By Evan Knox, Founder of Homegrown · Last updated May 5, 2026

Methodology: We track every cottage food platform on a quarterly basis using public funding records, founder interviews, vendor migration data from Homegrown's own customer pipeline, and direct pricing-page pulls. Closed and acquired platforms (Castiron, FarmDrop, Farmigo, GrazeCart) are flagged with their public exit history so vendors can read durability into their platform choice. Pricing is sourced from each platform's official site as of May 2026 and includes every fee component (subscription, platform fee, payment processing) at every reference.

Note on bias. I run Homegrown, so this guide isn't neutral — but I tried to keep it fair. Pricing is sourced from each platform's official page (linked inline) as of May 2026. Funding state is sourced from public press (TechCrunch, PR Newswire, Crunchbase) with citations. When competitors win on a specific dimension, I say so: Cottage CMS Pro ($20/month or $200/year + Square's processing) narrowly beats Homegrown at $5K+/month volume, Hotplate's drop mechanics earn their fees for pop-up bakers, Faire is the right call for soap and candle wholesale. The goal is the page I'd want to read if I were picking a platform.

Quick answer for 2026

Each line below shows the full fee stack — subscription + platform fee + payment processing — because the platform fee alone is misleading on percentage-fee tools.

• Most local vendors: Homegrown — $10/month annual subscription + 2.9% + $0.30 payment processing built into Homegrown (no separate processor account needed), no additional platform fee.
• Need a full marketing-grade website on top of ordering: Cottage CMS Pro — $20/month or $200/year subscription + Square's processing (2.6% + $0.10 on most card types) per order, no additional platform fee.
• Drop-style "release day" sales: Hotplate — $0 subscription + 5% + $0.55 platform fee + 2.9% + $0.30 payment processing per order (so a $50 order pays about $4.80 in total fees).
• Already running Square at the booth: Square Plus — $49/month subscription + 2.9% + $0.30 Square processing per order, no additional platform fee.
• Wholesale to boutique retailers (soap, candle, jam, honey): Faire — $0 subscription + 15% commission + 1.9-3.5% + $0.30 payment processing per order.
• Free starter for very low volume: Venmo (zero fees but breaks at scale) for under 10 orders/week.

The detailed cost-at-volume math, decision tree by what you sell, and per-platform breakdowns for 28 platforms (including the closed-platforms section so you don't pick the next Castiron) are below.

Jump to a section

• The 2026 cottage food platform landscape
• Master comparison table — all 28 platforms
• Decision tree: pick by what you sell
• Cost-at-volume math: $500 / $2K / $5K monthly
• Bakery-specific platforms (8)
• Farm and CSA platforms (9)
• Marketplace platforms (6)
• Cottage food specialists (4)
• General e-commerce platforms (5)
• Closed and acquired platforms: what happened
• Frequently asked questions
• Bottom line and next step

The 2026 cottage food platform landscape

Two things have happened in the cottage food platform space over the past 18 months that change the math for any vendor picking a tool.

The first is consolidation. Castiron, the venture-backed platform that raised $6 million in seed funding in 2022, was acquired by T.D. Jakes Enterprises in November 2024, rebranded as Nourysh, and the original platform wound down through 2025. Vendors who had built their stores there lost them. GrazeCart was acquired by POS Nation in February 2024. Farmigo was absorbed into GrubMarket back in 2021. FarmDrop in the UK collapsed entirely in late 2021. The platform graveyard is now substantial — and migration is the single most common pattern we see in Homegrown signups today.

The second is funding-state divergence. The platforms that survived the 2022-2024 venture funding pullback split into two camps: heavily VC-backed (Barn2Door, Hotplate, Local Line, Market Wagon, Faire) and bootstrapped (Cottage CMS, MyCustomBakes, LocallyGrown.net, Local Food Marketplace, BakeBug, Butterbase, Homegrown). The funding state matters because percentage-fee VC platforms have to grow into their valuations, which usually means raising fees later, while bootstrapped platforms tend to keep flat-rate pricing for the long haul.

This guide covers every major active platform, organized by who they serve and how they price. Every per-platform section includes ownership state and funding history where it's publicly known, plus a link to the deep-dive article on findhomegrown.com if you want the full breakdown.

Master comparison table

Decision tree: pick by what you sell

The easiest way to choose is to start with what you actually sell and how many orders a week you handle. Homegrown scales with vendors from their first online order through 50+ orders per week — the volume row only changes which other tools you might pair with it.

