You bake on a schedule, you take orders in DMs, and the spreadsheet has started fighting back. Ten orders a month or a hundred, the same question: which tool takes the order, the money and the pickup time. Bakesy has been in the App Store for years and has the ratings to show for it. I run Batch52, so read accordingly: every number below carries a date and a source, and the section on where Bakesy is the better buy is not a token paragraph.
Key takeaways
- Bakesy is a phone app with no seller web login, at $9.99 or $17.99 a month; Batch52 runs in a browser with a $0 Standard plan and $17 Pro.
- Card payment at checkout is gated to Bakesy's $17.99 Premium tier; Batch52 carries card checkout on the free $0 Standard plan.
- Bakesy charges 3.9% + $0.30 per transaction on Bakesy Secure Payments; Batch52 publishes no rate of its own, and card payments run at Stripe's published 2.9% + $0.30.
- At 50 card orders a month averaging $60, Bakesy Premium costs $149.99 all-in against $119.00 for Batch52 Pro, a difference of $371.88 a year.
- Both platforms block dates inside your lead time; only Batch52 turns the date into recurring pickup windows, and Bakesy's help guide tells sellers to build a pickup time as a hand-typed form question.
These two products are different shapes. Bakesy calls itself "The simple all-in-one app for your home baking business," and it is exactly that: an iPhone app with a marketing website attached. Batch52 is a website with no app at all. Almost every difference in price and workflow follows from that.
The short answer, in one table
All figures were checked on September 4, 2026. Bakesy's pricing page carries no last-updated marker, so treat that date as the warranty.
| Bakesy Standard | Bakesy Premium | Batch52 Standard | Batch52 Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price per month | $9.99 | $17.99 | $0 | $17 |
| Free tier | 30-day trial | 30-day trial | Free forever | n/a |
| Where the seller works | iPhone app, no web login | Same | Browser | Browser |
| Customer pays by card at checkout | Gated to Premium | Yes, Instant Checkout | Yes | Yes |
| Card processing fee | 3.9% + $0.30 | 3.9% + $0.30 | 2.9% + $0.30 via Stripe, not a Batch52 rate | Same |
| Commission or marketplace fee | None | None | None | None |
| Annual discount | None | None | None | None |
| Custom domain | Included | Included | No | Yes |
| Lead time blocked on the date picker | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Recurring pickup windows | No; built as a form question | Same | Yes | Yes |
| Scheduled drops | Manual: flip Active and Hidden | Same | No | Batch Days, scheduled |
One of these runs on your phone, the other runs in a browser
Bakesy has no seller web app. There is no log-in or sign-up link anywhere on bakesy.app; the only calls to action are the App Store and Google Play badges. The iOS listing says "Only for iPhone" and "Designed for iPhone. Not verified for macOS," with no iPad app. The subscription is an Apple or Google in-app purchase, and cancelling means opening the App Store app. Some Bakesy reviewers say they want to use the product from a laptop.
Batch52 goes the other way. Everything the baker does happens in a browser, and Batch52 ships no native app on any platform.
Neither choice makes your customer download anything. Bakesy's app is for sellers only; customers never install it or create an account. Batch52 customers order in a browser, no app and no account. If that was your worry, it is not a difference here.
For a baker who runs the business from a phone between school runs, that shape is a feature. An independent cottage-food software guide calls Bakesy's mobile-first design genuinely convenient for exactly that person. If you have never wanted to open a laptop to run your bakery, Bakesy is built for you and Batch52 is not.
What each one costs, as of September 2026
Four plans, two of them within a dollar of each other. Bakesy Standard is $9.99 a month and Bakesy Premium is $17.99 a month. Bakesy offers a 30-day free trial and no free-forever tier. Batch52 Standard is $0 a month and free forever, and Batch52 Pro is $17 a month.
Neither company sells an annual discount. Bakesy has no annual plan, no annual toggle and no annual discount, and its terms describe a monthly subscription with a month defined as 30 calendar days. Batch52 Pro is billed monthly only, with no annual plan purchasable. If you see $119.88 or $215.88 quoted as a Bakesy annual price, that is twelve times the monthly rate, not a discount.
