Platform comparison · Reviewed September 2026

Bakesy vs Hotplate

Short answer

These two are not really rivals. Hotplate sells timed drops and takes a cut of every order. Bakesy manages custom orders and charges a flat monthly fee. Which is cheaper depends only on volume: at a $25 average order, Hotplate costs less for the first few orders of the month, and Bakesy costs less from about the 7th order onward.

We make MyPorch, so treat this as an interested opinion. We have still tried to write the page we would want to read: every rate below comes from each company’s own pricing page, and where one of them wins, we say so.

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What each one actually charges

Comparing the headline prices is useless here, because the two platforms charge in opposite shapes. One has no subscription and a per-order cut. The other has a subscription and no cut at all. You have to resolve both into a cost per order before they can be compared.

Hotplate

No subscription

Platform fee: 5% + $0.55 per order
Card processing: 2.9% + $0.30

Fees on a $25 order: $2.83

Bakesy

Standard, $9.99/month

Platform fee: None — no commission
Card processing: 3.9% + $0.30

Fees on a $25 order: $1.28

MyPorch

Baker, $12/month

Platform fee: None — no per-order fee
Card processing: 2.9% + $0.30 via Stripe

Fees on a $25 order: $1.03

Total monthly platform and processing cost by order volume, at a $25 average order
Orders per month (at $25 each)	Hotplate	Bakesy	MyPorch
5 orders	$14.13	$16.37	$17.13
10 orders	$28.25	$22.74	$22.25
25 orders	$70.63	$41.86	$37.63
50 orders	$141.25	$73.74	$63.25

Total fees leaving each order, whoever hands them over — see the next section on who that is. Platform and card costs only; taxes, tips, and hardware are excluded. Lowest in each row is highlighted. Bakesy is shown on Standard with Bakesy Secure Payments; MyPorch on its Baker plan, though its free plan covers the first 10 paid orders each month.

The crossover is about 7 orders a month

Hotplate’s 5% + $0.55 per order costs nothing until you sell something, so at very low volume it genuinely wins — a five-order month runs $14.13 against Bakesy’s $16.37. But the cut scales with every order while a subscription does not. At a $25 average order that flips at the 7th order of the month, and the gap keeps widening: by 25 orders it is $70.63 against $41.86.

Sell bigger orders and it flips sooner, because the 5% grows with the basket. At a $60 average order the crossover lands at 4 orders.

Who actually pays the Hotplate fee?

This is the part the table above cannot show, and it changes the answer. Hotplate displays its 5% + $0.55 per order on the customer’s checkout subtotal, and its FAQ says you can pay it yourself or pass it on — your choice. If you pass it on, your own cost drops to card processing alone.

Hotplate, 25 orders, fee passed on

$25.63

out of your pocket that month

Cheaper for you than either alternative. Your customers make up the difference: they pay about $45.00 more that month than the prices you set.

Bakesy, 25 orders

$41.86

out of your pocket that month

There is nothing to pass on, so this is the whole cost. Your customer pays the price on the menu and nothing else.

So the honest version is: Hotplate is the cheapest option for the baker at almost any volume, provided you are comfortable adding a visible fee to your customer’s total. Whether that is a good trade is a judgement about your regulars, not a calculation. Bakers selling to the same neighbours every week tend to dislike it; bakers running a hyped monthly drop to strangers tend not to mind.

The 3.9% almost nobody mentions

Bakesy says plainly that it will never take a commission from your orders, and that is true. The cost moved rather than vanished: Bakesy Secure Payments runs 3.9% + $0.30, roughly a full point above the 2.9% + $0.30 that Hotplate, Stripe, and most processors charge. On a $25 order that is about $0.25 extra per order — small on its own, $75 a year at 25 orders a month.

There is a genuine upside buried in the same page, though, and it is the best-value option in this whole comparison: Bakesy Secure Payments is optional and US-only. A baker who takes payment another way — cash at pickup, or a payment app — pays Bakesy $10 a month and nothing more. That is cheaper than anything else here. The price is that you are now chasing payments by hand, and reconciling them against orders yourself, which is exactly the manual work these tools are meant to remove.

One more plan detail worth knowing before you compare: Bakesy lists Instant Checkout as a Premium feature at $17.99/month. The $10 Standard plan is built around branded invoices, which suits quoted custom work far better than it suits a weekly batch where twenty people all want the same loaf.

They are built for two different businesses

Price is the easy half. The harder question is which shape of selling each tool assumes, because that is what you will be fighting if you pick wrong.

