that Square Online is not designed for food vendors specifically, so setup takes more work. Its ordering windows and scheduled product drops are general store tools, so you shape them around your bake day yourself.
Here is a direct comparison of all four platforms across the features that matter most to home bakers:
Swipe sideways to see every column.
| Feature | Bake.Shop | Homegrown | Bakesy | Square Online |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | $19/mo | $10/mo (annual) or $12.50 monthly | $9.99/mo (Standard) | Free plan available |
| Annual price | $149/yr | $120/yr | $119.88 over 12 months (Standard) | Free (or $588/yr for Plus) |
| Free trial | 14 days | 7 days | 30 days | Free plan (ongoing) |
| Transaction fees | 0% commission; Stripe 2.9% + $0.30 on cards | 0% commission; 2.9% + $0.30 on cards | 0% commission; optional cards 3.9% + $0.30 | 3.3% + $0.30 online (free plan) |
| Pre-orders | Yes (drops system) | Yes (built-in) | Order requests (instant checkout on Premium) | Ordering windows and scheduled drops |
| Local pickup | Yes | Yes | Manual coordination | Yes |
| Local delivery | Yes | Yes (built-in) | No | Yes (your staff or couriers) |
| Custom storefront | Yes (bake.shop subdomain) | Yes (shareable link) | Yes (bakesy link) | Yes (square.site subdomain) |
| Mobile app | iPhone (no Android app found) | Web-based | iOS and Android | iOS and Android |
| Best for | Dedicated bakers with weekly drops | Part-time vendors selling any food | Custom cake/pastry orders | Market vendors using Square POS |
| Food-specific | Bakers only | All local food vendors | Bakers only | General e-commerce |
| Setup time | Minutes | Minutes | Minutes | More steps (a general store you shape for food) |
The bottom line on pricing: A part-time home baker who brings in $600 per month in sales would spend 3.2% of revenue on Bake.Shop's monthly plan or 2.1% on its yearly plan, 2.1% on Homegrown's monthly plan or 1.7% on its yearly plan, 1.7% on Bakesy Standard, or 0% on Square Online's free plan. Card processing adds to each one whenever a customer pays by card through the platform. With 24 card orders of $25, the monthly total comes to $43.60 on Bake.Shop's monthly plan or $37.02 on its yearly plan, $37.10 on Homegrown's monthly plan or $34.60 on its yearly plan, $40.59 on Bakesy Standard and $27.00 on Square's free plan, as the table below shows. Of the three platforms built for food, Homegrown's yearly plan has the lowest total when customers pay by card, and Bakesy Standard costs the least of all when customers pay you outside the app.
Scroll sideways to see every column.
| Platform and plan | Plan per month | Card processing rate | Card fees on 24 orders of $25 | Total per month | Share of $600 in sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bake.Shop, monthly plan | $19.00 | 2.9% + $0.30 (Stripe) | $24.60 | $43.60 | 7.3% |
| Bake.Shop, yearly plan | $12.42 | 2.9% + $0.30 (Stripe) | $24.60 | $37.02 | 6.2% |
| Homegrown, yearly plan | $10.00 | 2.9% + $0.30 | $24.60 | $34.60 | 5.8% |
| Homegrown, monthly plan | $12.50 | 2.9% + $0.30 | $24.60 | $37.10 | 6.2% |
| Bakesy Standard, card payments in the app | $9.99 | 3.9% + $0.30 | $30.60 | $40.59 | 6.8% |
| Bakesy Standard, paid outside the app | $9.99 | None charged by Bakesy | $0.00 | $9.99 | 1.7% |
| Square Online, free plan | $0.00 | 3.3% + $0.30 | $27.00 | $27.00 | 4.5% |
How the math works: 24 orders of $25 is $600. Card fees are the percentage times $600, plus $0.30 times 24 orders, which is $7.20. Rates come from each company's own pages in September 2026. Payment apps such as Venmo can charge their own fees, and the "paid outside the app" row leaves those out.
If you bake on a fixed weekly schedule and want drops, order caps and sales reports in one place, stay with Bake.Shop.
