Free Tools for Cottage Bakers
By bakers, for bakers — My Custom Bakes
Running a cottage bakery is complicated enough.
Here are the free tools that take the guesswork out of pricing, labeling, and selling — so you can focus on the baking.
LH
Lisa He
I built these tools because everything I found treated cottage bakers like scaled-down commercial operations — missing state law nuances, revenue caps, and the reality of a home kitchen. After 15+ years in this industry, founding Borderlands Bakery, serving thousands of bakers through MCB, and co-founding the NCFA, I know what you actually need. These are the tools I wish had existed.
New to cottage baking? · Start here
Cottage Baker Starter Guide Free New
Not sure where to begin? Answer 4 quick questions — your state, what you want to sell, and how you want to sell it — and get a personalized step-by-step roadmap from zero to your first sale. Includes food freedom law info if your state has it.
Get my personalized roadmap
Or dive straight in · Know your law
Cottage Food Law Checker Free New
Before you sell a single thing, know what you're legally allowed to sell in your state. Look up your cottage food law — permitted products, annual revenue cap, allowed sales channels (farmers markets, online, retail, wholesale), permit and training requirements, and your state's required label disclaimer. All 50 states + DC, sourced from Forrager.
Open Cottage Food Law Checker
1 · Plan your recipe
Recipe Builder Free
Build your recipe with ingredients by weight or volume, add numbered directions, and scale to any batch size. Add optional ingredient costs and send everything straight to the Pricing Calculator or Label Generator — no re-typing.
Open Recipe Builder
2 · Price your products
Baked Goods Pricing Calculator Free
Enter your ingredient costs, labor rate, overhead, and packaging — get a recommended selling price with a full cost breakdown. Drag the margin slider to find your sweet spot. Import directly from the Recipe Builder.
Open Pricing Calculator
Delivery Pricing Calculator Free New
Figure out what to charge for delivery so you're not eating the cost. Enter your distance, time, vehicle costs, and a minimum fee — get a recommended delivery price that actually covers your expenses and pays you for your time.
Open Delivery Pricing Calculator
🎂 Making custom cakes?
Buttercream Calculator—How many cups (or grams) of buttercream to make for a cake or cupcakes, by shape, style, and piping design.
Cake Pricing Calculator—Full custom cake pricing, tier by tier — with buttercream estimates, decoration complexity, sugar work add-ons, and a detailed quote breakdown.
The Baked Goods Pricing Calculator above works for cookies, bars, and simple cakes. The Cake Pricing Calculator is for custom, tiered, or decorated cake work where pricing gets more complex.
Buttercream Calculator Free
Figure out exactly how much buttercream to make — for any cake or cupcakes. Choose your shape, height, layers, and frosting style for cakes, or pick your piping style (spread, classic swirl, rosette, floral bouquet) for cupcakes. Outputs cups and grams with a 15% buffer.
Open Buttercream Calculator
Cake Pricing Calculator Free
Price a custom or tiered cake properly — tier by tier. Adds buttercream estimates, decoration complexity multipliers (naked to sculpted 3D), sugar work add-ons like gumpaste flowers and hand-painting, consultation and tasting fees, delivery, and a full itemized quote breakdown you can copy directly into your MCB quote.
Open Cake Pricing Calculator
3 · Generate your label
Cottage Food Label Generator Free
Generate a compliant cottage food label for all 50 states + DC. Picks up your state's exact required disclaimer language, allergen declaration, and any state-specific fields like permit numbers. Updated monthly. Import ingredient list directly from the Recipe Builder.
Open Label Generator
4 · Prep your production week
Royal Icing Calculator Free
Figure out exactly how much royal icing to mix for a decorated cookie order or class. Add multiple cookie designs, set shape complexity, name your colors, and get per-color amounts with a 15% buffer built in. Results send directly to the Recipe Builder.
Open Royal Icing Calculator
The free tools get you ready. MCB takes care of the rest. Learn more →
Production Planner Included with MCB
Once you know what you're making and what to charge, this is where you plan when to make it. Block out your bake week by day and time — prep, bake, decorate, package, delivery — and export directly to Google or Apple Calendar.
