Why Open a Shop with Butter & Sage Market
Focus on Flavor, We’ll Handle the Rest
Running a small business is tough. If you’re doing it all on your own—juggling cooking, packaging, deliveries, and the occasional existential crisis about your 3 a.m. special order cake—then you know how overwhelming it can get. Enter Butter & Sage Marketplace: your new best friend in the world of food sales. We’re a brand new marketplace built just for small and cottage food businesses. It’s like Etsy – but for local food!
Built for Small & Cottage Food Businesses
Why Butter & Sage Market?
We take the hassle of building a website, setting up payment gateways, technical maintenance, advertising, collecting payment, and dealing with the paperwork off your shoulders so you can focus on what you do best—making amazing food, growing fresh veggies, or creating small-batch magic. Let us handle the boring stuff so you can keep doing what you love (and maybe even squeeze in a nap).
We're Local First - Always
Butter & Sage Market focuses on location-based search. Customers in your area will easily find your shop & products leading to stronger local support and loyal repeat buyers.
Marketplace Listings
Being part of a diverse food marketplace helps your business grow faster. It’s like a virtual shopping mall – the more vendors that join the more potential customers for you. Someone who wanted fresh batch cookies last week will come back for that hot sauce you toiled over today.
Designed for Local Food Businesses
Our platform provides more features and options specifically designed to support small & cottage food business. Farmers market listings, virtual products, custom orders & more – No technical or design skills required.
Pop-ups, Classes, and Events
Expand your revenue stream by offering classes with everything you need to host an event whether it’s free or paid to attend. Promote your pop-up shops and let customers know upcoming markets where they can find you.
Who Should Open a Shop at Butter & Sage?
Home Bakers
Cooking & Baking Classes
Cottage Foods
Backyard Chickens (Eggs)
Jam & Jelly Makers
Vegetable Growers
Small Farms
Pickles & Preserves
If you bake it, grow it, teach it, gather it, or make it with love – you belong at Butter & Sage Market.
Shop Features
Every Tool Needed to Promote & Manage Your Business
Present a Professional Image with a Beautiful Website
Build your website in less than 10 minutes and have a beautiful store front to present to your customers. Integrated chat, social, and contact forms included! All of your products and events automatically appear as you list them.
Vendor Dashboard
Our features are designed to support small & cottage food businesses with all of the options needed to help you succeed. Add your products, set delivery & pickup availability, calendar view management, manage inventory, go on vacation, download reports, view stats, send invoices, create events, and so much more!
Calculators & Tools
– Pricing Calculators
– Cake Portion Calculator
– Cake Sizing Calculator
– Cake Cutting Guides
– Recipe scaling calculator
– Branding Tools
Custom Orders & Invoices
Built in feature for products or services that need to be custom ordered. Whether it’s party or wedding cakes, custom cookies, catering or meal prep – we’ve got custom ordering built in. And when you receive a request for quote you can send your customer a quote invoice directly fron the dashboard so they can accept and pay all at once.
Pickup & Delivery Availability
Protect yourself from over ordering with pickup & delivery settings. Set if you offer pickup, delivery, or both. Schedule available days and times that you allow for customers to select when placing an order, and limit the number of orders that can be scheduled for each time frame. Once the customer places an order and selects a timeframe it automatically shows up in your delivery calendar.
Shipping
Not all small food or cottage vendors can offer shipping, but if it works for your business we also include the option to manage shipping. Easy to use interface lets you configure shipping in a way that works for you either by offering free shipping, flat rate shipping, or table rate.
Multiple Product Types
Paid subscribers can configure, simple, variable, and downloadable products. Variable products can be customized to include flavor options, sizing options, or whatever detail you need to help your customers order the right product.
Culinary Educators
Schedule classes & events. Offer paid or free events to promote cooking classes, cake decorating, promote pop-up shops, or let your customers know the upcoming markets your attending.
Wholesale Selling Options
We are one of the only places that offers wholesale in partnership with your regular orders. Set which products are available for wholesale. Businesses can apply on our site to be wholesale buyers and purchase from you right from your shop.
