Taking online orders for a home bakery in California
Updated 2026-10-15. Not legal advice.
Check the rules before you sell
California regulates home food businesses through the California Department of Public Health and your county environmental health office. We could not load the CDPH cottage-food page when we wrote this, so this guide does not state any class, sales limit, or online-sales rule. Open the CDPH page linked below and call your county before you take your first order.
You are responsible for permits, labels, allergen disclosure, and sales tax. KitchenCheckout does not issue permits.
One link instead of comments and DMs
A KitchenCheckout store gives you one menu link to share. Customers pick items, choose pickup or local delivery if you offer it, and pay by card at checkout.
Card payments go to your own Stripe account. KitchenCheckout charges a monthly plan fee and a platform fee on orders, shown on the pricing page.
Orders on your baking schedule
You set your weekly pickup hours and a minimum lead time, so nobody orders a cake for 20 minutes from now. Customers can schedule orders ahead, up to the number of days you allow (14 by default, up to 90).
That fits batch baking: open preorders for the weekend, bake to the order list, and hand off at the times you picked.
Try it
First month $19.99 on Store or Plus through December 31, 2026, then Store is $50 a month with a 3.5% platform fee on card orders. Plus is $100 a month with a 2% platform fee on card orders. A cook’s own domain is $20 setup plus $25 a year on either plan (.com, .net, .org, or .us). Stripe’s card-processing fee is separate. Pay-at-pickup has no KitchenCheckout fee. Cancel anytime online.
- Open the home bakery demo and place a pretend order.
- See pricing.
- Start your store.
Sources
- CDPH Cottage Food Operations. The place to check California cottage-food rules. It did not load when this guide was written on 2026-10-15, so this guide states no California rule.