Both companies discount the first month, in different shapes. Bakesy's is the 30-day free trial, with no free tier behind it when that runs out. Batch52's runs through referral links: a baker who signs up through another baker's link pays $5 for a first month of Pro instead of $17, a $12 discount. That coupon expires 7 days after the click, a limit that lives in Batch52's code and not in our help pages. The referrer earns a free month only after the baker they referred pays a first full-price month, not at signup.
The interesting part of that page is what is missing. Bakesy's pricing page contains no fee, commission, processing or percentage language at all. The card rate lives somewhere else.
Same payment rails, one point apart
Both platforms run cards through Stripe. Bakesy Secure Payments is powered by Stripe, per Bakesy's Terms of Service section 8(a). Batch52 puts card payments at checkout through Stripe Connect on every plan, including free Standard. So this is like-for-like.
Bakesy charges 3.9% + $0.30 per transaction on payments taken through Bakesy Secure Payments. That sentence appears once, in a help article, and nowhere on the pricing page. A rival's blog is a bad place to source a rival's price. This is Bakesy's own number.
On the same page, a few paragraphs up, Bakesy says it will never take a commission from your orders. Both sentences are true. A commission is a cut of your sale; a processing fee is a processing fee. Bakesy takes none of the first and 3.9% + $0.30 of the second. Batch52 also takes no commission and no marketplace fee at any plan level.
Batch52 publishes no card rate of its own; its terms state that Stripe's fees apply independently of Batch52's fees. Stripe's published US rate is 2.9% + $0.30 per successful transaction for domestic cards, which is Stripe's number, not ours. Bakesy's rate is one full percentage point higher on the same $0.30 fixed fee, or $10 more per $1,000 of card volume.
One percentage point is fifty cents on a $50 cake, and a dollar on a $100 order
View data
| orderValue | Bakesy (3.9% + $0.30) (USD) | Batch52 via Stripe (2.9% + $0.30) (USD) | Extra cost per order on Bakesy (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| $25 | $1.275 | $1.025 | $0.25 |
| $35 | $1.665 | $1.315 | $0.35 |
| $50 | $2.25 | $1.75 | $0.5 |
| $60 | $2.64 | $2.04 | $0.6 |
| $100 | $4.2 | $3.2 | $1 |
A $50 order costs $2.25 to process on Bakesy and $1.75 at Stripe's published rate, a difference of fifty cents. That is one order. Now fifty.
Bakesy Secure Payments, the only way to take a card through Bakesy, is US-only. Payments taken outside Bakesy (Venmo, PayPal, Cash App, Zelle) are not integrated, so each has to be marked paid by hand. Batch52 lists eight payment methods on every plan: Card at pickup, Cash, Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, PayPal, Check, and a custom Other.
The bill at 20, 50 and 100 orders a month
The arithmetic, so you can redo it with your own numbers:
Total monthly cost = subscription + (rate x number of orders x average order value) + (fixed fee x number of orders).
At 50 orders a month averaging $60, all paid by card, Bakesy Premium costs $149.99 all-in and Batch52 Pro costs $119.00, a difference of $30.99 a month or $371.88 a year. At 20 orders averaging $35, it is $51.29 against $43.30. At 100 orders averaging $60, $281.99 against $221.00. Batch52 Standard, which carries card checkout at $0 a month, runs $26.30 at 20 orders x $35, $102.00 at 50 x $60, and $204.00 at 100 x $60.
A dollar apart on the sticker, $30.99 apart at 50 card orders a month
View data
| scenario | Bakesy Premium ($17.99 + 3.9% + $0.30) (USD) | Batch52 Pro ($17 + Stripe 2.9% + $0.30) (USD) | Batch52 Standard ($0 + Stripe 2.9% + $0.30) (USD) | Bakesy Standard ($9.99, no card modelled) (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 orders x $35 | $51.29 | $43.3 | $26.3 | $9.99 |
| 20 orders x $60 | $70.79 | $57.8 | $40.8 | $9.99 |
| 50 orders x $35 | $101.24 | $82.75 | $65.75 | $9.99 |
| 50 orders x $60 | $149.99 | $119 | $102 | $9.99 |
| 100 orders x $35 | $184.49 | $148.5 | $131.5 | $9.99 |
| 100 orders x $60 | $281.99 | $221 | $204 | $9.99 |
The fourth line on the chart needs a warning label. Bakesy Standard is drawn at a flat $9.99 with zero card processing, because Bakesy never states whether a $9.99 seller can take a card by invoice. That column is a modelling assumption, not a fact about Bakesy. What is documented is narrower: Bakesy gates pay-at-checkout behind its $17.99 Premium tier, so on Standard the customer pays from an invoice you send after approving the request. Read the $9.99 line as what a Standard seller pays if every order is settled by Venmo, Zelle, cash or check by hand.