Location Marketplace
Your published products automatically appear in the marketplace store and category listings. Your products show up on the map making sure visitors who are near you can find you.
Sell Digital Products
Finding multiple revenue streams helps your business grow. Sell your digital products, think recipes and classes, as a downloadable product.
Branding Packs
Building a brand is loaded with decision making, research, and time that you could better spend investing in what you do best – make great food. We’ve put together branding packs complete with color palette, typography, editable logos, templates, and ready to launch social media assets available for individual purchase designed specifically for food businesses to help you launch a professional brand image instantly.
Pricing
Marketplace Package Options
Monthly Subscription
Same features as our basic plan plus:
– Unlimited products
– Simple, variable & downloadable products – sell recipe’s!
– Classes & Events – set prices, add to calendar, automated reminders
– Promote pop-ups and markets you attend
– Custom order products with automated custom order form
– Manual orders & invoices
$15 / month
Pay monthly. Stripe fees apply.
Annual Subscription
Most Popular
Save $100 per year with our annual plan. Same features as our basic plan plus:
– Unlimited products
– Simple, variable & downloadable products – sell recipe’s!
– Classes & Events – set prices, add to calendar, automated reminders
– Promote pop-ups and markets you attend
– Custom order products with automated custom order form
– Manual orders & invoices
$8.34 / month
Pay annually. Stripe fees apply.
Basic Plan
Our basic plan offers a no-cost startup:
– Free website
– Free marketplace listings
– 5 simple products
– Manage pickup & delivery availability with calendar view
– Set limits, manage inventory to prevent over-ordering
– Chat & contact form, social integration
– Shipping options
– Vacation mode
$0 / month
8% commission and Stripe processing fees apply.
How we compare…
Butter & Sage
- Super Fast website setup
- Free setup & support
- No design skills required
- No technical skills required
- Marketplace listings
- Email & social integration
- Events, pop-ups, & class registration features
- Email & social integration
- Chat feature
- Contact form support
- Custom orders and invoicing
- Specifcally designed for small & cottage food businesses
Shopify
- Fast website setup
- No free setup or support
- Design skills required
- No technical skills required
- No marketplace listings
- Email & social integration
- No events feature without integration
- Email & social integration
- No chat feature without integration
- Contact form support
- No custom orders or invoice w/o integration
- Not specifically designed for small & cottage food businesses
Wix
- Fast website setup
- No free setup or support
- No design skills required
- No technical skills required
- No marketplace listings
- Email & social integration
- No events feature without integration
- Email & social integration
- No chat feature without integration
- Contact form support
- No custom orders or invoice w/o integration
- Not specifically designed for small & cottage food businesses
Square
- Fast website setup
- No free setup or support
- No design skills required
- No technical skills required
- No marketplace listings
- Email & social integration
- No events feature without integration
- Email & social integration
- No chat feature without integration
- Contact form support
- No custom orders or invoice w/o integration
- Not specifically designed for small & cottage food businesses
MArketing Tools to Make Life Easier
Easy Website Setup: It’s Like 1,2,3… But Tastier
Setting up a website shouldn’t be a major life event. At Butter & Sage Marketplace, we’ve designed our platform to be so simple, you’ll be up and running faster than you can bake a batch of cookies. No tech skills required—just a few clicks, and voilà! You’ve got a beautiful, fully functional online shop where customers can browse, buy, and fall in love with your food. (Don’t worry, we’ll also help with some pro tips for making your page look extra delicious.) And if you have a custom domain you can hook that up to your shop for that extra bit of branding.
Register on the Platform
Registration is quick and easy. Pick your package, follow the checkout process and you’re off and running.
Follow Easy Setup Wizard
Follow our easy setup wizard that guides you through setting up your shop. Once you get to your vendor dashboard you’ll find all your options and how-to guides if needed.
List Products and STart Selling
Add your products to your shop. We even provide an easy export and import wizard for quick setup. Set your prices, offer coupons, and start making profits!
Why I Created Butter & Sage
Amy Larsen
CEO & Founder Butter & Sage Market
Hi, I’m Amy! I’ve spent 25+ years as a marketing exec and business leader in corporate America—but let’s be honest, that’s the snooze-worthy stuff. The fun stuff? I’m a wife, mom, grandma, and proud dog-mom to two spoiled furballs.