If you bake at home and sell direct to local customers

Volume	Best primary tool	Pair with (optional)
Under 10 orders/wk	Homegrown ($10/mo) or Google Form + Venmo (free, breaks at scale)	—
10-30 orders/wk	Homegrown	Cottage CMS Free for vendors plugged into the 125K cottage food Facebook group
30-50 orders/wk	Homegrown	Cottage CMS Pro ($20/mo + Square's processing) or Squarespace for the website piece
50+ orders/wk	Homegrown	Hotplate for drop-style release days; Cottage CMS Pro ($20/mo + Square's processing) for the full website

The trap at every volume tier is percentage-fee platforms. Cottage CMS Free's 1.9% + $0.25 platform fee plus Square's processing on every order is fine at low volume but compounds against you fast. The cost-at-volume tables in the next section show the gap.

If you sell from a farm (meat, produce, eggs, dairy)

Operation type	Best primary tool	Reason
Small operations under $30K/year	Homegrown for ordering + LocalHarvest directory listing	Avoid Barn2Door's $119-$299/mo + $399-$599 setup floor at this scale
Subscription-heavy CSAs	CSAware (2% of revenue, $100/mo min) or Local Line ($79-$319 annual)	Both built specifically for CSA share-billing workflows
Variable-weight meat farms	GrazeCart (POS Nation, Starter $89/mo)	Variable-weight pricing for cut-to-order is GrazeCart's core feature
Multi-channel ($100K+/year)	Local Line or Barn2Door	Both cover wholesale + retail + DTC in one platform

If you sell at farmers markets and want to add online

Setup	Best tool	Trade-off
Already running Square POS at booth	Square Plus ($49/mo)	One dashboard for in-person + online; no cottage-food-specific features
Want cottage-food-specific workflow	Homegrown	Pre-orders during week, pickup at booth on market day; pair with Square only for the in-person card reader

If you sell non-perishable packaged goods (jam, candles, soap, spice mixes)

Channel	Best tool	Why
Direct to consumer	Homegrown or Etsy	Etsy gives marketplace traffic but charges 9.5-11% effective fees per sale
Wholesale to boutique retailers	Faire (15% commission + processing)	Access to 700K+ retail buyers; the 15% is the price of distribution

Cost-at-volume math

The right way to evaluate platforms is to plug your real monthly sales volume into each one's fee structure. Subscription cost is only one component — the platform fee on top of payment processing is what adds up. Here's what the most-asked-about platforms cost at three volume tiers.

At $500/month in sales (about 8-12 orders per week)

Platform	Subscription	Platform fee	Payment processing	Total monthly cost
Homegrown	$10	$0	$14.50 + $0.30 × ~10 = ~$17	~$27
Cottage CMS Free	$0	1.9% × $500 + $0.25 × ~10 = ~$12	Square processing 2.6% + $0.10 × ~10 = ~$14	~$26
Cottage CMS Pro	$20 + Square's processing	n/a	Square processing 2.6% + $0.10 × ~10 = ~$14	~$34
Hotplate	$0	5% × $500 + $0.55 × ~10 = ~$31	2.9% + $0.30 × ~10 = ~$17	~$48
Square Plus	$49	$0	2.9% + $0.30 × ~10 = ~$17	~$66
Etsy (10 listings)	$2 listing fees	6.5% × $500 = $33	3% + $0.25 × ~10 = ~$17	~$52

At this volume, Homegrown and Cottage CMS Free are roughly tied. Cottage CMS Pro ($20/mo + Square's processing) pulls ahead of Free once you're paying for the full-website piece anyway. Hotplate and Square Plus are 1.7-2.4× more expensive at this scale.

At $2,000/month in sales (about 30-40 orders per week)

Platform	Subscription	Platform fee	Payment processing	Total monthly cost
Homegrown	$10	$0	$58 + $0.30 × ~35 = ~$68	~$78
Cottage CMS Free	$0	1.9% × $2,000 + $0.25 × ~35 = ~$47	Square processing ~$55	~$102
Cottage CMS Pro	$20 + Square's processing	n/a	Square processing ~$55	~$75
Hotplate	$0	5% × $2,000 + $0.55 × ~35 = ~$119	~$68	~$187
Square Plus	$49	$0	~$68	~$117
Etsy	$7 listing fees	6.5% × $2,000 = $130	3% + $0.25 × ~35 = ~$69	~$206

The gap widens fast. At $2,000/month, Homegrown is the cheapest, Cottage CMS Pro ($20/mo + Square's processing) is second, and the percentage-fee platforms (Hotplate, Etsy, Cottage CMS Free) all cost 30-160% more than the flat-fee plans.