Against that modelled $9.99, Batch52 Standard running every order through Stripe costs more in raw dollars above roughly 8 orders a month at a $35 average order value, and above roughly 5 orders a month at $60. That is with the Bakesy seller taking no cards at all.
Run your own version: last month's order count, your average ticket, the share that actually paid by card. Most bakers guess that share low.
What your customer sees
No feature grid describes this part, so I walked Bakesy's sample shop end to end.
Bakesy's default customer flow is a six-step order request that ends at contact details with no order total, no payment method list and no card form. The final step requires the customer to tick a box reading "I understand that placing an 'order request' does not confirm my order."
For bespoke work, that is correct. Nobody should buy a four-tier wedding cake from a menu button. For a fixed Saturday menu, it adds a round trip: request, approve, invoice, wait, get paid. On Batch52 the customer adds to a cart and pays by card on the free plan.
The date step is a date and nothing more. Bakesy collects a single due date from the customer, with no time-of-day or pickup-window control anywhere in it.
The calendar does enforce your lead time. On Bakesy's sample shop, which states a two-week lead time, September 1 through 18 were greyed out and September 19 was the first date a customer could pick, captured September 4, 2026.
Pickup windows and drops
Both platforms handle the date. Only one asks what time.
What Bakesy has no first-class version of is the pickup slot. Its help guide tells sellers to build one as a hand-typed multiple-choice question on the order form. That works. It is also a list you maintain by hand, with no connection to how many orders you already have for 10:30.
Batch52 has recurring pickup windows on every plan: Saturdays 10am to 2pm in 30-minute increments, say, plus minimum-days-notice and maximum-days-out lead times. Set it once and it repeats.
Drops work the same way. Bakesy's presale guide instructs sellers to open and close a drop by hand, switching product status between Active and Hidden, with no scheduled open or close time. The same guide puts inventory limits, Instant Checkout, tips and discount codes behind the $17.99 tier, so a $9.99 seller running a drop gets no sell-out cap and no pay-now. Batch52's Batch Days, a Pro feature, open immediately or on a schedule and close when items sell out, at a set time, or a set number of hours before pickup.
If your drops open at 7pm on a Tuesday, the difference is whether you are holding your phone at 7pm.
Custom orders and quotes
This is the one workflow where Bakesy's shape is the advantage. Bakesy markets a custom order form builder with text-box and multiple-choice fields that feed directly into order management, invoicing and payment processing. The request-then-quote flow that slows a menu sale is exactly right for a consultation.
Batch52 has a comparable workflow on every plan, sitting beside the cart rather than replacing it: a Contact for Info button opens a product inquiry that lands in Orders with a Build Quote action. One caveat if you mix both models on Bakesy: Instant Checkout is set per product, and the seller must choose Bakesy Secure Payments or out-of-app payment for those products, not both.
What breaks when you grow
Three things, in the order you feel them.
Refunds. A Bakesy seller cannot issue a refund themselves: refunds on Bakesy Secure Payments must be requested from a Bakesy customer support rep, and payments taken outside the app are the seller's own problem. Your customer's refund timeline includes someone else's inbox.
Helpers. Bakesy has no multi-user seat model: a second person who needs access buys a separate subscription on their own phone. If your partner packs boxes on Saturday, that is a second $9.99 or $17.99.
Messaging. As of September 4, 2026, Bakesy has no seller-to-customer messaging; it removed the feature it once had because it confused customers. Those conversations happen in DMs, outside the order.
Batch52's version of that last one is not free either. Batch52 gates SMS updates, email announcements, email capture, loyalty rewards, custom pages and advanced analytics to the $17 Pro plan. Email order notifications are on every plan; texts mean Pro.
