Choosing tools
Cottage CMS Fees: What You Actually Pay Each Month
Know exactly what Cottage CMS charges before you build a shop on it.
On this page
If you sell bakes from home, the monthly fee is usually the first number you look for and the last one you understand. A price on a page tells you what leaves your account. It does not tell you what you get for it, or whether a cheaper plan will quietly run out of room once orders pick up.
Here is what Cottage CMS charges, laid out plainly, plus the questions to ask before you choose.
The three Cottage CMS plans
| Plan | Monthly | Yearly | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Forever | $0 | $0 | No credit card required to start |
| Pro | $20 | $200 | Yearly price is less than twelve monthly payments |
| Scale | $37 | $370 | The top of the three listed plans |
What to remember
- The entry price is genuinely $0, and you do not need a card to begin. - Pro sits at the same $20 a month that many home bakers already budget for software. - Paying yearly saves money on both paid plans, but it locks the cash up front. - Cottage CMS lists 3,231 shops live on it, so you are not the first person working this out.
What the free plan gets you started on
Free Forever is the reason a lot of bakers even look at Cottage CMS. No card to start means you can build a shop, load your photos, and see how the whole thing feels before any money moves.
The catch is the same as with any free plan: what you can do inside it is limited by whatever Cottage CMS decides to include. The pricing page lists those limits. Read them with your own busiest month in mind. If you take forty orders in December, you want to know now whether the free plan can carry that, not on the day the orders arrive.
When Pro at $20 a month makes sense
Pro is the middle option and the one most small sellers will weigh first. At $20 a month it is easy to compare against other ways of taking orders, and at $200 a year it costs less than paying month by month.
The honest way to decide is to look at what Pro adds over Free Forever and ask whether you would actually use it in the next ninety days. If the answer is yes for most of it, Pro is doing its job. If you are paying for room you will not fill until next summer, wait.
When Scale at $37 is worth it
Scale is the top of the three listed plans at $37 a month, or $370 a year. That is a real step up from Pro, so it should earn its place.
Before you jump, look at what Scale adds and match it to something specific in your business. A baker doing weekend markets with steady repeat customers has a different set of needs than someone taking two custom cake orders a month. Pay for the shop you have now, not the one you hope to have.
Questions to ask before you pick a plan
The Cottage CMS pricing page gives you the numbers. It cannot tell you how those numbers land in your own kitchen. Ask these before you pay:
- What exactly is included at each level, and what runs out first?
- Is there a limit on how many items or orders I can handle?
- Do card payments go through my own account, or through Cottage CMS?
- Does Cottage CMS take a percentage of my sales?
- If I stop paying, what happens to my shop and my order history?
- Can I move my customer list and photos out if I leave?
- Is there a setup fee, or a charge to bring my old shop over?
Work out your real monthly cost
Pick the plan you would actually choose
Not the cheapest one. The one that matches the orders you take in a normal month.
Turn the yearly price into a monthly one
Divide $200 or $370 by twelve so you can hold it next to the monthly figure and see the real difference.
Add your other costs
Card processing, ingredients, packaging, and the gas to the market. The plan fee is only one line.
Check it against a slow month
If the total only works in December, it does not work.
Why home bakers choose Brevl instead
Cottage CMS is a reasonable option and the free plan is a fair place to start. Where bakers tend to move on is when they want a shop that looks like theirs, card payments landing in their own account, and one price they can plan around.
Brevl is one flat $20 a month with no cut of your sales. You take cards through your own Stripe or Square account, plus Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, and cash. Your shop is yours to customize with your photos, your colors, and your own web address. Recipes with real costing, ingredient inventory, and a weekly planner sit alongside the ordering side, so pricing and planning happen in the same place. It works on a computer and on a phone, which matters when you are answering a message with one hand and pulling a tray out with the other.
There is a 14 day free trial. We set it up with you and move your old shop over, products, photos, reviews, and dates included, and a real person answers, usually within minutes.
If you are weighing the two side by side, see Brevl vs Bakesy for how the comparison works in practice, or read Switch to see what moving your shop over actually involves.
Keep reading
- Cottage CMS App: What It Does and Who It Fits for the full picture of the app itself
- Cost of Bakesy: What You Actually Pay Each Month if you are comparing fees across tools
- Bakesy Website Free: What to Confirm Before You Build Your Shop for the questions that apply to any free plan
Sources
Prices and plan details change. The figures on this page come from the Cottage CMS pricing page as it read on 17 October 2026. Check the current page before you pay. This is general information, not financial advice.