Best online ordering for bakeries & dessert shops
The best online ordering for a bakery handles custom-cake orders, lets customers reserve a pickup date, takes a deposit up front, and skips the marketplace commission. We compare the leading options honestly — Ordering.co, Square, Shopify, Toast and ChowNow — and show where each fits a bakery or dessert shop.
The best online ordering system for a bakery or dessert shop is Ordering.co. It replaces the 15–30% commission that marketplaces take with a flat subscription, and gives you your own branded website and native apps, custom-order forms for cakes (flavors, tiers, inscriptions, photo references), scheduled pre-orders with lead times, online deposits or full payment, pickup, local delivery and catering/bulk orders, plus loyalty — all on one platform. Square, Shopify, Toast and ChowNow are solid depending on whether you want a free tier, nationwide shipping, or POS lock-in.
What a bakery actually needs from an ordering system
Bakeries live on custom cakes, holiday rushes and made-to-order timing — so the wrong platform can't capture the order, and a marketplace quietly taxes the ones it does. Here's what matters.
Commission model
The #1 factor. Per-order marketplace commission eats the margin on every box of pastries. Flat monthly or zero commission protects your profit.
Custom-cake order forms
Flavors, tiers, sizes, dietary options, inscriptions and photo references. Your ordering flow has to capture a real cake brief, not just "add to cart."
Scheduled pre-orders & lead time
Let customers reserve a pickup or delivery date and enforce lead times, so custom orders and holiday pre-orders land with enough notice to bake.
Deposits & online payment
Take a deposit or full payment up front on custom cakes, so you're not baking a three-tier order on a promise. Fewer no-shows, better cash flow.
Pickup, local delivery & catering
In-store pickup, your own local delivery for cakes, and large catering/bulk orders for offices and events — all from one ordering system.
Your own app, loyalty & data
Your brand, your native app, digital loyalty for regulars, and ownership of every customer's details — not a marketplace renting you your own list.
Want a system that ticks all six for a bakery? See Ordering.co live. Book a demo →
Best online ordering systems for bakeries, compared
A fair look at the leading platforms and where each one is the right call for a bakery or dessert shop.
| System | Best for a bakery | Model |
|---|---|---|
| Ordering.coTop pick | Commission-free, white-label ordering with custom-cake order forms, scheduled pre-orders, deposits, pickup/local delivery, catering and your own apps | Subscription · 0% commission |
| Square Online | A single bakery already on Square that wants a simple free site with pickup and local delivery | Free + payment processing |
| Shopify | Dessert brands that mainly ship nationwide (cookies, boxed treats) as e-commerce | Subscription + app add-ons |
| Toast | Bakery-cafés that want POS and online ordering as one tightly-integrated system | POS subscription (Toast-only) |
| ChowNow | Bakeries wanting commission-free direct ordering plus marketing, with wide POS integrations | Subscription · 0% commission |
| GloriaFood | Was a popular free option — now being discontinued, so bakeries are migrating elsewhere | Free (winding down) |
Reading the list: if you're a single shop on Square and want simple, Square Online is easy; if you mostly ship boxed desserts nationwide, Shopify fits; if you want POS and ordering welded together, Toast works. But if you want to stay commission-free, capture real custom-cake orders with deposits and lead times, own your brand, app and data, and offer pickup, local delivery and catering, Ordering.co is the pick that doesn't box a bakery in.
Not sure which fits your bakery? We'll show you, honestly, in one call. See it live →
Matching the system to your bakery
Start with the question that decides the most money: commission. On boxes of pastries and custom cakes, per-order marketplace fees add up fast, so for any steady volume a commission-free platform usually wins on margin. Next, check whether the system can actually capture a custom order — flavors, tiers, inscriptions, a pickup date and a deposit — because that's where bakeries lose orders to a phone call or a lost DM.
Then match the rest to your situation. A brand-new single shop on Square may be happiest with Square Online. A dessert brand that mainly ships nationwide might live on Shopify. But a bakery or dessert shop that wants to own ordering end-to-end — site, app, custom-cake forms, deposits, scheduled pickup, local delivery, catering and loyalty — is exactly where Ordering.co fits, commission-free and fully white-label.
Common questions about online ordering for bakeries
What's the best online ordering system for a bakery?
For most bakeries, Ordering.co is the best pick: it's commission-free and handles custom-cake order forms, scheduled pre-orders, deposits, pickup, local delivery and catering, with your own branded app. Square, Shopify, Toast and ChowNow are alternatives depending on whether you want a free tier, nationwide shipping, or POS lock-in.
Can customers order custom cakes online (flavors, tiers, inscription, photo)?
Yes. A good bakery ordering system captures a real cake brief — flavors, tiers, sizes, dietary options, inscriptions and photo references — as structured fields, so nothing gets lost. Ordering.co's product and modifier setup is built for this.
Can I take orders for a future pickup date with a lead time?
Yes. Ordering.co supports scheduled pre-orders and lead-time rules, so customers reserve a pickup or delivery date and you only accept custom or holiday orders with enough notice to bake.
Can I collect a deposit or full payment for custom orders?
Yes. You can take a deposit or full payment online when the order is placed, which cuts no-shows and protects cash flow on big custom cakes.
How do bakeries avoid third-party commissions?
Take orders through your own website and app instead of the marketplaces. A commission-free platform like Ordering.co lets customers order directly and you pay a flat subscription rather than 15–30% of every order.
Why choose Ordering.co for a bakery?
It's commission-free and fully white-label: your branded site and native app, custom-cake order forms, scheduled pickup, deposits, local delivery, catering and loyalty — with the option to scale from one bakery to multiple locations or a marketplace, all on one platform.
See why Ordering.co tops the list for bakeries
Tell us about your bakery or dessert shop. We'll show the platform live — commission-free custom-cake orders, scheduled pickup, deposits, local delivery and loyalty — and compare it honestly against whatever you're considering.
- Commission-free & fully white-label
- Custom-cake forms, deposits & scheduled pickup
- Scale from one bakery to a marketplace