Bake.Shop is the right fit if you run a dedicated baking business with a regular production schedule. It is worth the $19 per month in a few specific situations.
Bake.Shop makes the most sense when:
Bake.Shop might not be the best fit when:
Bakery ecommerce software is any tool that lets customers order and pay for bakery products online, and a home baker needs the small kind: a storefront link, a menu and pickup scheduling for under $20 a month before card processing. Bake.Shop, Bakesy and Homegrown are all that kind. The big kind runs production and wholesale for bakeries with staff, which is far more than a home kitchen needs.
Commercial bakery software plans production and handles wholesale orders, invoicing and deliveries for retail and wholesale bakeries. Cybake says bakeries use it to process orders and manage production, invoicing, stores and deliveries. BakeSmart covers custom orders, wholesale and online sales, and Wherefour sells manufacturing software to wholesale bakeries. All three offer a demo on their homepage.
Yes, three platforms in this guide give one baker a storefront link and an order list for $9.99 to $19 a month before card processing: Bake.Shop, Bakesy and Homegrown. Bake.Shop is built for drops, Bakesy for custom order requests, and Homegrown for pre-orders with local pickup across any food product. Square Online is a general ecommerce platform with a free plan that also handles bakery orders.
Start an online bakery business from home by checking your state's cottage food rules first, because they set what you can bake, where you can sell and whether you need a permit. Our cottage food laws by state guide covers each state. Then pick one ordering app, list three to five products you already bake well, and share the link with the people who buy from you now.
Cottage food rules are state law, and states update them. Confirm the rules with your state's agriculture or health department before you take your first online order.
Choosing the right platform comes down to five practical questions that match how you actually sell. The best platform is the one that fits your current business, not the one with the most features.
If you bring in $300 per month from baking, spending $19 per month on a platform eats into your profit more than spending $10. Calculate what percentage of your monthly revenue goes to platform fees, counting the plan and card processing together. On $300 in sales, a $10 plan alone is 3.3% and a $19 plan is 6.3%, before any card fees. To check your margins, try Homegrown's free profit calculator.
Every platform on this list claims to be easy, but there is a real difference between "set up in five minutes" and "set up in an afternoon if you watch three tutorial videos." If you are starting a food business from home, you want to spend your time baking and selling, not configuring software.
A good platform takes the payment types your regulars already use, because a missing option means chasing money at pickup.
Some of your customers will want to pay with a card. Others prefer Venmo or cash at pickup. The right platform should support the payment methods your specific customers already use. If most of them pay by card, a card-only checkout like Homegrown's works fine. If many pay by Venmo, pick a platform that tracks those payments, such as Bake.Shop or Bakesy.
Pre-orders let you bake to demand. You need to know how many loaves, how many dozen cookies, or how many cakes to make before you start baking. Look for a platform where customers can order ahead and you can set deadlines and quantity limits.
If customers collect their orders from you, pickup is part of every sale. Whether customers pick up from your porch, at a farmers market, or at a designated meetup spot, your platform should make pickup coordination simple for both you and the buyer. If you are moving from selling to friends into selling to real customers, having a clear pickup process builds trust with new buyers.
Bake.Shop is not free. It offers a 14-day free trial, after which you need to choose between the monthly plan at $19 per month or the annual plan at $149 per year ($12.42 per month). Bake.Shop does not charge commission on your orders, but Stripe payment processing fees of 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction still apply when customers pay by credit card.
Yes. Homegrown works for any type of local food product, including cookies, bread, cakes, pies, and pastries. You list your baked goods with photos and prices, customers place pre-orders through your storefront link, and you coordinate local pickup. In a pull of the Homegrown catalog on August 14, 2026, 25 of the 122 vendors with bakery products also listed other products, such as jam, granola and honey.
