Templates for Home Bakers.

A curated set of 12 spreadsheets — and the guides that go with them — for cottage-food bakers and small bakery owners. Cost a recipe, price a custom cake, track an order calendar, and figure out whether that wedding tier is actually paying you.

From "what should I charge?" to a real cottage-food business

Most home bakers we hear from have the same arc: you start baking for friends, someone insists on paying, suddenly there's an Instagram page and a custom-cake DM you don't know how to price. The templates in this collection are built around that exact reality — ingredient costing down to the gram, packaging and overhead baked into the price, an inventory tab that doesn't pretend you're running a warehouse, and an order book your phone can read on a Saturday morning.

Pair the spreadsheets with the guides below — they cover the questions we get asked most about pricing wedding cakes, costing a single recipe, and turning a baking side hustle into something closer to a real job.

Recommended templates

12 templates

Recipe costing, business management, inventory and pricing — in Excel and Google Sheets.

Cottage food

Every state has some version of a cottage food law: it lets you sell certain low-risk, shelf-stable foods made at home without a commercial kitchen, in exchange for limits on what and where you sell — and an obligation to label honestly and keep records. The labeling half is where most home bakers get caught out, because a recipe is written in cups and a label has to be ordered by weight.

  • What is cottage food law? — what the exemption covers, the seven label elements almost every state asks for, and the nine major food allergens.
  • What is price per serving? — the unit a custom cake is actually sold by, why party and wedding portions give one cake two different serving counts, and what pricing on it alone leaves out.
  • Free allergen & label worksheet — type one recipe, get an ingredient statement ordered by weight and a Contains line. No email, no signup.
  • Free cake servings chart — 19 cake sizes and 14 standard tier stacks, party and wedding portions, on one printable page. No email, no signup.
  • Compliance spreadsheet vs food compliance software — when an owned workbook covers labels, allergens and batch traceability, and what a hosted platform adds.
  • Cottage Food Compliance Pack — the paid version: an allergen master across your whole range, the published label elements for all 50 states and DC, and a batch and supplier-lot recall trace that runs both ways.

Revenue caps and the state rules themselves are a separate question, and already free — our own Ardent Seller platform publishes a maintained 50-state cottage food guide and a live revenue cap tracker. Nothing here is legal advice; check your own state before you print a run of labels.

Where we fit

Compare the setup effort, collaboration, and automation you need. Ardent Workshop sells ready-made templates; a custom spreadsheet or software platform may fit better depending on the job.

  1. Blank spreadsheet

    Build the structure around your own process, with time set aside for formulas, layout, and maintenance.

    • Flexible structure
    • You build it
    • Software costs vary
  2. You are here

    Ardent Workshop

    Owned, structured, connected workbooks — a one-time price, yours to keep.

    • One-time price
    • Structured & connected
    • Yours to own

  3. Software platform

    Consider a platform when you need shared workflows, automation, or integrations. Check the specific plan, permissions, and export options.

    • Features vary
    • Check total cost
    • Check data portability

Running an operation that's genuinely outgrown the file? Ardent Seller isn't the generic SaaS app this ladder warns about — it's maker-first software built by the same workshop: your data stays yours, you can start free or pay as you go with no subscription required, and it's sized for your operation, not someone bigger. The platform to graduate to when a spreadsheet honestly can't keep up.

Reading list

Real talk on pricing, costing, and the hidden expenses that quietly eat your margin.