At $5,000/month in sales (about 80-100 orders per week)

Platform	Subscription	Platform fee	Payment processing	Total monthly cost
Homegrown	$10	$0	~$170	~$180
Cottage CMS Pro	$20 + Square's processing	n/a	~$140	~$160
Cottage CMS Free	$0	~$120	~$140	~$260
Hotplate	$0	5% × $5,000 + $0.55 × ~90 = ~$300	~$170	~$470
Etsy	$20 listing fees	6.5% × $5,000 = $325	~$170	~$515

Where Cottage CMS Pro beats Homegrown. At $5,000/month in sales, Cottage CMS Pro narrowly wins because Square's processing rate (2.6% + $0.10) is slightly lower than the standard 2.9% + $0.30 most platforms use — saving about $20-$30/month. Above $5K/month, vendors who don't need Cottage CMS Pro's full-website features get the cheapest math from Homegrown's flat $10. Above that volume with the website piece, Pro ($20/month + Square's processing) wins on processing rate. Both win against percentage-fee platforms.

The takeaway: pick a flat-fee subscription platform, not a percentage-fee one, unless the percentage platform offers something you genuinely cannot replicate elsewhere (Etsy marketplace traffic, Hotplate's drop mechanics, Faire's wholesale buyer network).

Bakery-specific platforms

Eight platforms target home bakers, custom-order bakers, and small bakery operations. They differ on what they actually do — some are storefronts, some are back-office tools, some are mobile-first apps without payment processing.

Bakesy

Bakesy is a mobile and web app for custom-order home bakers, founded around 2020 and operating as an independent bootstrapped tool. Pricing is $9.99/month Standard or $17.99/month Premium with a 30-day free trial. The catch is that Bakesy doesn't include built-in payment processing — vendors collect via Venmo, Zelle, or PayPal directly with customers, which means you're outside the fee math but also outside any compliance or chargeback protection a real payment processor gives you. Premium adds instant checkout, inventory, discount codes, calendar sync, and removes Bakesy branding. → Vendor experience and switching reasons

BakeBug

BakeBug is a Canadian-built independent online store builder with Square payment integration. It's free through December 31, 2026 (a promotional period limited to a fixed number of vendor spots) and post-promotion pricing is $4.99/month per the homepage (with Square's processing applied to transactions on top). The platform is small and clearly bootstrapped — both a feature (low fees, founder-driven roadmap) and a risk (no public funding means no obvious runway disclosure). For Canadian home bakers it's worth a look. For US bakers, the Square integration is fine but Cottage CMS, Homegrown, and MyCustomBakes all offer broader US-specific compliance and tax handling. → Canada-specific tax and compliance walkthrough

Butterbase

Butterbase is a back-office tool, not a storefront. It handles recipe costing, client management, order calendars, invoicing through Stripe, and analytics — the operational layer of a home bakery, not the customer-facing one. It's bootstrapped and offers a free tier (20 recipes, 10 clients, 20 orders/month), a $12/month Starter tier, and a $29/month Growth tier with team members and full analytics. Butterbase is the right pick if your customers already know how to find you (DMs, referrals, repeat orders) and you want to systematize the back office. It's not the right pick if you need new customers to find your products and check out without your involvement. → How vendors actually use it day-to-day

Hotplate

Hotplate is the venture-backed drop-style platform built for pop-up bakers and chefs who release inventory on a schedule and sell out fast. The company graduated Y Combinator's Summer 2020 batch and has raised approximately $3 million total, including a $2.85M Series A in February 2022. Pricing is no subscription with a 5% + $0.55 platform fee, plus the 2.9% + $0.30 payment processing the seller covers — on a $50 order that's about $3.05 in Hotplate fees plus $1.75 in processing, $4.80 total. Expensive at low volume, but pays for itself if Hotplate's drop mechanics (SMS alerts, prep lists, sell-out timers) drive incremental sales you wouldn't otherwise get. The platform claims 5,000+ chefs and over $100M processed. → Drop mechanics deep-dive and migration steps

MyCustomBakes

MyCustomBakes is a bootstrapped platform purpose-built for quote-based custom-order bakers (wedding cakes, decorated cookies, special-occasion orders that need a back-and-forth before pricing is final). Pricing is flat: $10/month or $100/year, no transaction fees on top of standard Stripe processing. Founded in 2021 by Lisa He, the platform tagline is "funded by bakers, for bakers." The single-tier flat pricing is rare and refreshing. The platform is narrower in scope than Homegrown — it's optimized for the quote-and-deposit flow rather than off-the-shelf product sales — so it's a complement, not a replacement, if you sell both standard menu items and custom orders. → Quote-flow vs storefront tradeoffs

iBakePro

iBakePro is an Australian-built bakery management suite with three tiers: Essentials at $14/month, Growth at $20/month, and Business at $40/month, with 20% off annual billing. The Business tier adds a REST API, accounting integrations, and removes branding. iBakePro is the most comprehensive of the bakery-specific tools — it covers orders, customers, inventory, online storefront, and AI-driven insights — and it's also the most expensive. For US vendors the Australian origin means some workflows (tax handling, default payment processors) need adjustment, and the deeper feature set is overkill for a single-vendor home bakery. It fits multi-staff operations or commercial micro-bakeries best. → Multi-staff workflow walkthrough