Hotplate assumes a drop

A menu opens at a set time, a countdown runs, stock is capped, and it sells out. Waitlists, SMS alerts, and live demand all exist to build that urgency. It works beautifully when your product genuinely sells out and you want the scarcity. It works much less well when you are quietly taking orders all week.

Bakesy assumes a quote

A customer submits a request, you price it, you send a branded invoice. That is the right shape for custom cakes, where every order is different and the conversation is the work. It is a poor shape for twenty identical loaves, because an invoice-per-order flow adds a manual step to every single sale.

If you recognise your bakery in one of those two paragraphs, stop reading and pick that one. The comparison is genuinely that simple, and neither the fees nor anything below will outweigh working the way you already work.

What neither one does for you

There is a third shape that neither tool is built around, and it is the most common one in cottage baking: the same short menu, opened every week, baked in one batch, collected from your porch. Two jobs in that week go unhandled by both.

Turning orders into a bake plan

Hotplate does produce prep lists and order tickets, which is more than most platforms offer. What neither gives you is the weekly loop — the same menu reopening, totals per item for Saturday, and the shopping that follows from it. For most bakers that lives in a spreadsheet next to the dashboard.

Cottage-food labels

Neither platform’s reviewed pages document a cottage-food label workflow, so we mark that unverified rather than claim it is missing. Either way the rules are set by your state, and meeting them stays your responsibility — worth reading what your label legally needs before you choose anything.

That third shape is the one MyPorch is built for, which is the reason this page exists and also its honest limit. If you run drops, use Hotplate. If you quote custom work, use Bakesy. We are only the better answer if your week is a repeating batch.

Choose Hotplate if

You sell out a timed drop

Timed drops with countdowns and live demand
Automatic SMS alerts and reminders
Waitlists, prep lists, reviews, and loyalty tools

The customer-facing Hotplate fee increases the amount shown at checkout.

Choose Bakesy if

Custom orders are the business

Customer order forms and imported orders
Branded invoices, availability, receipts, and reviews
Premium reminders, inventory, discounts, and revenue dashboard

Instant Checkout is a Premium feature; the Standard plan’s flow centers on branded invoices. Confirm the plan before choosing.

Choose MyPorch if

You bake the same batch every week

Weekly batch and porch-pickup workflow
Order-linked cottage-food labels for supported states
Bake lists that turn paid orders into a prep plan
Every order keeps the exact label it was sold with

The free plan is capped at 10 paid orders each calendar month.

Bakesy and Hotplate FAQs

Is Bakesy or Hotplate cheaper?

It depends entirely on volume, because they charge in opposite shapes. Hotplate has no subscription but takes 5% + $0.55 per order on top of 2.9% + $0.30 processing. Bakesy charges $9.99/month with no commission, but its optional Bakesy Secure Payments runs 3.9% + $0.30. At a $25 average order, Hotplate is cheaper for the first few orders of the month and Bakesy is cheaper from about the seventh order onward.

Does Bakesy charge a transaction fee?

Bakesy states it will never take a commission from your orders, so there is no platform cut. There is still a card cost: Bakesy Secure Payments is 3.9% + $0.30 per transaction. That is about a point above the 2.9% + $0.30 most processors charge. It is also optional and US-only, so a baker who collects payment another way pays Bakesy nothing beyond the subscription.

Who pays the Hotplate fee, the baker or the customer?

Either — Hotplate leaves it to you. Its pricing page shows the 5% + $0.55 on the customer’s checkout subtotal, and its FAQ says you can pay it yourself or pass it on. The fee does not disappear in either case: your customer sees a higher total, or your margin absorbs it.

Are Bakesy and Hotplate built for the same kind of bakery?

No, and that matters more than the pricing. Hotplate is built around timed drops — a menu opens, a countdown runs, stock sells out. Bakesy is built around custom orders — a customer submits a request, you price it, and you send a branded invoice. A baker selling one repeatable batch every week is not really the target of either.

Can you use Bakesy and Hotplate together?

Nothing stops you, and some bakers do run drops on one and custom cakes through the other. The cost of that split is that your orders, customers, and prep live in two places, so pickup day means reconciling two lists by hand. It is usually a sign that neither tool matches your main way of selling.

Sources · Reviewed September 2026

Pricing and features change. Verify current terms on each provider’s site before deciding.

Neither one fits a weekly batch

Start with 10 paid orders per month free. No credit card required.

Start free on MyPorch

Compare each one to us directly in MyPorch vs Hotplate and MyPorch vs Bakesy, weigh the general platforms in Square vs Shopify, or start from the workflow with how to take pre-orders.