Square Online offers a free plan with no monthly fee, making it the cheapest option by base cost. However, it charges 3.3% plus $0.30 on every online card order on that free plan. Homegrown costs $10 per month on its yearly plan and Bakesy Standard costs $9.99, the lowest monthly fees among the food-focused platforms in this guide. For a home baker processing $500 per month in 20 online card orders, the total cost works out to roughly $22.50 on Square Online's free plan (transaction fees) versus $30.50 on Homegrown ($10 plus $20.50 in card processing). At that volume, Square's free plan is the cheapest bakery ecommerce software here by total cost, unless your customers pay you by Venmo or cash on Bakesy Standard for a flat $9.99. That flips as your card sales grow. Square's free plan takes 0.4% more of each online card sale than Homegrown does, and above $2,500 a month in card sales that extra 0.4% costs more than Homegrown's $10 plan. At $3,000 across 120 orders, Square's free plan costs $135 and Homegrown costs $133, card processing included.
You do not need a traditional website. Platforms like Homegrown, Bake.Shop, and Bakesy all give you a shareable link that functions as your online storefront. You can drop that link in your Instagram bio, text it to customers, or post it on Facebook. This is simpler and cheaper than building a standalone website, and it is purpose-built for taking orders rather than just displaying information. Any of this bakery ecommerce software works from a phone, so you can take your first order before you ever build a site.
Bake.Shop supports Venmo, Zelle, and Cash App as manual payment options alongside Stripe credit card processing. Bakesy tracks payments from Venmo, Zelle, PayPal, and cash. Homegrown takes card payments through its built-in checkout, and Square Online processes payments through Square. If most of your customers pay through peer-to-peer apps, Bake.Shop and Bakesy offer the most flexibility for those specific payment methods.
Bake.Shop and Bakesy are both built for home bakers, but they work differently. Bake.Shop uses a "drops" model where you release a set menu and customers order from it before products sell out. Bakesy uses an order inquiry model where customers submit requests and you respond with quotes. Bake.Shop is better for bakers with a fixed weekly menu. Bakesy is better for bakers who do custom orders like decorated cakes or wedding desserts. Bake.Shop costs $19 per month while Bakesy costs $9.99 per month for Standard or $17.99 for Premium, and each card payment through either platform adds a processing fee.
Switching is straightforward because your customers follow you, not your platform. Set up your new storefront on the alternative platform, update the link in your Instagram bio and anywhere else you share it, and let your regular customers know through a post or message. Keep your old storefront open until your regulars have ordered through the new link, so no one lands on a dead page. Your relationships and your baking are what keep people coming back, and a clear message to your regulars is how you bring them along. If you move to Homegrown, let regulars know they will create a Homegrown account the first time they order.
Yes, for iPhone. The App Store lists Bakeshop: Home Bakery Orders as a free download, rated 4.8 stars from 5 ratings on September 13, 2026, with subscriptions inside the app at $19.99 a month or $149.99 a year. We found no Android version. On the web, Bake.Shop's plans cost $19 a month or $149 a year, plus Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 on card payments.
The best bakery ecommerce software for a home bakery matches how you sell. Pick Bake.Shop ($19 a month) for weekly drops, Bakesy ($9.99 a month) for custom cake orders, Homegrown ($10 a month, billed yearly) for order-ahead pickup of any food product, or Square's free plan if you already take cards at markets with Square. Card processing adds 2.9% to 3.9% plus $0.30 to each card payment on all four, and Bakesy charges nothing when customers pay you outside the app.
Square Online is the only one of the four with a free plan, and it takes 3.3% + $0.30 whenever a customer pays by card online. Bake.Shop, Bakesy and Homegrown charge a monthly fee after free trials of 14, 30 and 7 days.
Bake.Shop is a well-built platform, but it is not the only option for home bakers who want to take orders online. If you are looking for something more affordable that is built for small, local food vendors like you, Homegrown gives you a simple storefront with pre-orders and local pickup for $10 per month on the yearly plan, plus 2.9% + $0.30 per card payment.
A simple way to test any platform is one pickup week. List the three products you bake most, set an order cutoff two days before pickup, and send the link to the ten people who already buy from you. If those orders come in through the link and your DMs stay quiet, a storefront is doing its job. If only a few orders arrive, change one thing, such as the cutoff or the menu, and run the week again.
Set up your storefront, share your link, and start taking orders. Try Homegrown free for 7 days and see if it fits the way you sell.
