Hotplate vs Bakesy: Which One Fits Your Home Baking Business?

This guide runs both fee stacks through the same 25 orders, lays out what each tool does and what it leaves to you, and shows where a Homegrown storefront fits if your customers need to order on any day of the week.

What is the actual difference between Hotplate and Bakesy?

Hotplate sells a set menu in scheduled drops that open and close, and Bakesy turns custom order requests into invoices. They are not two versions of the same product. They are different tools that happen to share an audience.

Hotplate is built around the drop. You schedule a release window, say Thursday at 7pm for Saturday pickup. Customers see a countdown, order during the window, and the window closes. You get an order count and a prep list, then you bake exactly that. Hotplate's pricing page states the model plainly: no subscription, no setup cost, no contract, everything included.

Bakesy is built around the custom order. A customer fills out an order form describing what they want. You review it, price it, and send a branded invoice. Bakesy's feature list starts with a shop website, then order forms, invoices, galleries, availability, and automated receipts. It is built for a baker who quotes work one job at a time.

That difference settles most of this comparison before price enters it:

• If you sell the same twelve products every week, the drop model does the work for you.
• If you sell birthday cakes where every order is different, the custom-order model does.
• If you do both, you will feel the gap in whichever one you pick.
• If you want customers to order and pay any day, not only during a window, Hotplate is closed between drops, and Bakesy's shop waits for your invoice unless you pay for Premium's instant checkout.

The fastest way to settle it is not reading either pricing page again but running a short trial during your two slowest weeks. Load five of your real products into a storefront and see which half of this trade you feel first.

How does the Hotplate app work?

The Hotplate app works in four steps, according to Hotplate's own explainer. You build a drop with a menu, inventory, pickup places and pickup times, and you schedule when orders open and close. Right before orders open, Hotplate texts your subscribers a link. Customers watch a short countdown, add products to a cart that lets go of them if the customer takes too long, pick a pickup time and pay. Hotplate then builds your prep list and order tickets and sends pickup reminders.

Hotplate also builds the website for your storefront, and its homepage says customers can check out with a credit card, cash, or Venmo or Zelle. You can cap inventory per product, per customer or per pickup time, and a sold-out product gets a waitlist. For Hotplate on its own, see our Hotplate review and alternatives.

Is Bakesy an app or a website?

Bakesy is both. You run your business from the Bakesy app on your phone, and Bakesy's help center says subscriptions are billed through the App Store or Google Play. The app builds a Bakesy Shop, which Bakesy describes as your website and online ordering platform, and the Standard plan can connect your own domain. Customers send an order request from the shop. For the products you pick, the Premium plan adds instant checkout, so a customer can pay without waiting for an invoice. Our Bakesy Standard vs Premium breakdown goes plan by plan.

How much does each one actually cost?

Here is the full stack on both, plus a third option for reference. Every row shows the same four things, because a platform fee quoted without its processing fee attached is not a real number.

Swipe sideways to see all three columns.

Two rows in that table deserve more than a glance.

Hotplate's 5% plus $0.55 lands on your customer, not on you, unless you choose otherwise. Hotplate's own pricing page walks through a $30 order: the customer sees a $2.05 fee added at checkout, and you separately pay $1.27 in card processing. That $1.27 is more than 2.9% plus $0.30 on the $30 subtotal alone, which comes to $1.17, and the page does not say what else the rate is charged on. The math in this guide applies each card rate to the order subtotal, so your real Hotplate processing may run a little higher. You can absorb the fee instead. That is a real choice with a real cost, and it is the largest single variable in this comparison.

Hotplate's fee never applies to tips or sales tax, and you can change how it splits between you and your customer. In its September 2025 explainer, Hotplate said 80% of its chefs keep the default split, where the customer pays the fee and the chef pays card processing.

