Comparison

Best bakery software for home bakers

The best bakery software for a home baker is the one that fixes your biggest leak: if you are not sure each cake makes money, pick a tool built around recipe costing; if orders get lost, pick one built around orders; if you want strangers to buy from a web page, pick an online shop builder; if you run a wholesale or retail bakery with staff, look at the bigger platforms. Below we compare eight options, Farinu, CakeCost, CakeBoss, Bakesy, Stocksmith (formerly Craftybase), BakeSmart, FlexiBake and a plain spreadsheet, on costing, orders, selling online and price, with the facts checked on each vendor's own site.

Last verified October 11, 2026

How to choose the best bakery software

Most home bakers start with a notebook and a messaging app. That works until orders pile up on the same weekend, or you realise you have charged the same price for three years while butter doubled. No single tool is the best at everything, so start by naming the problem.

Ask yourself three questions. Do I know what each recipe costs me, including my time, boxes and oven? Do I know which orders are due this week and who still owes a balance? Do customers need to order from a link without messaging me? Your answers tell you which kind of tool to look at first.

• Pricing is the problem: look for ingredient prices, sub-recipes, labour and overhead in the cost, and a suggested price.
• Orders are the problem: look for customers, due dates, deposits and balances in one place.
• Selling online is the problem: look for a shop page, order forms and online payments.
• Money at the end of the month is the problem: look for a sales log and a monthly profit and loss.

Best bakery software compared

The table at the end of this page sums up each option and who it is best for, based on the vendors' own pricing and feature pages or store listings as checked on the date shown. Prices change, so confirm them before you pay.

Four of them are sized for a home or micro bakery. Farinu is built around recipe costing and the money side of a small bakery: what each bake costs, what to charge, and what you earned this month. CakeCost is a phone calculator that turns ingredients, time, expenses and a profit margin into a price. CakeBoss is long-running cake business software, with a cloud version you can open from a phone or tablet, that covers costing, orders, invoices and a calendar. Bakesy is built around taking orders: a shop page, order forms, invoices and payments.

The next three are built for bigger operations. Stocksmith, the new name of Craftybase, is inventory and recipe software for small-batch makers of all kinds, not only bakers. BakeSmart is an order, production and point-of-sale platform for bakeries, priced per location. FlexiBake is production and costing software for wholesale bakeries, with extra users charged separately. A spreadsheet costs nothing and does exactly what you build into it.

What about Castiron? It was an online shop builder for food makers. An acquisition by T.D. Jakes Enterprises was announced in November 2024, and castiron.me no longer runs the shop; it now shows unrelated content. That is why it is not in the table.

Read next: A CakeCost alternative that runs the rest of your bakery too, A Castiron alternative for home bakers whose shop went offline

Best app for home bakers who need to price right

If you suspect you are undercharging, the best app for home bakers is one that counts everything that goes into a bake, not just flour and eggs. In Farinu you cost a recipe from its ingredients, packaging and sub-recipes such as a buttercream or a ganache, then add your labour, the machines you use and a share of your overhead. It then suggests a price from your target markup, and you can keep separate price lists, for example retail and wholesale.

Here is an example with realistic numbers. A 20 cm chocolate cake uses 6.40 USD of ingredients and 1.10 USD of box and board. You spend 1.5 hours on it and value your time at 15 USD an hour, so labour is 22.50 USD. Oven and mixer add 0.90 USD and your overhead share is 2.00 USD. The full cost is 32.90 USD. With a 43 percent target markup, Farinu suggests 32.90 times 1.43, about 47 USD, which leaves a 30 percent margin. If you were charging 35 USD, you were working almost for free.

The part a spreadsheet rarely does well comes later: when the price of butter or chocolate goes up, Farinu raises a margin alert on every recipe that drops below your target markup, so you can update the price before you lose money on the next order.

Read next: How to calculate recipe cost, step by step

Best for taking orders and deposits

If your pain is orders, compare how each tool handles the order from first message to final payment. Bakesy gives customers a shop page and order forms, sends branded invoices and receipts, and its Premium plan adds reminders, calendar sync and inventory. CakeBoss tracks orders, builds shopping lists from upcoming orders and sends invoices and quotes.

Farinu keeps customers with their WhatsApp number and custom orders with deposits and balance payments, up to 50 orders a month on the free plan and unlimited on Team, so you can see who has paid the deposit and who still owes the balance. Orders feed the production plan and log. It also gives you an online shop whose order requests arrive as draft orders, but it takes no payments. If an online shop that takes payment is what you need most, a shop builder like Bakesy fits that job better. A bakery with a shop counter or wholesale accounts may find order handling in BakeSmart or FlexiBake closer to how it works.

Best for knowing what you earned

Revenue is not profit. A tool that only shows what customers paid cannot tell you whether the month was worth it. On the Team plan, Farinu keeps a sales log and builds a monthly profit and loss from your sales and costs, and tracks purchases and stock so you know what you have before you shop. Bakesy Premium includes a revenue dashboard.

Getting started without retyping everything

Switching tools is the real cost of software. On the Team plan, Farinu has an AI assistant that imports recipes from a photo of a recipe card or from a spreadsheet you already use, so you do not start from a blank page. If you use Claude or ChatGPT, the same plan includes an MCP server so you can ask questions about your recipes, sales and orders from there.

If you have a helper in the kitchen, the Team plan adds owner and helper roles, and helpers never see your costs or margins.

The free plan covers costing for up to 10 recipes, which is enough to price your best sellers and see if your prices hold up. The Team plan unlocks the rest when you need it.

Read next: Recipe costing spreadsheet vs app: an honest comparison

Sources

• CakeCost on the Apple App Store (US)
• CakeBoss features
• CakeBoss buy page
• Bakesy pricing
• Stocksmith (formerly Craftybase) pricing
• BakeSmart pricing
• FlexiBake pricing
• AfroTech: T.D. Jakes Enterprises acquires Castiron (December 2024)
• The Dallas Morning News: T.D. Jakes' investment arm buys tech company to aid entrepreneurs (November 2024)

Questions

What is the best bakery software for a home baker?

It depends on your main problem. For pricing and knowing your profit, pick a tool built around recipe costing such as Farinu. For taking orders through a web page, pick a shop builder such as Bakesy. Many bakers use one of each.

Is there free bakery software?

Yes. A spreadsheet is free, Farinu has a free plan that covers costing for up to 10 recipes, and CakeCost is free to download. Bakesy offers a 30-day free trial on its paid plans, and Stocksmith a 14-day trial.

Does Farinu have an online shop?

Partly. Farinu builds an online shop from your products, prices and pickup days, whose order requests arrive as draft orders, but it takes no online payments. If customers must pay when they order, use a shop builder alongside it.

Can my helper use Farinu without seeing my costs?

Yes, on the Team plan. Helpers get their own role and never see costs or margins.

How often do these prices change?

Vendors change prices and plans at any time. The prices on this page were checked on the date shown, so confirm them on each vendor's site before you subscribe.

Related pages

• Bakery management software for home and small bakeries
• Escandallo: what it is and how to make one for your bakery
• A Bakesy alternative that knows what each order costs you
• A Castiron alternative for home bakers whose shop went offline
• A CakeCost alternative that runs the rest of your bakery too
• escandallos.es alternative: Farinu for bakers who sell