Bake.Shop

Bake.Shop is a no-code online store builder for home bakers and small bakeries. It charges 0% platform commission on top of Stripe's standard 2.9% + $0.30, with monthly and yearly subscription tiers behind a sign-up flow rather than a public pricing page. The opacity on tier pricing is a friction point — vendors comparing options can't get a clean monthly cost without creating an account. The platform itself looks polished, with pickup and delivery windows, a mobile app, and analytics. For vendors who prioritize visual storefront control and don't mind the gated pricing, it's worth a look. For transparent comparison shoppers, the lack of public pricing is a reason to default to Homegrown or MyCustomBakes. → Hidden tier pricing details

DigiBakery

DigiBakery has limited public web presence as of May 2026, which makes it hard to write a confident assessment. Vendors evaluating it should request a live demo and verify pricing directly before committing. The lack of a publicly indexed pricing page isn't necessarily disqualifying, but it is a flag — durable platforms tend to publish pricing on a public page. → Full vendor research notes

Farm and CSA platforms

Nine platforms target farms with subscription, delivery, or food-hub workflows. The space is dominated by VC-backed Barn2Door and Local Line on the high end, with bootstrapped LocallyGrown.net and Local Food Marketplace serving smaller farms and food hubs.

Barn2Door

Barn2Door is the largest VC-backed farm-direct platform, founded in 2015 in Seattle by Janelle Maiocco. The company has raised roughly $13.9M to $19.5M total (sources vary), with Lead Edge Capital leading a Series A and Bullpen Capital and Raine among other investors. Pricing reflects the funded scale: Entrepreneur at $119/month plus $399 setup, Business at $159/month plus $499 setup, Scale at $299/month plus $599 setup. Payment processing is 2.9% + $0.30 on top. Barn2Door is comprehensive — CSA subscriptions, delivery routing, online storefront, POS, marketing — but the price floor and setup fees mean it doesn't fit farms doing under $50K/year cleanly. For full-time farmers running multi-channel operations, it's a serious tool. → Cost analysis at $50K-$500K/year

Local Line

Local Line is the Canadian competitor to Barn2Door, also VC-backed, with Chipotle Cultivate Next as a strategic investor. Pricing on annual billing runs Core at $79/month, Premium at $159/month, and Ultimate at $319/month, with payment processing at 2.5-2.9% + $0.30 online and 1% on ACH. Local Line's positioning is multi-channel — DTC, wholesale, and food hub workflows in one platform — which is more comprehensive than most cottage-food-specific tools but also overkill for a small home-based vendor. For farms running a CSA plus farmers market plus restaurant wholesale, it earns its monthly cost. → Multi-channel setup walkthrough

GrazeCart

GrazeCart was acquired by POS Nation in February 2024, bringing the platform under a larger retail-software parent. The Starter tier is $89/month with Growth and Premium tiers gated behind a sales conversation. Founded in 2014 in Roanoke, Indiana, GrazeCart's distinguishing feature is variable-weight pricing — important for meat farms cutting to order. The acquisition is a double-edged signal: more parent-company stability, but also the risk of feature-set drift toward POS Nation's broader retail customer base rather than farm-specific needs. → Variable-weight pricing setup

CSAware

CSAware is owned by LocalHarvest, Inc. and is the longest-running purpose-built CSA management tool. Pricing is 2% of delivery revenue (payment processing is included in this percentage) with a $100/month minimum and no setup fees. CSAware listings get priority placement in the LocalHarvest farm directory, which is real customer-acquisition value for CSA programs. The percentage-fee model makes it expensive at high volume — at $5,000/month in CSA sales, you're paying $100 in CSAware fees versus $10 on a flat-fee tool — but the $100 minimum and integrated directory exposure make it competitive at smaller scale for CSA-specific operations. → LocalHarvest directory ranking factors

Farmigo

Farmigo was acquired by GrubMarket in September 2021 after raising VC from Benchmark, DAG Ventures, and others. The platform is technically still operational under GrubMarket's umbrella, but the public-facing site shows a 2023 copyright and pricing of "2% of deliveries (processing included) with a $150/month minimum" that may be stale post-acquisition. Vendors should contact GrubMarket directly for current pricing rather than treating the website as authoritative. The Farmigo brand still has CSA infrastructure across 25+ states, but the lack of recent product investment is visible. → Post-acquisition status check