For what card acceptance costs underneath all of this, the Federal Reserve publishes average debit card interchange fees by payment card network under Regulation II. Interchange is the part of each card sale that goes to the bank that issued the card. For debit cards from covered banks, Regulation II caps it at $0.21 plus 0.05% of the sale, plus a $0.01 fraud prevention adjustment, and the Fed's 2024 table shows an average of $0.37 on a $47.24 dual-message debit sale, or 0.79%. Regulation II covers debit cards only, and interchange is only one piece of a card rate. A platform charging 3.9% takes a full point more of each sale than one charging 2.9%.

How much does Hotplate charge per order?

Hotplate charges 5% of the order subtotal plus $0.55 on every order, shown to your customer by default, and you pay 2.9% plus $0.30 in card processing. On a $20 order that means a $1.55 fee for your customer, the same average Hotplate's pricing page quotes, and $0.88 in processing for you. Hotplate's own example order shows the whole checkout: a $30.00 subtotal, a $2.05 Hotplate fee, a $3.00 tip and $2.55 in sales tax at 8.5%, for a $37.60 customer total.

What does Bakesy pricing include?

Bakesy pricing comes down to two plans, Standard at $9.99 a month and Premium at $17.99 a month, each with a 30-day free trial, plus card processing of 3.9% + $0.30 on payments through Bakesy Secure Payments. Standard includes:

• A Bakesy Shop website and customer order forms
• Branded invoices, with unlimited orders and gallery pictures
• Availability, automated receipts and customer reviews
• A customer QR code, in-app chat support and a custom domain

Premium adds these on top of Standard:

• Tips (US only), instant checkout and a revenue dashboard
• Inventory management and automated customer reminders
• Order sync to your phone calendar, extra shop themes and an announcement banner
• Discount codes, and hiding the Bakesy logo on your shop and invoices

What do the numbers look like at real volume?

Take a baker doing 25 orders a month at a $20 average order, so $500 in monthly sales. That is an example, so swap in your own order count and average to run the same math.

Hotplate, fee passed to the customer

• Your cost: 2.9% of $500 = $14.50, plus $0.30 x 25 = $7.50
• You pay about $22.00
• Your customers pay 5% of $500 = $25.00, plus $0.55 x 25 = $13.75, so $38.75 on top of your prices

Hotplate, fee absorbed by you

• Your cost: $22.00 in processing plus $38.75 in platform fees
• You pay $60.75

Bakesy Standard

• Your cost: $9.99 subscription, plus 3.9% card processing on $500 = $19.50, plus 25 orders at $0.30 each = $7.50
• You pay $36.99

Homegrown, annual billing

• Your cost: $10.00 subscription, plus 2.9% of $500 = $14.50, plus $7.50 for the $0.30 fee on each of 25 orders
• You pay $32.00

Here are the same 25 orders side by side, with Bakesy Premium and Homegrown's monthly plan added.

Swipe sideways to see every column.

The break-even between Hotplate-with-absorbed-fees and Bakesy Standard sits at roughly seven orders a month. Below that, Hotplate wins even when you eat the fee. Above it, Bakesy Standard is cheaper, and the gap widens with every order.

Here is where that seven comes from. At a $20 average order, absorbing Hotplate's fee costs you $2.43 an order ($1.55 plus $0.88 in processing), while Bakesy Standard costs $1.08 an order in processing plus the $9.99 plan. That $1.35 gap covers the plan by the eighth order. Bakesy Premium at $17.99 takes until the fourteenth order.

If you pass Hotplate's fee to your customers, Hotplate is the cheapest card checkout on this page for you in this guide's 25 order example, and it stays cheaper for you than either Bakesy plan at any volume. Hotplate's own $30 example charges you about $0.10 more in processing than this guide's math. If every order ran like that, Hotplate would cost you about the same as Homegrown's $10 yearly plan at around $3,000 a month in sales. It is also the only option where your customer pays about 7.75% more than your listed price on a $20 order. Whether that is a good trade depends on your buyers, and it is worth testing rather than assuming. Platform fees and card processing are business expenses either way. The IRS stopped updating Publication 535 after its 2022 edition, and its guide to business expense resources now points to the current rules.

