Terms of Service

1. About Flourish Bakers

Flourish Bakers is a software platform that allows home bakers (“Bakers”) to create online storefronts and accept pre-orders from their customers (“Customers”). By using Flourish Bakers, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the platform. Flourish Bakers is currently offered in the United States only. Bakers and Customers must be located in the U.S. to sell or order through the platform.

Where orders happen: Flourish Bakers does not offer shipping. Orders are for pickup from the Baker, or local delivery where the Baker offers it inside the area they set.

2. Flourish Bakers is a platform, not a food seller

Flourish Bakers provides software tools only. We are not a food business, bakery, or marketplace operator. All food products are created and sold directly by independent Bakers.

Bakers are solely responsible for:

• Complying with all applicable local, state, and federal cottage food laws and food safety regulations
• Obtaining any required licenses, permits, or certifications
• The quality, safety, and accuracy of the food products they sell
• All communications and transactions with their customers

Flourish Bakers makes no representations regarding the safety or legality of any food sold through the platform. Customers purchase directly from Bakers, not from Flourish Bakers.

Products sold through Flourish Bakers are typically prepared in home kitchens that are not inspected by a state or local health authority. Flourish Bakers displays a notice to this effect on Baker storefronts.

Flourish Bakers does not verify a Baker’s listings, ingredients or allergen information. Bakers write and attest those themselves. If an allergy matters to you, ask the Baker before you order.

3. Baker accounts

To create a Baker storefront, you must register an account with accurate information. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account. Keep your credentials secure and notify us immediately of any unauthorised access.

You may not: impersonate another person, use a false identity, create multiple accounts for the same business, or use the platform for any unlawful purpose.

Cottage-food & compliance warranty: by registering as a Baker, you represent and warrant, at registration and on an ongoing basis, that you comply with your state’s cottage-food or home-food-business laws. You are solely responsible for the safety of your products, for following permitted-food rules for your jurisdiction, for accurate labeling, and for allergen disclosure. You confirm this via the compliance attestation at registration. You also tell us the state you bake in and whether you sell under your state’s cottage food program or a licence, and you keep it current; your shop follows the rules for what you choose. Flourish Bakers may suspend accounts it reasonably believes are non-compliant.

Acceptance is recorded: when you register an account or place an order, we record that you accepted these Terms and our Privacy Policy, including the document version and a timestamp, as evidence of your agreement.

Customer data: when a customer places an order with your storefront, you can see their name, email address, and order history with your shop in your dashboard. This access is limited to customers who have ordered from you. You may not view, search, or browse other Flourish Bakers customers’ personal information. You may use this information solely to fulfil orders and provide customer service, and must not use it for unrelated marketing, resell or share it with third parties, or otherwise misuse it (see Section 8, Prohibited uses).

4. Subscription plans and fees

Flourish Bakers offers three subscription tiers: First Batch, Rise, and Golden Hour. Paid plans are billed monthly. You may cancel at any time; access continues until the end of the current billing period. No refunds for partial months. Plan prices exclude sales tax; where the law requires it, Flourish Bakers adds it at checkout.

First Batch: $0/month, 10 included orders/month, 5% platform fee. Rise: $20/month (or $200/year), 50 included orders/month, 3% platform fee. Golden Hour: $45/month (or $450/year), unlimited orders, 2% platform fee.

Annual plans: Paid tiers may also be purchased on an annual billing cycle, charged once per year and auto-renewing annually. The same cancel-and-downgrade policy applies: cancelling or downgrading an annual plan takes effect at the end of the paid annual period; you retain access to your current tier until that date. Annual plan payments are non-refundable and are not prorated for early cancellation, consistent with the no-partial-period-refund posture of monthly plans. The platform-fee model (Transaction fees, below) is unchanged regardless of whether you are on a monthly or annual billing cycle.

Transaction fees: First Batch tier Bakers pay a 5% platform fee on each order’s subtotal (after any Baker discount). Rise tier pays 3%, and Golden Hour pays 2%. The platform fee is collected automatically from each order at the time of sale; the remainder is paid to the Baker’s connected Stripe account.

Orders beyond the included monthly count: orders beyond a plan’s monthly included count are still accepted. Those orders carry double that plan’s platform fee: 10% on First Batch and 6% on Rise. Golden Hour has no monthly count and no higher rate. The higher fee is charged to the Baker only, out of the Baker’s share of the sale; the Customer’s total is not affected.

Refunds and the service fee: when an order is refunded, Flourish Bakers returns its platform fee in full, or the share of it matching a partial refund, so Flourish Bakers keeps nothing from a cancelled order. The service fee paid by the Customer at checkout, which Customers see named “card processing”, covers what our payments provider charges to take the card payment, and that provider does not return it on a refund.

