What is the best software for a cookie business?
A cookie business needs software that can run a drop that sells out in ten minutes without overselling, sell cookie boxes with flavour choices from a standing menu, quote custom decorated sets with a deposit, cost each cookie from its decorating time as well as its butter, and post boxes where your local rules allow it. ibakepro is bakery management software used by cookie businesses from a home kitchen to a shop with a team, and it does all of that from the Growth plan (US$22, A$33, £17, C$30 or NZ$37 a month).
Drops: the launch that cannot oversell
Most cookie businesses now sell their best weeks as drops: a Friday box, a Halloween set, a Christmas assortment, announced on Instagram and opened at a set time. The failure is the normal shop page, which counts stock when payment clears, so forty people can all buy the last box.
In an ibakepro drop, a box is held the moment it goes into a cart, so 200 boxes means 200 orders. You set the launch time, a cap per customer, one fixed pickup, delivery or dispatch date for the whole drop, an early-access code for your VIPs and an announcement to everyone on the waitlist. Sizing the first one is covered in running a limited release without overselling.
Cookie boxes from a standing menu
Between drops, the shop sells your regular boxes: a half dozen, a dozen and a mixed box, each with flavour choices that change the price. Customers pick a date that respects your lead time and the days you do not bake, choose pickup, local delivery or shipping, and pay at checkout. The allergen panel updates as they choose, so the peanut butter flavour shows peanut and the choc-hazelnut shows tree nuts before anyone pays. See storefront and allergen management.
Custom sets on a quote
A set of 60 logo cookies for a product launch or 120 wedding favours starts with a conversation, so it comes in as an enquiry. You reply with a quote that can carry options (a one-colour flood against a two-colour design with a name), the customer picks one from their private order link, uploads the logo and pays a deposit by card through your own Stripe account. See orders and quotes.
Costing the decorating minutes
A decorated cookie's price is mostly time. A simple flood takes about 3 to 4 minutes a cookie and detailed piping 12 to 15 or more, so the decorating time on a dozen can differ fourfold between designs. ibakepro costs each cookie from what you paid for butter, sugar and bags plus labour at your hourly rate, and recosts it when a price moves. Give each design its own decorating minutes and its cost follows. The numbers, in five currencies, are in how to price cookies for a cookie business. See recipe costing.
Shipping
Cookies post better than almost anything else a bakery makes, but whether you may ship, and whether across a state or provincial line, is set by your local food rules, so check your row in home baking laws by state and country first.
How ibakepro handles it depends on where you are:
| Where you post from | Shipping in ibakepro |
|---|---|
| Australia, on Business | Connect your own AusPost or Interparcel account, show live carrier rates at checkout next to your own flat rates, buy and print AusPost labels from the order, and tracking updates itself. See shipping labels and courier dispatch |
| The US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand | Set your own flat shipping rates at checkout and add the tracking number to the order |
What to pack and when shipping is worth offering is in shipping cakes by courier.
Which plan
Essentials (US$17, A$26, £13, C$23, NZ$29) covers custom sets on a quote, costing and allergens if your orders come by message. Growth adds the online shop and drops, which is where most cookie businesses sell. Business (US$59, A$89, £47, C$81, NZ$100) adds a team with no user limit, wholesale to cafes, and courier integration in Australia.