To set prices that still pay you after these fees, Homegrown's free pricing calculator starts from your material cost per unit, your time, your hourly wage, packaging and overhead, then suggests a price with a margin built in.

Hotplate vs Bakesy: which features does each one include?

In a Hotplate vs Bakesy feature check, Hotplate includes all of its tools at $0 a month and makes its money from the per-order fee, while Bakesy splits its tools between the $9.99 Standard plan and the $17.99 Premium plan and adds 3.9% + $0.30 card processing on payments through Bakesy. The table below lists what each company's own pages say.

Swipe sideways to see both columns.

The payments row and the messaging row are the easiest to miss. On Bakesy, a Venmo or Zelle payment gets marked paid by hand, and every conversation with a customer happens somewhere else, such as text or Instagram.

Which one should a home baker choose?

Choose Hotplate if you sell a set menu on a schedule and Bakesy if you quote custom orders, then let the cost math settle a close call. Work the decision in this order.

1. Do you sell on a schedule or on request? Schedule points to Hotplate, request points to Bakesy. This matters more than price.
2. Will your customers accept a visible fee at checkout? If yes, Hotplate gets very cheap for you. If no, budget to absorb 5% plus $0.55 on top of card processing and rerun the math above.
3. How many orders a month? With $20 orders, if you absorb Hotplate's fee, it costs less than Bakesy Standard through seven orders, and Standard costs less from the eighth. Bakesy Premium takes until the fourteenth. Bigger orders move those points earlier: at $100 an order, Standard costs less from the third order and Premium from the fourth. If your customers pay the fee, Hotplate costs you less than either Bakesy plan at any order count, and less than Homegrown's plans at 25 orders a month.
4. Do you need customers to order between drops? Hotplate is weak here, because it closes the window between drops. Bakesy's shop takes order requests any day, but customers can only pay on the spot on Premium, which adds instant checkout.
5. Who handles your sales tax? Both leave filing it to you. Hotplate adds a sales tax line at checkout, and Bakesy lets you add a tax to an invoice. If you sell across state lines, price that work into the comparison.
6. How much do discount codes and SMS matter? Hotplate includes both. Bakesy puts discount codes behind Premium. Weigh that against the subscription difference.

If your answers split between a set menu and custom cakes, price out two tools against one storefront that takes the set menu every day while you quote the cakes yourself.

When is Hotplate the better fit?

Hotplate is the stronger tool when demand is bursty and supply is capped.

• You already have a following that shows up when you announce something.
• You bake in batches and want a hard order count before you start.
• You want a countdown, a waitlist, and inventory reservation doing the urgency work for you.
• You want SMS reminders going out without building that yourself.
• Your volume is low enough that a monthly plan feels like overhead.
• You are comfortable showing a fee at checkout, or your margins can absorb one.

Hotplate's own sales guide puts a number on that first point: on average, chefs see about 1 in 10 of their text subscribers place an order from a drop, so a list of 500 subscribers usually brings about 50 orders.

Hotplate's weakness is the flip side of its strength. Between drops, you are closed. A customer who finds you on a Tuesday has nothing to buy. If a meaningful share of your sales come from people discovering you and ordering right then, that closed window is lost revenue, and catching those orders means running a drop tool alongside a pre-order system that stays open.

When is Bakesy the better fit?

Bakesy fits a baker who prices each order from a request form, and its Standard plan costs $9.99 a month plus 3.9% + $0.30 card processing when customers pay through Bakesy. Bakesy is the stronger tool when every order is a negotiation.

• You sell custom cakes, cookie sets, or dessert tables where price depends on the request.
• You need a real order form that captures date, servings, flavors, and allergens up front.
• You want to send a branded invoice instead of a payment-app request.
• You want a customer-facing availability calendar so people stop asking whether you are free.
• You want reviews and automated receipts without assembling three tools.
• You are willing to pay 3.9% on cards, or to route payment outside the platform.

