The short version: Cottage CMS has a Free Forever plan at $0 with Square-powered checkout, pre-orders and weekly schedules, a storefront, a catalog, order forms, and customer records. Its Pro tier is $200 a year. Bakesy is $9.99 a month for Standard or $17.99 for Premium, with a 30-day free trial and card processing through Bakesy Secure Payments at 3.9% plus $0.30, a full point above the standard online rate. So the comparison depends entirely on whether Cottage CMS's free tier covers you. If it does, Cottage CMS is free and Bakesy is $120 a year plus a processing premium. If you need Pro, it is $200 against $120, and Bakesy's processing rate is what closes that gap and then some.

All figures came off each company's own site in July 2026.

What is the difference between Bakesy and Cottage CMS?

They are built around different moments in a sale.

Bakesy is built around the quote. A customer fills in an order form describing an occasion, a date, a flavor, a budget. You review it, price it, and send a branded invoice. Galleries, an availability calendar, and automated receipts sit around that workflow. It is a custom-order desk.

Cottage CMS is built around the drop. Pre-orders, which they call Drops, and weekly schedules are on the free tier, alongside a public storefront and a product catalog with order forms. It assumes you list what you are making this week and people order it.

That difference decides most of this:

• If every order is a priced-per-job cake, Bakesy's workflow fits.
• If you sell a weekly list of things, Cottage CMS fits and costs nothing.
• Cottage CMS uses Square. Bakesy uses Bakesy Secure Payments at 3.9%.
• Cottage CMS gates delivery and a custom domain behind Pro. Bakesy gates tips, inventory, and reminders behind Premium.

What does each one cost?

Same four disclosures on all three columns.

	Cottage CMS Free	Cottage CMS Pro	Bakesy Standard
Subscription	$0 forever, no credit card	$200/yr, which is $16.67/mo billed annually	$9.99/mo, so $119.88/yr
Free trial	Not needed, it is free	30-day money-back guarantee	30-day free trial
Platform fee	Not stated	Not stated	$0
Card processing	Square's rate, not restated by Cottage CMS	Square's rate	3.9% + $0.30 via Bakesy Secure Payments

Two things need spelling out.

Cottage CMS does not restate the Square rate. Square charges 3.3% plus 30 cents online on its free plan and 2.9% plus 30 cents on its paid plans. Which applies to a Cottage CMS storefront is worth asking, because the difference is $72 a year on $18,000 in sales.

Bakesy's 3.9% is the highest published rate in this category. It is optional, in the sense that Bakesy also lets you take Venmo, PayPal, Zelle, or Cash App with no Bakesy fee, at the cost of reconciling payments yourself.

What does a year actually cost?

Take a baker doing $1,500 a month across 60 orders, a $25 average order and $18,000 a year.

Cottage CMS Free, assuming Square's 2.9% + $0.30

• $0 subscription, plus $522 plus $216 = $738 processing
• Year: $738

Cottage CMS Pro, same processing assumption

• $200 subscription, plus $738
• Year: $938

Bakesy Standard, on Bakesy Secure Payments

• $119.88 subscription, plus 3.9% of $18,000 = $702, plus $216, so $918 processing
• Year: $1,037.88

Bakesy Standard, taking payment via Venmo or Zelle

• $119.88 subscription, plus $0 in platform processing
• Year: $119.88, plus however many hours you spend chasing payments

So on cards, Cottage CMS Free is $300 a year cheaper than Bakesy Standard, and even Cottage CMS Pro comes in about $100 cheaper. The subscription comparison suggests Bakesy is the budget option; the processing rate reverses it.

The only scenario where Bakesy is genuinely cheapest is the manual-payment one, and that is a time cost rather than a saving.

It is worth sitting with how large that manual-payment gap looks and how misleading it is. On paper, $119.88 against $938 makes Bakesy look like an obvious win. What that column actually describes is a business where every one of 720 orders a year involves sending a payment request, waiting, checking a bank app, and writing the payment down somewhere. At five minutes an order that is 60 hours, and five minutes is generous. Anyone who has chased a Venmo payment for a birthday cake knows some of them take three messages and a week. Price your own hour honestly and the two columns usually converge, and for most working bakers the automated one comes out ahead.

