The short version: The best platform for most home bakers selling locally is Homegrown ($10/month with payment processing built in at 2.9% + $0.30), which gives you a dedicated storefront with no per-listing fees. If you do mostly custom cake orders, Bakesy ($9.99 or $17.99 a month after a 30-day free trial, with payment processing on top) handles quote requests and custom forms. If you want a full website, Square Online (free plan, with Square's processing at 3.3% + 30¢ on online payments) works for bakers already using Square. Skip Shopify unless you are shipping nationwide.
Checked September 12, 2026 on each company's pricing page. Bakesy's payments guide lists 3.9% + $0.30 for optional in-app card payments. Homegrown lists your storefront on its marketplace, but most orders come from customers you send to your own link.
If you search for where to sell baked goods online, most guides point you straight to Etsy. And it makes sense on the surface — Etsy is a well-known marketplace, it is easy to set up, and Etsy reported 86.5 million active buyers at the end of 2025 in its full-year results.
But Etsy was built for handmade crafts, vintage finds, and digital downloads. It was not built for fresh cookies that need to be picked up on Saturday or a loaf of sourdough that goes stale in three days. Perishable, local food does not fit the Etsy model for several reasons:
So what should you use instead? This guide covers the best platforms for selling baked goods online when Etsy is not the right fit — organized by what type of baker you are and how you sell.
The right platform for a home baker selling locally is very different from the right platform for a cookie company shipping coast to coast. Here is what matters for local baked goods:
Swipe sideways to see every column.
| Feature | Matters for Local Bakers | Matters for Shipping Bakers |
|---|---|---|
| Local pickup scheduling | Yes | No |
| Shipping label integration | No | Yes |
| Marketplace discovery | Yes | Yes |
| Low listing fees | Yes | Moderate |
| Product rotation support | Yes | No |
| Custom order forms | Some bakers | Some bakers |
| Full website builder | Optional | Yes |
In a pull of the Homegrown catalog on August 14, 2026, 876 of the 1,804 products listed by 219 vendors were bakery products. That is 49% of all products on Homegrown, and 122 of those 219 vendors list at least one. Sourdough was the most common word in bakery product names, used 261 times, followed by chocolate (103) and cookies (97). That is why this guide leans on weekly menus, pickup days and rotating products.
Products on Homegrown by category
Top 6 of 16 categories, from a pull of 1,804 products in the Homegrown catalog on August 14, 2026.
For most home bakers who sell for local pickup, Homegrown is the simplest fit at $10 a month billed annually, with no commission on your sales.
Homegrown is built specifically for small food vendors selling locally. You get your own Homegrown storefront where customers browse your products, place an order, and pay — all before pickup day.
Start your free trial at Homegrown
If you already accept card payments with Square at markets, Square Online adds an online storefront that syncs with your existing account.
Bakesy was built for home bakers who primarily take custom orders — birthday cakes, wedding cookies, decorated sugar cookies, and special-occasion baked goods.
Castiron combined an ordering system with a full website builder designed for food vendors.
Castiron shut down in late 2025, and castiron.me no longer runs its ordering platform. This section stays as a record of what it offered. If you want a website and ordering together, Square Online and Bakesy both include a website builder.
If your customers already follow you on social media, Facebook and Instagram shops let them browse your products on your profile and then check out on your own website.
A Google Form paired with a payment app like Venmo or Square Invoices is the lowest-cost way to take orders online.
Swipe sideways to see every column.
| Platform | Monthly Cost | Listing Fees | Local Discovery | Custom Orders | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homegrown | $10 (billed yearly) | None | Marketplace listing | No | 15 min |
| Square Online | Free-$149 | None | No | No | 1-2 hours |
| Bakesy | $9.99-$17.99 | None | No | Yes (specialty) | 30 min |
| Castiron (closed) | Closed | None | No | Yes | 1-3 hours |
| Facebook/IG Shop | Free | None | Limited | No | 30-60 min |
| Google Forms | Free | None | No | No | 15-20 min |
| Etsy | $0 (fees per listing and sale) | Yes + % fees | Yes (Local Shops page) | Yes | 1 hour |
Prices checked on each company's pricing page on September 12, 2026. Square's free plan charges 3.3% + 30¢ in card processing on online payments, and Bakesy charges 3.9% + $0.30 on card payments through its optional Secure Payments. Castiron has shut down.