LocallyGrown.net

LocallyGrown.net is the bootstrapped outlier — built and operated by a single farmer-developer (Eric Wagoner) since 2002, recently rebuilt on SvelteKit in 2025, with $57M+ processed across 23 years. Pricing is 3% of sales with no monthly minimums and the first $15,000 in sales free for new markets. The platform serves online farmers market organizers (the kind of multi-vendor cooperative format where customers order weekly and pick up at a central point). For vendors organizing such a market, it's the most credible long-haul choice in the category. For individual vendors, the platform is structured around the multi-vendor format rather than single-shop selling. → Multi-vendor coop setup walkthrough

Local Food Marketplace

Local Food Marketplace is bootstrapped, founded in 2009 in Eugene, Oregon, and serves 120+ food hubs across 35+ states. Pricing is $149/month prepaid annually plus a $249 one-time setup fee. The "Connect" feature — which lets producers sell into LFM-powered hubs — is free for the producer side. LFM is B2B infrastructure for food hubs and buying clubs rather than a vendor-facing direct storefront, so it's the right pick if you're starting or running a hub, and the wrong pick if you're a single farm looking for a website. → Food hub launch walkthrough

RootSeller

RootSeller is a farm directory and discovery platform with consumer-facing CSA listings, farm events, and volunteer coordination. As of May 2026 it shows 25,000+ active farms in its directory but doesn't publish farmer-side pricing on a public page. The platform is more of a discovery channel than a full e-commerce solution. Vendors who want a directory listing can pair it with Homegrown for the actual ordering and checkout flow. → Directory listing optimization

FarmSite, FellowFarmer, FarmDrop

FarmSite and FellowFarmer have minimal verifiable web presence as of May 2026 — FarmSite returns a TLS certificate error and FellowFarmer's site renders only after JavaScript with no extractable pricing or feature detail. Vendors evaluating either should request a live demo and verify operational status before committing. FarmDrop (UK) closed in December 2021 and the brand is no longer operating — see the closed-platforms section below for the full timeline.

Marketplace platforms

Six platforms operate as multi-vendor marketplaces — vendors get a listing alongside other vendors, customers shop across the catalog, and the marketplace handles the discovery layer.

LocalHarvest

LocalHarvest is the original cottage food directory, operating since 1999 as an independent bootstrapped company. Listing fees are not publicly published on the homepage. The directory drives 20,000+ daily visitors looking for local farms, CSAs, and farmers markets. For vendors, the value is appearance in directory search rather than full storefront infrastructure — pair LocalHarvest with a real platform like Homegrown for the checkout side. → Directory listing strategy

Market Wagon

Market Wagon raised approximately $14.7M total, including a strategic investment from Open Prairie Rural Opportunities Fund II in November 2025. Founded in 2016 in Indianapolis, the platform operates as a Midwest and Tennessee-focused online farmers market with delivery, running 25+ regional hubs. The vendor commission rate is not publicly disclosed in the terms of service, and customer delivery pricing is $6.95 per order. For vendors in Market Wagon's coverage area, it's a credible distribution channel; for vendors outside that geography, the platform isn't relevant. → Midwest vendor experience

EatFromFarms

EatFromFarms has been operating since approximately 2013 (13 years as of 2026), with pricing in the $9-$15/month range for full-feature professional storefronts. The platform gives each farm a subdomain (yourfarm.eatfromfarms.com) with order tracking and pickup scheduling, but doesn't include marketplace discovery — it's a storefront builder more than a marketplace. The 13-year track record is a credibility signal in a category full of newer entries. → Subdomain storefront walkthrough

Hivey

Hivey is worth flagging because the name shows up in cottage food searches but the actual product is a market manager tool, not a vendor storefront. Hivey serves the people who organize farmers markets — vendor applications, booth mapping, fee collection — at $99-$540/month. Vendors looking for a place to sell their goods aren't Hivey's customer; market organizers are. → Market manager workflow

RekoNow

RekoNow software powers REKO Ring marketplaces — a Scandinavian-origin pre-order community food group format where producers post weekly availability and consumers pick up at designated spots. Pricing is gated. The platform is niche to the REKO model, which has limited traction in the US compared to Northern Europe. → REKO Ring model explainer

True Home Market and Red Hen (early-stage)

Two newer entrants worth flagging. True Home Market (launched September 2025) is a $3.99/month mobile app marketplace where vendors take payment outside the app. Red Hen (launched April 2025) is a 0% subscription, 2% transaction-fee (payment processing built in) farm-products app that raised $56K via Honeycomb Credit. Both are early-stage with limited geographic coverage and minimal runway disclosure. Useful as supplemental discovery channels, not as primary platforms. → Mobile-first vendor experience · Early-stage platform tradeoffs

Cottage food specialists

Four platforms are positioned specifically around cottage food law and home-baker workflows. (Castiron, the fifth historically, closed in late 2025 — full timeline in the closed-platforms section below.)