What is the real cost of a low subscription with a high rate?

This pattern shows up across the whole category, so it is worth being able to spot it.

1. The subscription is the number you see monthly, so it feels like the price.
2. The processing rate is the number you see once, at signup, and then never again.
3. The rate scales with your success and the subscription does not.
4. A one-point difference is $10 per $1,000 sold, which sounds trivial and is $180 a year at $18,000.
5. Nobody sends you a notice when the crossover happens.

None of that makes a 3.9% platform a bad deal. It makes it a deal that is good at low volume and bad at higher volume, which is exactly what a low subscription paired with a high rate is designed to be. The failure is not choosing it. The failure is choosing it once and never rechecking, then discovering three years later that the cheap plan has been the expensive one since your second good summer. You can run the same comparison against a storefront with published rates using your own last three months, and our guide to taking pre-orders for a food business covers the workflow underneath whichever you pick.

Which one fits how you sell?

1. Does every order need a quote? If yes, Bakesy's order-form-to-invoice workflow is what you are buying and Cottage CMS does not replicate it.
2. Do you sell a weekly list? Cottage CMS puts pre-orders and schedules on the free tier, which is unusual and valuable.
3. Do you deliver? Delivery options are Cottage CMS Pro. Bakesy does not advertise a paid delivery checkout.
4. Do you need a custom domain? Also Pro on Cottage CMS.
5. Will you take cards, or route payment around the platform? This single answer moves Bakesy's annual cost by roughly $800.
6. Do you need tips, inventory limits, or automated reminders? Those are Bakesy Premium at $17.99, not Standard.

When is Bakesy the better choice?

• Your business is custom cakes, and every order starts as a conversation about a date and a design.
• You need an order form capturing servings, flavors, allergens, budget, and inspiration photos before you quote.
• You want a branded invoice rather than a checkout.
• You want a gallery as your main sales surface.
• You are happy to take payment outside the platform, which makes its total cost the lowest here.
• You want the 30-day trial, which is the longest in this comparison.

Our fuller look at Bakesy for cottage food sellers covers where the Premium gate starts to bite.

When is Cottage CMS the better choice?

• You sell a weekly menu or drop, which the free tier handles at no cost.
• You want pre-orders and scheduling without paying anything, which almost nothing else in this category offers.
• You want card checkout that costs the market rate rather than a point above it.
• You want to test online ordering at zero risk.
• You need delivery, a custom domain, texting, or digital products, all on Pro at $200 a year.
• You like that it is built by a working cottage baker and shaped by 1,800-plus sellers.

Our breakdown of what the Cottage CMS free plan leaves out covers the tier boundary in detail.

What changes at Cottage CMS in August 2026?

Worth knowing before you commit to an annual plan, because it is dated and specific.

Cottage CMS is launching a Scale tier at $370 a year in August 2026, and its own page states that full-feature access is moving up, encouraging sellers to start Pro before launch to keep today's feature set while their membership stays active.

Practically:

• Buying Pro before August 2026 is a different purchase from buying after.
• The grandfathering is conditional on staying active, so a lapsed card could reset you.
• Any comparison of Cottage CMS Pro written now, including this one, has a shelf life.

Bakesy has no equivalent announced change, which counts for something if you value knowing what you are buying in eighteen months.

What does neither one do?

Both are ordering tools built for bakers. Both leave the same jobs with you.

• Neither files your sales tax. You register, calculate, collect, and remit.
• Neither plans a delivery route for the drop-offs you make yourself.
• Neither hides your home address if your pickup point is your house.
• Neither handles pickup at several locations with separate schedules.
• Neither lists you anywhere local shoppers browse.

Sales tax is the one that costs hours rather than dollars, and it is worth pricing before you optimize a $100 difference in subscription. The SBA's guidance on registering your business covers what you are signing up for, and the IRS's self-employed individuals tax center covers the ongoing filing side.