Homegrown does not offer custom order forms yet. Homegrown puts your storefront on its marketplace, but the orders mostly come from people who already buy from you.
The comparison makes Etsy's weakness clear. It is the only platform that charges per listing, takes percentage-based fees on top of payment processing, and is built around shipping instead of local pickup. For a home baker selling locally, there is no advantage to using Etsy over any of these alternatives.
On a $24 box of cookies, fees run from about $1.00 on Homegrown, Shopify Basic and Square Plus to $2.73 on Etsy, before any monthly plan. The table below puts every platform on the same footing: the monthly plan, the platform's own fee, and card processing.
Scroll sideways to see every column.
| Platform | Monthly plan | Platform fee | Card processing | Fees on one $24 box | Monthly total at 20 boxes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homegrown | $10 billed annually ($12.50 monthly) | None | 2.9% + 30¢, built in | $1.00 | $29.92 |
| Square Online, free plan | $0 | None | 3.3% + 30¢ online | $1.09 | $21.84 |
| Square Online, Square Plus | $49 per location | None | 2.9% + 30¢ online | $1.00 | $68.92 |
| Bakesy Standard | $9.99 | None | 3.9% + 30¢ (Secure Payments) | $1.24 | $34.71 |
| Shopify Basic | $29 billed yearly ($39 monthly) | None with Shopify Payments (2% with another provider) | 2.9% + 30¢ online | $1.00 | $48.92 |
| Etsy | $0 | $0.20 listing + 6.5% transaction | Yes (Local Shops page) | $2.73 | $54.60 |
Of the platforms with a published card rate, Square's free plan comes out cheapest on fees alone at 20 boxes a month, at $21.84 including card processing. Homegrown costs about $8 more, at $29.92, and is built around local pickup, with sales tax calculated and remitted for you. At 20 boxes, Etsy costs more than Homegrown, Shopify Basic or Square's free plan, and its fees grow with every box you sell.
Before you pick a platform, run your prices through our free baked goods price calculator so there is room for these fees in every box you sell.
The answer depends on how you sell and what kind of baked goods you make.
Choose Homegrown if you sell standard products (cookies, bread, pies, pastries) at farmers markets or through local pickup. You want one link your customers can order from. You want the simplest path from "I bake things" to "I take orders and get paid online."
Choose Square Online if you already use Square for in-person payments and want one unified system. You are comfortable spending time on setup.
Choose Bakesy if your business is primarily custom cakes and decorated cookies with flavor choices, design discussions, and quote requests.
Castiron was the pick if you wanted a website and ordering system in one platform, but it has shut down. Look at Square Online or Bakesy for this instead.
Choose Google Forms if you are just starting and want to test the waters before spending any money.
For a deeper comparison of these approaches — websites vs. marketplaces vs. simple order forms — read our guide on which setup is right for your food business.
Etsy takes about 11% of a $24 sale once you add its listing, transaction and processing fees, and its checkout is built around shipping packages.
This is worth unpacking because it is easy to default to Etsy without asking whether it fits.
Etsy charges $0.20 per listing (renewed every four months or when sold), 6.5% of each sale as a transaction fee, and 3% + $0.25 for payment processing. On a $24 box of cookies, that is roughly:
Compare that to Homegrown's flat $10/month with no listing or transaction fees (just Homegrown's built-in 2.9% + 30 cents card processing). A baker selling 20 boxes of cookies per month saves about $25 a month in fees ($54.60 on Etsy against $29.92 on Homegrown with card processing).
Beyond fees, Etsy is designed for shipping. The entire checkout experience assumes the customer is waiting for a package to arrive. Local pickup is technically possible but awkward — customers see "shipping" fields, delivery estimates, and tracking numbers that make no sense for picking up bread on Saturday morning.
The MU Extension guide on market channels for locally raised foods found that 14% of farms selling direct to consumers used online marketplaces in 2020, up from 8% in 2015. But those marketplaces work best when they are designed for local food — not crafts and vintage jewelry.
Start with the customers you already have: send them to your ordering link before you worry about finding new ones.
