Money decides it. On $1,500 in monthly sales, Order Local is a flat $19. Hotplate's 5% + $0.55 on every order comes to about $108 — charged to your customers at checkout, on top of your prices. Order Local adds nothing to your customer's total, pays you through your own Stripe account, and includes subscriptions and Market Mode for the booth, not just drops.
Hotplate details reflect our research as of July 2026
$1,500 in sales · 60 orders · $25 average order
Order Local, flat
$19
One monthly fee for the $750–$2,000 level. Your customers pay your prices and nothing else.
Hotplate, per order
$108
5% of $1,500 ($75) plus 55¢ on each of 60 orders ($33) — added to your customers' checkout totals.
That is $89 a month, or about $1,068 a year, that your customers keep in their pockets — or that stays in yours if you were absorbing it.
Hotplate: 5% + $0.55 per order, charged to the shopper by default, as of July 2026. Stripe's 2.9% + 30¢ processing applies on both platforms and is left out of both columns. Order Local's fee is $0 under $250, then $9, $19, $39, capped at $79.
| Feature | Order Local | Hotplate |
|---|---|---|
| Commission per sale | 0%. We take no per-order cut, and customers pay no surcharge. | 5% + $0.55 platform fee on every order, plus payment processing on top, as of July 2026. |
| Monthly cost | One flat fee based on monthly sales: $0 under $250, then $9, $19, $39, capped at $79 for $5,000+. Every feature included. On $1,500 in sales: $19. | No subscription, as of July 2026 — the cost is entirely per order. On $1,500 in sales across 60 orders: about $108. |
| Who pays processing | You do — Stripe's standard 2.9% + $0.30 comes out of each payment, and the payment goes into your own Stripe account. Order Local never holds your funds. | Hotplate lets the vendor choose whether to absorb the 5% + $0.55 platform fee or pass it to your customer at checkout. Passed on, that is roughly $1.55 on a $20 order. Check Hotplate for current terms. |
| Local pickup scheduling | The center of the product: pickup locations with their own hours, pickup windows, cutoff times, per-item lead times, and per-day capacity limits. Vendor-run local drop-off windows with your own delivery fee are built in too. | Built around drops — timed release events with waitlist mechanics, rather than a standing weekly pickup schedule. |
| In-person sales | Market Mode: pick the items on your phone, show a checkout QR code, and your customer pays on theirs by card, Apple Pay, or Google Pay (or Venmo, Cash App, or Zelle). No reader, no hardware. Booth sales share your catalog, customer list, and sales report with your preorders. | None. Hotplate is an online preorder and drop platform; a walk-up sale at the market happens outside it, on whatever reader or cash box you bring. |
| Payment options | Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Amazon Pay through your own Stripe account — or Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, and cash at pickup, paid to you directly and confirmed by you. | Card checkout on the platform, with the platform fee applied per order. |
| Subscriptions and recurring orders | Built in. A weekly bread share or a monthly box bills automatically and schedules its own pickups; customers manage it themselves. | No dedicated subscription feature as of July 2026 — Hotplate's help center describes a workaround where customers prepay a month up front and the seller sends later-week reminders by hand. |
| Catalog limits | Unlimited items for every shop — no catalog limits at any level. | Not something we have a sourced figure for — check Hotplate. |
| Setup time | One sitting: add your items, add a pickup spot with its hours, connect Stripe, share the link. | Drop-shaped: you build an event or release rather than a standing catalog with recurring hours. |
| Best-fit customer | A maker taking regular pickup orders and selling at a market table, who wants a predictable flat cost and nothing added to the customer’s total. | A drop-style baker who sells occasionally, wants zero fixed cost, and wants waitlist mechanics for a timed release. |
Scroll the table sideways to see both columns.
Hotplate figures reflect our research as of July 2026 — check Hotplate's site for current pricing. "Setup time" describes scope, not a benchmark we ran.
For a shop that sells every week, the gap is money first and features second — and it is not close.
On $1,500 in monthly sales, Order Local is $19. Hotplate's 5% + 55¢ on each of 60 orders is about $108. The flat fee never rises above $79 no matter how much you sell; a per-order fee never stops rising.
Hotplate adds its fee to the shopper's total — about $1.55 on a $20 order, 9% on a $13 one. Order Local adds nothing. Checkout shows your price, and that is what they pay. Nobody gets gouged for buying from you.
Card payments go straight into your own Stripe account on Stripe's normal schedule. Order Local never holds your funds and has no payout calendar of its own. Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, and cash at pickup are paid directly to you, with the order still tracked in your dashboard.
A weekly bread share, a monthly box, a standing Friday order — billed automatically, pickups scheduled, reminders sent, customers managing their own. Hotplate's own help center describes prepaying a month up front and reminding people by hand.
Market Mode turns your phone into a booth register: tap the items, show a checkout QR code, and your customer pays on their phone. Market-day sales share your catalog, customer list, and analytics with your online shop.
Pickup locations with their own recurring hours and timezones, bookable windows, cutoff times, per-item lead times, and daily caps. Built for the Saturday market and the Friday shop pickup you run all season, not only a release day.
Hotplate does one thing Order Local does not, and its pricing shape wins in one narrow case.
Hotplate is built for the timed-release model — a drop opens, it sells out, there is a waitlist. Order Local has no drop or waitlist mechanic; the closest equivalent is a per-day cap that flips an item to sold out.
If you do two sales a year, no fixed cost beats any monthly fee. Hotplate only charges when an order happens. (Order Local is also $0 in any month under $250 in sales — so this only matters if those two sales are big ones.)
You can test Order Local against a single pickup day before you move anything permanently — nothing has to happen at once.
Add the items you sell with photos, prices, and modifiers for size, flavor, or variant. A one-off release is just an item with a cap and a single pickup date.
Add a pickup spot with its hours, then set a per-day cap on each item for the number you can actually make. When a day fills, the item shows sold out for that date.
Connect your own Stripe account and share the link for a single pickup day. Compare the totals on your side and your customers’ side before you move the rest.
$19 a month on $1,500 in sales, capped at $79 no matter how big you get. No commission, no per-order fee, no checkout surcharge — ever.
One simple fee based on what your shop sells each month. Flat fees starting at $9/mo once you're selling, and never a percentage of your sales.
| Monthly sales | Fee |
|---|---|
| Under $250 | Free |
| $250 – $750 | $9/mo |
| $750 – $2,000 | $19/mo |
| $2,000 – $5,000 | $39/mo |
| $5,000+ | $79/mo |
The counter resets every month — your first $250 is always free, and the fee never goes above $79 no matter how much you sell. Billed after the month ends, never before. Your customers never pay a surcharge. No contracts, cancel anytime. Order texts are included at every level — allowances are in the terms.
Free to start, no credit card required. Free in any month under $250 in sales.
Start for free