Bakesy's weakness is that its shop is built around order requests and invoices. Bakesy's own pages describe the Bakesy Shop as your website and online ordering platform, and none of the pages checked for this guide mention a marketplace, so it does not put your shop in front of people who have never heard of you. It also gates a lot behind Premium at $17.99: tips, instant checkout, the revenue dashboard, inventory management, automated customer reminders, and hiding the Bakesy logo on your shop and invoices. Price the tier you will actually need, not the one in the headline. Our fuller look at order management tools for home bakers covers where each of these categories starts and stops.

What does neither platform do?

Both tools are narrow on purpose, which leaves the same four gaps.

• Neither files your sales tax. Hotplate's pricing example shows sales tax collected at checkout, and Bakesy invoices can carry a tax line, but you track nexus, rates, and filing deadlines yourself.
• Neither keeps checkout open every day at its entry price. Hotplate opens and closes. Bakesy waits for a request unless you move up to Premium, which adds instant checkout.
• Neither lists you anywhere shoppers browse, as far as their own pages show. Hotplate says plainly that it is not a consumer marketplace, and none of the Bakesy pages we read mention one. Discovery is on you and your social accounts.
• Neither handles local delivery with routing. Bakesy's help center says the delivery itself happens outside Bakesy, and Hotplate's pages describe pickup windows. If you drive orders around on Saturday, you are planning that run by hand.

Those gaps are exactly where a general storefront fits, and they are worth pricing before you commit to a tool that solves one workflow beautifully and ignores the rest.

Sales tax is the gap with money attached. Hotplate's own checkout example adds 8.5% sales tax on top of the order, and filing and paying that tax is still your job on either platform.

Where Homegrown fits between these two

If your real problem is that you want one link customers can order from any day, for pickup or delivery, without a drop window and without an invoice conversation, that is a different product than either of these.

Homegrown is $10 a month billed annually, or $12.50 billed monthly, with 0% commission and 2.9% plus $0.30 card processing, the same processing rate Hotplate charges and a full point below Bakesy's. You get a standalone storefront on your own link, pickup at the places you actually sell, local delivery with a radius you set and a flat fee you keep, less card processing, a route to run on delivery day, and sales tax calculated and remitted in all 50 states. The trial runs seven days and nothing is charged until day eight.

Set against these two specifically: Hotplate runs a timed drop better than Homegrown does, because Homegrown does not have drop windows or hard per-release quantity caps. Bakesy handles a complicated custom cake quote better, because Homegrown does not have custom-order request forms. What Homegrown does that neither of them is built around is staying open between those moments, handling the tax filing, and charging the same subscription with 0% commission whether you sell $200 or $2,000 in a week, with 2.9% plus $0.30 card processing on each order either way. You can see what the storefront looks like before committing to anything.

A menu of loaves and cookies like that is the kind a storefront can keep open all week, while a custom cake still starts with a conversation. Your storefront is also listed in the Homegrown marketplace automatically, but plan on bringing your own customers with your link.

If you would rather see the whole category than these three, our cottage food platform comparison puts every major tool side by side using the same fee disclosure as the fee tables in this guide. For a wider list, see the best platforms for selling baked goods online and the best platforms to sell food from home.

How do you test either one without wasting a month?

Test either one with five products, ten regulars and your two slowest weeks, then track what each order really costs. Do not migrate your business to find out. Run a controlled trial.

1. Pick your two slowest weeks. Testing during a holiday rush guarantees a bad read.
2. List five products, not fifty. You are testing checkout and fees, not building a catalog.
3. Send the link to ten regulars, not your whole list. If something breaks, it breaks quietly.
4. Track real cost per order: subscription plus platform fee plus processing, divided by orders.
5. Ask three customers whether checkout felt normal. On Hotplate, ask specifically whether the added fee bothered them.
6. Export your customer list before the trial ends. If you cannot get it out, that is your answer about the platform.
7. Compare against a real baseline. If you are taking orders in DMs today, almost anything looks better, so measure against your last four weeks of actual sales.