Setting up a platform is step one. Getting customers to use it is step two.
The Johnson & Wales guide on marketing your online bakery recommends building a brand identity early and using data from your orders to understand what sells — advice that applies whether you are using a full website or a simple ordering page.
For more places to sell beyond online platforms, read our guide on places to sell homemade food that aren't Etsy or Shopify.
An online ordering link works best next to a place where people can taste your baking in person. These are common places to pair with it:
Cottage food rules decide where and how you can sell, and they differ a lot from state to state. In Washington, for example, the state agriculture department says cottage food products may be sold only to the end consumer, and it lists "Internet, mail, consignment, wholesale, & retail sales outside the state" as prohibited under its cottage food permit. Washington also leaves out baked goods that need refrigeration, like cream or custard pies and cakes with cream cheese filling. If your state lists internet sales as prohibited, ask the state agency whether taking orders online for in-person pickup counts before you set up an online storefront. Look up your own state's rules before you list products online. Washington's rules were checked on September 12, 2026.
Homegrown is the best Etsy alternative for home bakers selling locally. It costs $10 per month billed yearly, with no listing fees, no commission and card processing built in at 2.9% + 30 cents, and it is built specifically for food vendors. Unlike Etsy, it handles local pickup naturally and takes no cut of each sale beyond card processing.
Your Homegrown storefront is also listed on the Homegrown marketplace, but plan on most orders coming from people you point to your storefront yourself.
Yes, but building and maintaining your own website takes more time and money than most part-time bakers realize. You need hosting, a domain, an ordering plugin, payment processing, and ongoing maintenance. For most home bakers, a dedicated ordering platform is faster to set up and costs less than a custom website. Read our breakdown on whether you should build a Shopify store for your food business.
The cost ranges from free (Google Forms) to $49 or more per month (Square Online paid plans). Homegrown costs $10 per month billed yearly. Add card processing at 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction (built into Homegrown, with no outside processor to set up) and a baker processing $500 in online orders pays about $30 a month in total.
Here is the math: $500 in card sales at 2.9% is $14.50, plus 30 cents on each of about 20 orders is $6, plus the $10 plan, which comes to about $30 a month.
No. A Homegrown storefront serves the same purpose as a website — customers see your products, place orders, and pay. You do not need a separate website, hosting account, or domain name. You can run your whole business through your storefront and social media without ever building a traditional website.
Etsy's fees come to about 11% of a $30 sale when you add up the listing fee ($0.20), transaction fee (6.5%), and payment processing fee (3% + $0.25). On a $30 order, that is $3.30 in fees ($0.20 listing, $1.95 transaction and $1.15 processing). Over a year, a baker doing $1,000 a month in Etsy sales in $30 orders pays about $1,320 in fees, more than twice the roughly $590 the same sales cost on Homegrown with its plan and card processing.
In most states, yes. Cottage food laws allow home bakers to sell baked goods directly to consumers. Rules vary by state — most require labels with your name, address, and ingredients, and some cap annual sales, from $35,000 a year in Washington to $150,000 in Texas. The online platform you use does not change your legal obligations. Check your state's specific cottage food rules before listing products for sale. Washington, for example, caps cottage food sales at $35,000 a year, according to the Washington State Department of Agriculture.
Cookies, brownies, bread, and cinnamon rolls are common choices for home bakers taking online orders. Products that travel well, have a clear price point, and photograph well are easier to sell online. Custom decorated cookies and cakes also sell well online because customers can browse your portfolio and submit order requests with design details.
Etsy makes sense for shipping handmade jewelry to someone in another state. It does not make sense for selling sourdough to someone five miles away. The platforms on this list are built for the way home bakers actually sell — locally, in person, and on a weekly schedule.
Pick one platform, get your products listed, and share the link. Your first online order is closer than you think.
The easiest test is one weekly menu. Put this week's baked goods on a storefront, send the link to the people who already order from you by text or DM, and count how many orders come in without a back-and-forth message. On Homegrown, one $24 box of cookies brings in more than the $10 monthly plan costs. If orders come in, keep the menu going each week. If they do not, you have spent one week finding out, and you can cancel anytime.
Ready to take baked goods orders without the DMs? Start your free trial at Homegrown