Cottage CMS

Cottage CMS is the closest competitor to Homegrown in the cottage-food-specific category. The platform is bootstrapped, founder-led by Drew Meyer, and serves 820+ vendors in the US and Canada. The Free plan is $0 with a 1.9% + $0.25 platform fee plus Square's processing on every order. The Pro plan is $20/month or $200/year with Square's processing only (no additional platform fee). Cottage CMS uses Square exclusively for payments — Stripe and other processors aren't supported. The platform also sponsors a 125,000-member cottage food Facebook group, which drives meaningful customer-acquisition value for vendors plugged into that community. As of February 2026, Pro no longer offers a free trial. The product is genuinely strong for vendors who want a full marketing-grade website on top of ordering, and Drew has been actively shipping improvements. → Full Cottage CMS deep-dive with cost math at volume

Castiron (closed late 2025)

Castiron closed in late 2025 after a 2024 acquisition. Full timeline in the closed-platforms section below. If you're a former Castiron vendor migrating right now, the Castiron alternative migration guide walks through the steps.

StandScout

StandScout is a local food discovery platform with strong SEO content around state-by-state cottage food law. Vendor pricing tiers are not currently published on a public page (the pricing URL returns a 404 as of May 2026), so the cost story is unclear. The free Scout tier exists for consumers and a free Stand tier exists for vendors. For vendors who want a discovery channel and don't need a full storefront, the free tier is worth claiming. → Free tier setup walkthrough

ENDVR

ENDVR (the home-baker platform at endvr.app, distinct from ENDVR.io which is unrelated retail-sales software) offers a free tier with a 30-day trial including preorder system, SEO-optimized storefront, custom branding, payment processing, and an order calendar. Paid tier pricing isn't publicly displayed. The platform appears actively maintained with recent G2 reviews. → Free vs paid tier comparison

General e-commerce platforms

Five general-purpose e-commerce platforms come up in cottage food searches. None are built specifically for the use case, but each fits a particular vendor scenario.

Shopify

Shopify (NYSE: SHOP) charges $5-$399/month across Starter, Basic, Grow, and Advanced tiers, with payment processing at 2.9% + $0.30 on the Basic plan. The platform is general-purpose e-commerce — for cottage food, you'll need third-party apps to handle local pickup, pre-order workflows, and farmers market scheduling. The total cost (subscription + apps + processing) typically lands $50-$150/month, well above Homegrown's flat $10. Shopify makes sense for vendors who plan to ship nationally with diverse product types beyond cottage food. → Apps stack for cottage food on Shopify

Squarespace

Squarespace was taken private by Permira in 2024 for $6.9 billion and now operates as a private company. Pricing on annual billing runs Basic at $16/month (with a 2-3% Squarespace transaction fee on top of Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 processing), Core at $23/month (Squarespace transaction fee removed; Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 still applies), Plus at $39/month, and Advanced at $99/month. Squarespace is the right pick for vendors who prioritize design control and brand presence over cottage-food-specific workflows. Pair Squarespace for the website with Homegrown for the actual ordering layer. → Brand-forward food vendor setup

Square Plus (formerly Square Online)

Square (Block, Inc., NYSE: SQ) restructured its pricing in October 2025 into three unified tiers: Square Free at $0/month with 3.3% + $0.30 online processing, Square Plus at $49/month with 2.9% + $0.30 processing, and Square Premium at $149/month with lower rates. For vendors already running Square POS at the booth, Square Plus consolidates in-person and online into one dashboard. The trade-off is that you get a generic e-commerce builder, not a cottage-food-specific tool. → In-person + online consolidation walkthrough

Etsy

Etsy (NASDAQ: ETSY) has zero monthly subscription cost, a $0.20 listing fee per item, a 6.5% transaction fee on the total sale (including shipping), and 3% + $0.25 payment processing in the US. Combined effective fees on a typical sale run 9.5-11%, and Offsite Ads can add another 12-15% on qualifying listings. Etsy doesn't permit most perishable cottage foods under its food policy, so the platform realistically fits non-perishable packaged goods (jam, candles, soap, baking mixes, spices). For perishable cottage food, Etsy is the wrong category. → What's allowed vs what's not for home bakers

Faire

Faire is the wholesale B2B marketplace for independent brands selling to independent retailers. Total raised is approximately $1.4 billion at a $12.4 billion valuation. Marketplace orders charge a 15% commission plus 1.9-3.5% + $0.30 payment processing. Faire Direct (your existing wholesale customers ordering through Faire) charges 0% commission and processing only. For soap, candle, jam, and honey makers selling wholesale to boutiques, Faire's access to 700,000+ retail buyers justifies the 15%. For direct-to-consumer cottage food sales, Faire isn't the right channel. → Wholesale vs DTC math for makers

Closed and acquired platforms

Three closures in the cottage food platform space matter for any vendor picking a tool today.

