Worknest Business

Worknest, Hotplate and Square Online, side by side

Three products a cook selling food from home actually ends up choosing between. We make one of them, so read the sourcing rule first and judge the table against it.

How to read this, given that we make one of them

We sell one of the three. So the page follows four rules, and you can hold us to them:

One name is missing. Castiron, a platform for home food businesses, was acquired by T.D. Jakes Enterprises and its technology relaunched as a separate marketplace — announced 21 November 2024, sourced below. We found no current pricing or help page of its own to quote, which is the standard every cell here meets, so it is not in the table.

The table

 WorknestHotplateSquare Online
The cook’s app iOS and Android iOS only. Their page: "We do not have an app for Android yet, but you can create a shortcut to the Hotplate webpage" No app named for building the site. Their setup article: "You can set up your website from Square Dashboard"
Is a computer needed to set up? No. The whole path runs in the app on a phone No. Our summary: the portal runs in a browser, and there is an iOS app Square does not state a requirement either way. Our summary: their article recommends designing in the editor’s mobile view
What you have to build No website, design, theme or domain — a name, your dishes with prices, photos Our summary: a menu, and an event to publish it in Their setup article’s list, our summary: an item catalog, fulfillment per item, sales-tax rules, pages and navigation, text, images, colors, fonts, a logo and a favicon, checkout and payment options, and a domain
Screens and required inputs to a live shop 12 screens, 10 required inputs, counting the longest path (email sign-up). With Google or Apple sign-in it is 11 and 6 Not published Not published. Our count from their setup article: nine areas to configure
Does the buyer need an app? No — the order page is a web page No. Our summary: the storefront is a web page No. Our summary: the site is a web page
Pay at pickup Cash, Zelle, Cash App or Venmo. The buyer holds the order with a small card reservation, refunded if the cook doesn’t confirm; the cook is paid her full price at pickup Supported, and their fee still applies: "On off-platform payments (cash, Venmo, Zelle) … this Hotplate fee will be deducted from your payout amount" Pickup is a fulfillment option; whether payment can be deferred to pickup is not covered in the setup article
Monthly fee None None. Their page: "There’s no monthly subscription or membership fee to use Hotplate" There is a free plan. Their article notes that "enhanced features require an active paid subscription"
What comes off each order The buyer pays a small service fee at checkout; the cook gets her listed price Their two pages differ, so both are quoted. The help center: the chef pays "2.9% + $0.30 for payment processing per transaction" and the customer is charged "5% of their subtotal + 55¢". The pricing page’s FAQ says of the transaction fee: "You can pay it yourself or pass it on to customers — your choice" Our summary of their fee page: it lists three online card rates — 3.3% + 30¢ and 2.9% + 30¢ twice — but does not label which plan each column belongs to, so we are not printing a per-plan figure
Spanish The app and the order page both. The order page also serves Russian and French Not documented in their help center We found no built-in option in their help center. Square’s own app marketplace lists a third-party translation app
Is the street address visible before the cook accepts? No. The public page shows the city; the address goes to the buyer once the cook accepts Not documented in their help center Not documented in the setup article

Two of those rows are ties: every one of the three takes orders in a browser with nothing for the buyer to install, and none of the three charges a monthly fee to start.

Where we are weaker

Which one fits which cook

Not a recommendation, since we are not a neutral party. A reading of the table:

Still deciding whether to sell at all, rather than how? What your state allows comes before any of this.

What we read, and when

Every competitor figure above is quoted from that company’s own page on the date shown. Pricing and features change without notice: confirm anything you are deciding on. How we check these facts

Questions people actually ask

Why is Castiron not in the table?

Because we could not source it. T.D. Jakes Enterprises announced on 21 November 2024 that it had acquired Castiron and would relaunch its technology as a separate marketplace, and that announcement is in the sources below. What we could not find is any current pricing or help page of Castiron’s own — and quoting a company’s own page with a date is the standard every cell in this table meets. A column we cannot source is a column we do not print.

How can a comparison written by one of the three be trusted?

Check it. Every competitor cell carries a link to the page it came from and the date we read it, so the ones about Hotplate and Square can be verified in a few minutes. The rows where all three are the same are marked as ties, and there is a section listing where we are weaker. If you find a cell that is wrong or out of date, it is worth telling us — the pages carry the date we checked so that staleness is visible.

Why is there no "how fast can I be live" row?

Because how long it takes is mostly about you, not the tool: whether your prices are decided and your photos are taken. A single figure would describe almost nobody. What the table can give you instead is countable and the same for everyone — the screens and the inputs each one requires — and you can check it yourself by signing up.

What does "not documented" mean in a cell?

That we looked at the company’s own help center and did not find it, and nothing more. It is not a claim their product cannot do it. We write it that way because reporting an absence as an absence — rather than as a "no" — is one of the rules these pages are researched by.

Do any of these decide what I am allowed to sell?

No. That is decided by your state, and the answers differ sharply from one to the next — whether you need a license, whether anyone inspects your kitchen, whether there is a cap on annual sales. We keep a sourced, dated page for each one: all fifty-one compared.

How often is this page re-checked?

The dates in the sources are the dates we read each page. The page is built so that a check older than ninety days fails our own test suite, which means it cannot quietly rot in the background — somebody has to either re-read the sources or take the page down.

Other states

Tools

More guides

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Once you are set up, take orders with your own Worknest page — your customers order from one link, you get notified, and you can take the money at pickup.

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