Where Bakesy is the better buy
A custom domain. Bakesy includes Connect Custom Domain on its $9.99 Standard tier. Batch52 gates custom domains to the $17 Pro plan; Standard shops use a batch52.com subdomain. If your own domain is what you care about, Bakesy gets you there for $7 a month less.
Photos. Batch52 caps product photos at 4 and storage at 100 MB on Standard, and 10 photos and 1 GB on Pro, where Bakesy lists unlimited gallery pictures on both tiers. For a decorator whose pitch is the gallery, that cap is a real constraint.
Money in the bank. Bakesy pays out to your linked bank account every two business days from the date payment is received.
Track record you can read. As of September 4, 2026, Bakesy's iOS app holds 4.9 out of 5 stars from 6.8K ratings, on version 3.3.11 dated Aug 11. The Android app holds 4.6 stars from 1.06K reviews with 100K+ downloads on the same date. The disclosure that belongs beside those numbers: Batch52 has no app-store listing, so no ratings at all. On that date I could not point you at a public review of Batch52 anywhere. Thousands of people rating a product 4.9 is evidence, and I would rather you weigh it.
The ten features Bakesy gates to Premium are the ordinary ones a growing shop wants: tips, Instant Checkout, revenue dashboard, inventory, automated customer reminders, phone-calendar sync, extra shop themes, hiding the Bakesy logo, an announcement banner and discount codes. At $17.99, that is a coherent product.
What neither one does
Neither platform will find you a customer. Bakesy has no marketplace or discovery: on September 4, 2026 the bare shop.bakesy.app root redirected to the marketing site, with no directory or browse page. Batch52 has none either. Your customers come from your own channels on both.
Neither one ships. Bakesy says shipping and delivery must be handled outside Bakesy, offering only a custom address question and a manual fee. Batch52 has no label generation and no carrier integration; collecting a shipping address at checkout is the whole of it. If your plan is to mail cookies nationwide, neither is your tool.
How to read what else is written about Bakesy
Three things will send you wrong.
On September 4, 2026, Bakesy's own FAQ page stated a single subscription cost of $9.99 per month and never mentioned the $17.99 Premium tier shown on its pricing page the same day. If an AI assistant told you Bakesy costs $9.99, that is where it read it. Trust the pricing page; it shows both tiers.
The comparison articles are mostly published by companies selling competing products. One competitor's marketing page states that Bakesy does not handle payments, which Bakesy's own help article and Terms of Service contradict. Bakesy is right; the page is wrong. I am in the same position writing this, which is why every claim points at a page you can open yourself.
Independent evidence is thin. Bakesy has zero reviews on the B2B directories SpotSaaS and SourceForge, so its footprint is entirely consumer app stores. Within those, the most-upvoted critical Google Play review is from a seller who reports months of being unable to find and cancel their subscription. That is one review, and cancellation running through the App Store rather than a web account is the documented mechanism behind it.
Which one fits you
You quote bespoke cakes and run everything from your phone. Bakesy, and it is not close. Request-then-quote is the right shape for consultative work, the mobile-first design is a genuine convenience for that baker, and a custom domain comes at $9.99. Batch52 asks you to open a browser.
You sell a fixed menu on Saturdays and want people to pay when they order. Batch52 Standard, at $0. Both block dates inside your lead time, but only Batch52 turns Saturday into 30-minute pickup slots, and card checkout is on the free plan. Your customer finishes with a receipt instead of a checkbox saying the order is not confirmed. Add Pro at $17 for Batch Days, a custom domain or SMS.
You are doing 50 orders a month and comparing the two paid plans. They are a dollar apart on the sticker and $30.99 apart in practice at a $60 average ticket, all card, or $371.88 a year. Decide it on shape, not on price. Both enforce your lead time, so the difference is operational: if a second person needs access, Bakesy costs a second full subscription, and if a refund goes wrong you are filing a support request rather than handling it yourself.
Still unsure? Open Bakesy's sample shop and take a fake order request through all six steps. Ten minutes, no account, no card. Whatever you feel at that last checkbox is your answer.
Sources
All sources accessed September 4, 2026. Bakesy's pricing page carries no last-updated marker.