For contrast, Homegrown is $10 a month billed annually with 0% commission and 2.9% plus $0.30 processing published up front, and it does calculate, file, and remit sales tax in all 50 states, run local delivery with a radius and a route, handle several pickup locations, and hide a home address until purchase. It does not do custom-order quoting, digital products, blogs, or text messaging, so it is not a strict upgrade on either of these. Different chores removed. You can test which set matters more in your week inside a 7-day trial without changing anything.

How should you actually decide?

Since one of these is free and the other has a 30-day trial, this can be settled with evidence rather than argument.

1. Count your last 20 orders. How many needed a quote, and how many were things you already price?
2. If most needed a quote, Bakesy is doing something Cottage CMS does not, and that is the decision.
3. If most were list items, start on Cottage CMS Free and spend nothing.
4. Decide about cards now. If you will take card payments, add 1% of your annual sales to Bakesy's cost before comparing.
5. Check whether you need delivery, since that alone moves Cottage CMS from free to $200.
6. Run both, since one costs nothing and the other gives you 30 days.

Step four is the one people skip. A baker comparing $9.99 against $200 concludes Bakesy is twenty times cheaper, which is true of the subscription and false of the bill.

There is one more thing worth doing before you commit either way, and it costs nothing: set up both. Cottage CMS Free requires no card, and Bakesy gives you 30 days. Put the same five products on each, send the link to five regular customers, and watch what happens. You will learn more in a week of real orders than in an evening of comparing tables, including things no comparison can tell you: whether your customers find the checkout obvious, whether the confirmation email reads like a real business, and whether the admin fits into the twenty minutes you actually have on a Tuesday night.

Frequently asked questions

Is Cottage CMS free?

Yes, genuinely. The Free Forever plan is $0 with no credit card and includes Square checkout, pre-orders and weekly schedules, a public storefront, a catalog, order forms, and customer records. Pro is $200 a year and adds a custom domain, delivery, shipping, QR codes, texting, and digital products.

How much does Bakesy cost?

$9.99 a month for Standard or $17.99 for Premium, with a 30-day free trial and no per-order platform fee. Card payments through Bakesy Secure Payments run 3.9% plus $0.30. Venmo, PayPal, Zelle, and Cash App carry no Bakesy fee.

Which one is cheaper?

On card payments, Cottage CMS, by a wide margin. Its free tier is $300 a year cheaper than Bakesy Standard at $18,000 in sales, and even Pro comes in about $100 cheaper, because Bakesy's 3.9% costs roughly $180 more per year than a standard rate.

Which one is better for custom cakes?

Bakesy. Order forms that capture date, servings, flavors, and budget, followed by a branded invoice, are what it is built for. Cottage CMS is organized around drops and weekly schedules rather than per-job quoting.

What processing rate will I pay on Cottage CMS?

Whatever Square charges your account, which is 3.3% plus 30 cents online on Square's free plan and 2.9% plus 30 cents on its paid plans. Cottage CMS does not restate the rate, so confirm which applies before budgeting.

Can I use Bakesy without paying 3.9%?

Yes, by taking payment through Venmo, PayPal, Zelle, or Cash App, which carry no Bakesy fee. You then handle reconciliation by hand and lose automated receipts, which is a reasonable trade at low order counts and a poor one at high ones.

Does either handle sales tax?

Neither advertises sales tax filing. Registering, collecting, and remitting are yours on both platforms, in every state where you owe.

The bottom line

If most of your orders are custom cakes quoted one at a time, use Bakesy and decide separately whether to accept its 3.9% or route payments around it. That workflow is what it is for and Cottage CMS does not offer an equivalent.

If you sell a weekly list of things people order ahead, Cottage CMS's free tier does that job for nothing, which is the strongest offer in this comparison by some distance. Just be clear-eyed that "free" ends at delivery and a custom domain, that the August 2026 repricing changes what Pro means, and that on cards the processing rate matters more than either subscription. Run the one calculation, annual sales times the rate difference, before you let a $9.99 headline decide anything.