A health scare 10 years ago opened my eyes to how powerful food really is. I was told, “Cook more at home—you’ll do better.” Cutting seed oils, processed junk, and artificial everything changed the game for me and my family.
Fresh food & veggies straight from the garden is better than anything you can find in stores or restaurants, but let’s be real: keeping up with healthy cooking, sourcing good ingredients, and gardening takes time most of us don’t have.
The food chain is broken. I want to help fix it. Supporting local food makers and growers isn’t just good for our plates, it’s good for our communities, local economies and the planet. Small businesses, farms, and neighborhood gardeners are the backbone of a better food chain. I’m passionate about helping them thrive. Local, sustainable, and made with care—that’s the kind of food I want to champion.
So I’m putting my decades of marketing and technical experience to work for you. I want to be your partner to help build stronger food chains and support small business growth. I hope you’ll join me!
Spend More Time Doing What You Love
Here’s the best part: with Butter & Sage Marketplace doing all the heavy lifting, you can focus on what really matters: your food. We’re here to support you so that you can create, cook, and serve without being bogged down by the behind-the-scenes grind.
So, what are you waiting for? Let’s make this partnership official! Sign up today and watch your food business grow with Butter & Sage Marketplace. Because you should be in the kitchen, not buried in admin work.
FAQ
Becoming a Vendor at Butter & Sage
What if I already have a website?
Having your own website is great! But who would turn down more business? As a marketplace we get traffic from extra channels that your own website may not have. Your business listing on Butter & Sage Market will benefit from traffic generated from our advertisements, other vendors advertisements and customers, farmers markets listings, social media sharing, and search engines. Many businesses have their own website but also sell on marketplaces such as Amazon to get more business. You may find that running your business through Butter & Sage Market is easier than managing your own website – in that case we’ll help you connect your custom domain to your Butter & Sage Market shop so you don’t lose any traffic.
How quickly do I receive my money?
We use Stripe to manage payments. You have full control over your Stripe account that you’ll connect with our platform. When the customer makes a purchase Stripe verifies the credit card and the funds available. Once you or the customer mark the order as complete Stripe charges the customer and transfers the funds to your account.
How do I get paid?
We use Stripe payment processing systems that collect payment, including applicable taxes, from the buyer. Stripe splits the commission and sales tax for us (we pay the sales tax for you based on where our business has Nexus), processing fees to Stripe, and gives the rest to you. Your profits never land in our account so you don’t have to wait to withdraw from us. You always have full control over your money.
Why Butter & Sage over other marketplaces?
There are other marketplace options for food vendors but Butter & Sage offers something unique that we think is a huge benefit for small food vendors.
- We’ve focused on making it easy for your local customers to find you.
- We’re supporting all food businesses, not just a specific few.
- We have options for vendors to promote events, pop-ups, create a class and collect registrations, opening up entirely new revenue streams.
- We offer guest blogging for our paid subscription plans. Have that secret ingredient and you want to share a recipe with your customers just how to use it? Post a blog and drive more customers.
- We’re food lovers who are expert marketers. 25 years of marketing and business management experience went into building this company – you’re getting professional support and partnership you can’t find anywhere else.
Can I Offer shipping?
Yes! Vendors can set their options for pickup, delivery, or offer shipping. We want to support you finding your local business but if you offer products that can be shipped you have the option to provide that to your customers.
What about sales tax?
You specify if a product is sales taxable during setup. If it’s marked as taxable our platform will automatically calculate and charge the appropriate sales tax to the customer. We file and pay sales tax for all states where our business has Nexus. Some states may require that you submit a $0 tax due statement (or the amount you owe based on sales on other channels minus what we’ve paid) – please check with your state’s Comptroller to determine your local requirements.
Open Your Shop
Vendor Registration
Smart move! We’re thrilled to you have you join us at Butter & Sage Market. Fill out the registration form below and select your preferred subscription package. Once registered, you'll be prompted to complete the checkout process and provided with a quick setup guide to open your shop.