Castiron (closed late 2025)

Castiron raised $6 million in seed funding from Bowery Capital, Foundry Group, and High Alpha in January 2022 at the peak of the food-tech venture cycle, founded in 2021 by Mark Josephson (former Bit.ly CEO). The platform was free for vendors and charged customers a 10% convenience fee at checkout, plus payment processing. The pricing model worked against vendor growth — the more a vendor sold, the more their best customers paid in surcharges, which pushed those customers to find the same vendor on a different platform. T.D. Jakes Enterprises acquired Castiron in November 2024 and rebranded the platform as Nourysh, focused on underrepresented entrepreneurs more broadly than just cottage food. The original Castiron platform wound down through 2025 — websites returned 502 errors, SSL certificates expired, and support channels closed.

If you're a former Castiron vendor reading this right now: three steps this weekend. (1) Recover anything you can from email order confirmations and your phone — Castiron's database is offline. (2) Set up a new storefront on a flat-fee platform — Homegrown's 7-day trial takes about 15 minutes from signup to first product live. (3) Text or email your regulars: "We have a new ordering page — same products, new link." Detailed walkthrough: Castiron alternative migration guide.

The lesson for vendors: pick a platform whose pricing aligns with your growth, not against it. Throughout 2025 and 2026, the most common migration pattern we see in Homegrown signups is former Castiron vendors moving to flat-fee platforms after the platform's wind-down.

FarmDrop (closed December 2021)

FarmDrop, the UK farm-to-consumer delivery marketplace, collapsed in December 2021 after raising approximately £10M in venture funding. About 450 producer suppliers lost their distribution channel overnight. The IP was sold in distressed sale post-collapse. A separate Indian company called Farmdrop launched in 2023 — unrelated to the original UK business. The lesson is similar: VC-backed marketplaces with high overhead can disappear fast when funding tightens. → FarmDrop alternative for UK producers

Farmigo (acquired by GrubMarket September 2021)

Farmigo was acquired by GrubMarket in September 2021. The platform is still technically operational under GrubMarket's umbrella, but the public-facing site shows a 2023 copyright and limited recent product investment. Acquired platforms aren't necessarily dead, but they often drift in feature priority toward the parent company's broader customer base, which can leave the original vendor base underserved.

What this means for picking a platform

The platform durability question is real. A subscription-fee, bootstrapped platform with 5+ years of operating history (Cottage CMS, MyCustomBakes, LocallyGrown.net, Local Food Marketplace, Homegrown's category) tends to be more stable than a percentage-fee, VC-backed platform with a high-burn growth model. That doesn't mean every VC-backed platform fails — Hotplate and Barn2Door are both VC-backed and operating well — but it does mean checking the funding state before you commit your customer list to a platform.

Check your state's cottage food regulations before committing too, since some states have specific rules about how you sell online that affect which platforms are even viable.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best cottage food platform in 2026?

For most local vendors, Homegrown ($10/month annual + 2.9% + $0.30 payment processing handled by Homegrown, no platform fee). For vendors who need a marketing-grade website on top of ordering, Cottage CMS Pro ($20/month or $200/year + Square's 2.6% + $0.10 processing). For drop-style bakers, Hotplate ($0 subscription + 5% + $0.55 platform fee + 2.9% + $0.30 processing). For non-perishable packaged goods, Etsy ($0.20/listing + 6.5% + 3% + $0.25 processing). The right pick is whichever one's distinctive feature matches what you actually sell.

What happened to Castiron?

T.D. Jakes Enterprises acquired Castiron in November 2024, rebranded it as Nourysh, and the original platform wound down through 2025. Vendor websites went offline, SSL certificates expired, and support channels closed. Former vendors need to migrate to a different platform — the Castiron alternative migration guide walks through the steps.

What is the cheapest cottage food platform?

The cheapest paid platform is Homegrown at $10/month billed annually with no platform fee on top of standard 2.9% + $0.30 processing. The cheapest free option is Cottage CMS Free ($0 + 1.9% + $0.25 + Square's processing) — at $1,000+ in monthly sales, Cottage CMS Free actually costs more than Homegrown because the percentage fee compounds.

Do I need a website to sell cottage food?

No. A storefront is enough — a single shareable ordering page where customers browse, order, and pay. Tools like Homegrown, Cottage CMS Free, and MyCustomBakes give you a storefront without a full website. A full website (Cottage CMS Pro, Squarespace, Shopify) makes sense once you're investing in marketing or brand presence beyond ordering.