Bakesy gives you 30 days free, which is enough for two full cycles. Hotplate has nothing to trial because there is no plan to buy, so your test costs only the fees on real orders.

Both let you take your records with you. Hotplate says you can download your list of customers whenever you want, and Bakesy's help center describes an order history download that it emails to you.

Frequently asked questions

Is Hotplate free?

There is no plan to buy and no setup cost, so it is free to start. It is not free to use. Hotplate takes 5% plus $0.55 per order, added to your customer's subtotal by default, and you separately pay 2.9% plus $0.30 in card processing on every card order. At $500 a month in sales across 25 orders, that is roughly $22 out of your pocket and $38.75 out of your customers' pockets.

Is Bakesy free?

No. Bakesy is $9.99 a month for Standard or $17.99 for Premium, with a 30-day free trial. There is no per-order platform fee, but card payments through Bakesy Secure Payments run 3.9% plus $0.30, which is higher than the 2.9% plus $0.30 that Hotplate and Homegrown charge. Bakesy Secure Payments card processing is optional and only available in the US.

Which is cheaper, Hotplate or Bakesy?

It depends on your volume and on who pays Hotplate's fee. If you pass Hotplate's 5% plus $0.55 to your customers and take cards on both, Hotplate is cheaper for you at any volume. If you absorb it, with $20 orders Bakesy Standard becomes cheaper from about the eighth order a month and Premium from the fourteenth, and bigger orders get there sooner. The gap grows from there. In a Hotplate vs Bakesy check at 25 orders of $20, with card processing counted, you pay $22.00 on Hotplate with the fee passed on, $60.75 with it absorbed, and $36.99 on Bakesy Standard.

Can I use Hotplate and Bakesy together?

Nothing stops you from running a drop tool for scheduled releases alongside a separate tool for custom quotes. You will be paying two sets of fees, maintaining two product lists, and reconciling two payout streams, so it is worth checking whether one storefront covers both jobs well enough first.

Do either of them handle sales tax?

Neither files it for you. Hotplate can charge sales tax at checkout and a Bakesy invoice can include it, but filing and paying the tax stays with you. That is manageable if you sell in one state at a farmers market, and it gets complicated quickly if you ship or sell across state lines.

Does either one help customers find me?

Not really. Hotplate's explainer says directly that it does not run a marketplace for shoppers, and no Bakesy page we read mentions one. Both assume you are bringing your own audience from Instagram, a text list, or a farmers market booth. Plan how you will find customers for a home baking business either way, because no platform on this page will do it for you.

What happens to my customer list if I leave?

Ask before you sign up, and test the export during your trial rather than at the moment you want to quit. Your customer list is the one asset that has to survive a platform change, and being able to download it is worth more than most features you will compare. On Hotplate, the customer list itself can be downloaded. On Bakesy, the help center describes an emailed order history file.

Is Hotplate or Bakesy better for a home bakery?

It depends on how your orders arrive. The Hotplate vs Bakesy choice comes down to drops against custom orders: Hotplate fits a set menu released on a schedule to a text list, and Bakesy fits cakes and cookie sets you price one request at a time. If you sell both ways, compare the cost of running two tools with a single storefront that stays open.

The bottom line

Pick Hotplate if you sell in scheduled drops and your customers will not blink at a fee at checkout. Pick Bakesy if every order is a custom quote and you want an invoice workflow more than a shop. Pick neither if what you actually need is a storefront that stays open, handles your sales tax, and charges the same subscription every month regardless of how good a week you had.

At 25 orders of $20 a month, the fee math in this guide comes to $22.00 for you on Hotplate with its fee passed on, $36.99 on Bakesy Standard and $32.00 on Homegrown's yearly plan, with card processing counted in each.

If that last one describes your situation, you can start a Homegrown storefront and have it live in about fifteen minutes. List your products, share the link with a few regulars, and see real orders before you decide anything.