Homebaked vs. Squarespace: Which Platform Should You Use to Sell Baked Goods Online?

Squarespace can absolutely host an online bakery storefront — plenty of home bakers have built one. But it's a general website builder first, with commerce features layered on, not a tool built around how bakeries actually take orders. The gap shows up most clearly in pickup scheduling, sales tax, and how customers find you in the first place.

Pricing at a glance

• Homebaked: $14.99/month, one plan, no transaction fees, no hosting fees.
• Squarespace Basic: $19/month billed annually, or $25/month billed monthly.
• Squarespace Core: $29/month billed annually, or $39/month billed monthly.
• Squarespace includes a free domain for the first year on annual plans; renewal fees apply after that.

Transaction fees — where the real gap is

• Homebaked: 2.9% + $0.30 card processing, no separate transaction fee.
• Squarespace Basic: a 2% transaction fee on every sale, on top of 2.9% + $0.30 card processing.
• Squarespace Core: no transaction fee, but still 2.9% + $0.30 card processing (3.2% + $0.30 for premium cards), plus an automated sales-tax calculation fee of up to 0.15% per transaction, capped at $0.99.

What that comes to on real order volume

At 40 orders and $1,000 in monthly sales, Homebaked runs about $55.99 a month in total platform cost ($671.88 a year). The same volume on Squarespace Core comes to roughly $71.50 a month ($858 a year), and on Squarespace Basic — with its added 2% transaction fee — closer to $80.00 a month ($960 a year).

Sales tax and pickup — the two gaps that matter most for a bakery

• Homebaked calculates, collects, and files sales tax automatically. Squarespace Core and above calculate tax at checkout only — collecting, filing, and paying it remains the seller's responsibility.
• Homebaked lets customers pick a pickup time and sends automatic reminder texts beforehand. Squarespace doesn't have bakery-specific pickup scheduling — customers can't schedule a pickup time through the platform.

How customers actually find you

Homebaked bakeries get a listing on the Homebaked Marketplace and are discoverable through the Homebaked customer app. Squarespace is the opposite by design — it's your own standalone site, so customers find it entirely through your own marketing and search presence, with no built-in marketplace or directory.

The profitability math beyond the subscription price

Subscription and transaction fees are only part of what determines how much of each sale a baker actually keeps. Homebaked's founders work directly with bakers on pricing, drops, and growth — not a help-center article, but real people. Homebaked bakers also get wholesale packaging at roughly half typical retail pricing, plus ready-made marketing materials (flyers, labels, Instagram ad templates), both included at no extra cost. Squarespace, as a general-purpose site builder, doesn't offer either — packaging and marketing are costs a baker using it has to solve on their own. Combined with no added transaction fee and automatic sales tax handling, that's a meaningful part of why Homebaked often works out to be the more profitable platform for actually running a bakery business, not just a cheaper website.

Which one fits your bakery

If you want a bakery-specific tool that handles pickup scheduling, sales tax filing, and customer discovery without you building any of that yourself, Homebaked's bundled approach is going to save you setup time and ongoing busywork. If you already have (or want) a broader-purpose website — a blog, a portfolio, pages beyond just a storefront — and you're comfortable handling sales tax and your own marketing separately, Squarespace's flexibility as a general site builder is a reasonable trade for the extra cost.

Questions worth asking before you switch

• Do you need a website for more than just taking bakery orders — multiple pages, a blog, a portfolio?
• Do you already have a system for collecting and filing sales tax, or do you want that automated?
• How are customers finding you today — your own marketing, or would a built-in marketplace listing actually help?

Pricing and fees on both platforms change over time — confirm current numbers with Homebaked or Squarespace directly before deciding.