- Bakesy home page. https://www.bakesy.app/
- Batch52 Help Center and Terms of Service: payment methods, Stripe Connect on Standard, pickup windows, Batch Days, product inquiries. https://batch52.com/help
- Bakesy Pricing: both tiers and the full feature comparison table. https://www.bakesy.app/pricing
- Batch52 internal data: pricing page, features comparison table, and plan entitlement code (app/features/page.tsx, lib/entitlements/plans.ts).
- Bakesy Help Guide: refunds, payouts, cancellation, seats, Instant Checkout, shipping, delivery, time slots, messaging. https://www.bakesy.app/help
- Accepting Payments with Bakesy (Bakesy help article). https://www.bakesy.app/post/accepting-payments
- Stripe Pricing (US). https://stripe.com/pricing
- Bakesy Terms of Service. https://www.bakesy.app/terms-of-service
- Bakesy's own sample customer shop, with the six-step order request flow walked end to end. https://shop.bakesy.app/b/cakes-bakes-bakery
- Bakesy Presale Guide (Bakesy resources). https://www.bakesy.app/post/bakesy-presale-guide
- Bakesy: Home Bakery Biz App on the Apple App Store (listing, ratings, description). https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bakesy-home-bakery-biz-app/id1515139393
- Bakesy: Home Bakery Biz App, app data aggregator profile (MWM). https://mwm.ai/apps/bakesy-home-bakery-biz-app/1515139393
- Bakesy: Home Bakery Biz App, Ratings and Reviews (Apple App Store). https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bakesy-home-bakery-biz-app/id1515139393?see-all=reviews&platform=iphone
- Bakesy FAQs page, all eight accordions expanded. https://www.bakesy.app/faqs
- The Honest Guide to Cottage Food Software (The Food Corridor). https://www.thefoodcorridor.com/blog/the-honest-guide-to-cottage-food-software-what-actually-works-and-how-to-pick-the-right-one/
- Batch52 internal data: referral offer constants, coupon window, and grant lifecycle code (lib/referral/), plus the published referral help article.
- Bakesy Custom Order Forms (feature page). https://www.bakesy.app/custom-order-forms
- Bakesy: Home Bakery Biz App on Google Play (listing, ratings, reviews). https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.bakesy.release&hl=en_US
- Bakesy Alternative: A Web-First Storefront for Home Bakers (Homegrown blog, competitor-authored). https://findhomegrown.com/blog/bakesy-alternative
- Bakesy: Reviews, Features, Pricing and More (2026), SpotSaaS directory. https://www.spotsaas.com/product/bakesy
- Bakesy Reviews in 2026 (SourceForge directory). https://sourceforge.net/software/product/Bakesy/
Frequently asked questions
Can a Bakesy seller issue a refund themselves?
No. Refunds on Bakesy Secure Payments must be requested from a Bakesy customer support representative. Payments taken outside the app (Venmo, PayPal, Cash App, Zelle) are not integrated, so reversing those is the seller's own job. Checked September 4, 2026.
Can two people share one Bakesy account?
No. Bakesy has no multi-user seat model, so a second person who needs access buys a separate subscription on their own phone, at $9.99 or $17.99 a month. Checked September 4, 2026.
Can customers pay by card at checkout on Bakesy's $9.99 Standard plan?
No. Bakesy gates pay-at-checkout, its Instant Checkout feature, to the $17.99 Premium tier, so on Standard the customer pays from an invoice the seller sends after approving the order request. Batch52 includes card checkout through Stripe on its free $0 Standard plan. Checked September 4, 2026.
How do I cancel a Bakesy subscription?
Through the App Store or Google Play rather than a Bakesy web account. The subscription is an Apple or Google in-app purchase, and Bakesy's help guide sends sellers to the App Store app to cancel. The most-upvoted critical Google Play review is from a seller who reports months of being unable to find and cancel it.
Nicholas Shiffert
Founder, Batch52
Nicholas builds Batch52, the ordering platform for home bakers and cottage food businesses. He spends most weeks talking with bakers about pickup days, pricing, and the paperwork nobody warned them about.
Research and drafting assisted by AI. Fact-checked, edited, and published by Nicholas Shiffert.