What is the best platform for farmers market vendors?

Homegrown handles farmers market workflows out of the box — pre-orders during the week, pickup at the booth on market day, with consolidated order summaries you can use to plan production. For vendors already running a Square card reader at the booth, Square Plus consolidates in-person and online into one dashboard, but you give up cottage-food-specific features. The farmers market platform comparison goes deeper.

Does VC-backed vs bootstrapped matter when picking a platform?

It matters more than vendors usually expect. VC-backed platforms with percentage-fee models (Castiron at 10% + 2.9% + $0.30 processing before it closed, Hotplate at 5% + $0.55 + 2.9% + $0.30 processing, Etsy at 6.5% + 3% + $0.25 processing, Faire at 15% + 1.9-3.5% + $0.30 processing) are designed to grow into venture-scale revenue, which often means raising fees over time. Bootstrapped platforms with flat-fee subscriptions plus standard payment processing (Homegrown $10/mo + 2.9% + $0.30, MyCustomBakes $10/mo + 2.9% + $0.30, LocallyGrown.net 3% with processing built in, Cottage CMS Free $0 + 1.9% + $0.25 + Square's processing or Pro $20/mo + Square's processing) tend to keep pricing stable for the long haul. Both models have viable platforms, but the funding state is a real input into whether the platform's economics align with the vendor's economics.

Can I sell baked goods on Etsy?

Etsy permits some non-perishable baked goods (mixes, packaged shelf-stable items) but doesn't permit most perishable cottage food under its food policy. For perishable baked goods sold direct to local customers — cookies, breads, cakes, pastries — a cottage-food-specific platform like Homegrown or Cottage CMS is the right fit. The full Etsy alternative guide for home bakers walks through what's allowed and what's not.

What's emerging in the cottage food platform space in 2026?

Two trends. First, the consolidation wave is mostly behind us — Castiron's wind-down was the last major closure of a venture-backed cottage food platform, and the survivors are now operating with more disciplined unit economics. Second, the bootstrapped flat-fee model has won the price war. Cottage CMS, MyCustomBakes, LocallyGrown.net, and Homegrown all converge on the same insight: vendors want predictable monthly costs, not percentage-fee tax on every order. New entrants like True Home Market and Red Hen are testing low-fee or transaction-only models, but they're early-stage with limited scale.

Are there free platforms for cottage food vendors?

Cottage CMS Free ($0 + 1.9% + $0.25 + Square's processing) is the most credible free option. Bakesy has a free trial. Butterbase has a free tier limited to 20 orders per month. Google Forms plus Venmo costs nothing but breaks at scale. For most vendors, the math works out cheaper to pay $10/month for Homegrown than to use a free platform with percentage fees stacking on every order.

Which cottage food platform has the lowest fees?

At low volume (under $1,000/month in sales), Cottage CMS Free and Homegrown are roughly tied. At medium volume ($1,000-$5,000/month), Homegrown is the cheapest because the flat $10 doesn't scale with sales while percentage fees do. At high volume ($5,000+/month), Cottage CMS Pro narrowly beats Homegrown because Square's processing rate is slightly lower than standard 2.9% + $0.30 — the difference is about $20-$30/month at $5,000 in sales.

Bottom line and next step

The cottage food platform space is mature enough in 2026 that picking the right tool is a knowable problem rather than a coin flip. The flat-fee, bootstrapped, cottage-food-specific category — Homegrown, Cottage CMS, MyCustomBakes — is where most vendors should start. Percentage-fee VC-backed platforms (Hotplate, Etsy, Faire) earn their fees only when their distinctive feature (drops, marketplace traffic, wholesale buyers) gives you sales you couldn't generate elsewhere. Closed platforms (Castiron, FarmDrop) are the cautionary tale.

Pick your next step by where you are right now:

• Switching from Castiron (or any closed platform): the migration guide walks through recovering customer data and getting a new storefront live in 15-30 minutes.
• Starting fresh with online ordering for the first time: start a 7-day free trial of Homegrown — about 15 minutes from signup to first product live.
• Cost-shocked by Etsy fees: the Etsy alternative guide for home bakers shows the full math of what 9.5-11% effective fees actually cost a typical vendor.
• Already on Homegrown: this hub is a useful link to share with bakers and farmers asking "which platform should I use?" — every section above links to a deep-dive that does the comparison work for you.

Homegrown scales with vendors from their first online order through 50+ orders per week at a flat $10/month annual or $12.50/month monthly, with standard 2.9% + $0.30 payment processing and no platform fee on top. If that fits your situation, the trial takes about 15 minutes to set up.

Try Homegrown free for 7 days →