5 · Sell at market & events
Market Day Packing Checklist Free
Never forget a thing on market day. An interactive checklist covering products, packaging, signage, display setup, payments, food safety, tools, and admin — all in one place. Add or remove items, check off as you pack, and print a fresh copy before every event.
Open Market Checklist
Farmstand & Porch Pop-Up Checklist Free New
Selling from a roadside stand, driveway table, or porch pop-up? A phase-by-phase checklist for setting up your stand once, running every open day, and closing down — with toggles for an attended stand vs. self-serve honor system, and cash box, QR checkout, or both. Includes food-safety guidance for unattended stands. Print a fresh copy anytime.
Open Farmstand Checklist
Event Inventory Calculator Free
Figure out exactly how many units to bring to your next market or pop-up — and whether the event is worth it financially. Enter your expected foot traffic or past sales data, set a buffer, and get a per-product packing list with revenue potential and break-even analysis.
Open Event Inventory Calculator
Dessert Bar Calculator Free New
Planning a dessert bar for a wedding, birthday, baby shower, or any catering order? Enter your guest count, add your desserts, set how popular each item will be, and get a complete baking list — with per-item quantities, smart buffers, and a per-person breakdown you can copy or print.
Open Dessert Bar Calculator
6 · Plan your business
Cottage Food Business Plan Builder Free New
A guided, section-by-section business plan workbook built specifically for cottage food bakers. Answer 42 thought-provoking questions across 7 sections — business overview, target market, pricing, marketing, operations, financials, and goals — then download your completed plan as a fully editable Word document.
Open Business Plan Builder
7 · Market your bakery
Baker's Marketing Calendar Free New
Every national holiday, food celebration, awareness month, and fun occasion your customers care about — with a baking opportunity tip for each one. Filter by category, search by keyword, select the ones you want, and export straight to Google or Apple Calendar. Pick the year you're planning for:
2026
This year
Plan the rest of your 2026 — back-to-school, fall pivot, Halloween (on a Saturday), and the full holiday season.
2026
Open 2026 calendar
2027
Plan ahead
Get a jump on next year — full 12 months of holidays, food days, and awareness moments to build your content calendar around.
2027New
Open 2027 calendar
Where to Market Your Cottage Bakery Free Guide New
A channel-by-channel guide to finding your first (and next) customers — with word-for-word scripts for each one. Covers Facebook Groups, Nextdoor, police and fire stations, real estate agents, salons, coffee shops, farmers markets, Google Business Profile, and more. The step-by-step marketing playbook most cottage bakers never find.
Read the marketing guide
8 · Send your first email
Some links on this page are referral links — we may earn a small benefit if you sign up. We only recommend brands we genuinely use and believe in.
BRZY — Email marketing built for small businesses
Your marketing calendar is sorted — now you need somewhere to actually send those emails. BRZY is the simplest email platform we've found: no bloated features you'll never use, no steep learning curve. Just clean, straightforward email that gets delivered. MCB readers get a permanently locked rate of $10/month or $99/year through our link.
Coming soon
Cookie Class Pricing Calculator Coming soon
Price a decorated cookie class properly — materials per student, your hourly rate, studio overhead, and minimum class size — so you know exactly what to charge before you ever open registration.
Profit-Per-Hour Calculator Coming soon
Most cottage bakers don't know their true hourly rate. Enter your product prices, batch sizes, and total time — find out what you're actually making per hour, and what you'd need to charge to hit your income goal.
Got an idea for a tool?
These tools exist because bakers told us what was missing. If there's a calculation, checklist, or workflow that would make your baking life easier — send it our way. We actually read these.
Share your idea → support@mycustombakes.comJoin the community
Build & Bake with MCB Free
Our public Facebook community for cottage food bakers and bakery owners. Ask questions, share your wins, get feedback on your pricing, find support from thousands of bakers who've been exactly where you are. Open to everyone — no MCB account needed.
Join the Facebook group →
Built by bakers, for bakers — since 2021
You've got the tools. Now give your bakery a home.
These tools help you price, label, and plan — but when a customer is ready to order, where do they go? My Custom Bakes gives your bakery a real home where customers can find you, place orders, and pay — without a single DM, spreadsheet, or Google Form.
Custom order forms Presales Your own storefront Order management Real human support
Try MCB free →Questions? Our support team are real bakers who get it.