If you cancel or refund an order, the Customer gets back everything they paid, including that service fee, and it is deducted from your connected balance. If the Customer cancels within the window in Section 5, they are refunded the price of the order and the service fee stays with the processing it paid for, so nothing further comes out of your balance.

When Flourish Bakers finds an order was not delivered as promised, it is refunded as if you had cancelled it, and the amount may be recovered from your connected balance or a future payout.

Chargebacks: a Customer can ask their bank to reverse a card payment after the fact. That is called a chargeback, and it is not the same as a refund. When it happens on one of your orders, our payments provider takes the disputed amount and a separate dispute fee out of Flourish Bakers, and your payout for that order is not reversed automatically.

Flourish Bakers responds to the dispute on your behalf and will ask you for anything we need. Please do not refund an order while a chargeback on it is open, because that pays the Customer twice and neither payment comes back.

If the dispute is decided against the order, the amount is money you were paid for a sale the bank has reversed, and Flourish Bakers may recover it from your connected balance or from a future payout. The dispute fee is not returned by anyone, whichever way the case goes.

Referral credits: Bakers may invite other home bakers to Flourish Bakers using their personal referral link. When a baker you referred joins through your link and completes their first order, both of you receive a $25 credit. Credits have no cash value, are not redeemable for cash, cannot be transferred, and are applied to reduce your Flourish Bakers subscription fees (any unused balance carries forward). A baker may be referred only once. Flourish Bakers may withhold credits for, or remove Bakers found engaging in, self-referral, fake or duplicate accounts, or other abuse, and may modify or discontinue the referral program at any time.

Flourish Bakers reserves the right to change pricing with 30 days’ written notice to existing subscribers. Price changes do not apply retroactively.

5. Orders, payments, tips & cancellations

How payment works. When you place an order on a Baker’s storefront you are making a pre-order for pickup, or for delivery where the Baker offers it, and you pay securely by card through Flourish Bakers at checkout. When a customer pays, Flourish Bakers acts only as the Baker’s limited payment collection agent: the money is the Baker’s sale, collected through Stripe on the Baker’s behalf, less the fees described in Section 4. Payments are processed by our payments provider, Stripe, and paid out to the Baker’s connected Stripe account. Flourish Bakers collects its platform fee from each order at the time of sale; that fee is paid by the Baker out of the sale and is never added to your total. The one charge added to your total is the line shown at checkout as card processing (recorded on your order as the service fee). It covers what our payments provider charges to take a card payment, passed through to you, and Flourish Bakers keeps nothing from it. That processing is charged the moment your card is charged and our payments provider does not return it when an order is refunded, so card processing is not refundable; “Cancellations & refunds” below sets out who bears it in each case. The Baker, not Flourish Bakers, is the seller of the baked goods and is responsible for preparing and fulfilling your order.

Tips: at checkout you may optionally add a tip for the Baker. Tips are voluntary, go entirely to the Baker, and are not subject to Flourish Bakers’ platform fee.

Discounts: Bakers may offer their own discount or promotional codes. Any discount is set and honoured by the Baker. Flourish Bakers’ platform fee is calculated on the order subtotal after any Baker discount.

Cancellations & refunds: you may cancel an order from your account up until 24 hours before its pickup or delivery date, provided the Baker has not yet begun preparing it. When you cancel an eligible order that you have already paid for, the price of the order (items, less any discount, plus any tip) is automatically refunded to your original payment method. The card processing charge is not refunded in that case, because it has already paid for processing your payment.

When the Baker cancels or refunds an order instead, you get back everything you were charged, including the card processing, and the Baker bears that cost. In either direction Flourish Bakers returns its own platform fee in full, and on a partial refund it returns the share of that fee matching the amount refunded, so Flourish Bakers keeps nothing from a cancelled order. Refunds typically appear within 5–10 business days.

Within 24 hours of pickup or delivery, or once preparation has started, orders are final and any refund is at the Baker’s discretion; contact the Baker directly. Custom and made-to-order items are final once the Baker has started preparing them. A custom order paid in two parts has a 24-hour cooling-off period from the moment the deposit is paid: cancel within it and the deposit comes back apart from card processing; after it the deposit stays with the Baker. Once the Baker has started preparing, the order is final. By paying a deposit you authorise Flourish Bakers to charge the remaining balance to the same card when the Baker marks the order ready; if that charge fails, you will be sent a link to pay it before collection. Orders placed without an account can be cancelled online too, from the link in the order confirmation email, under the same window.

When something goes wrong: if something is wrong with your order, tell us from your order page within 14 days. The Baker has 2 days to make it right, then Flourish Bakers reviews it and decides. An order Flourish Bakers finds was not delivered as promised is refunded in full to your original payment method, card processing included. Taste and preference are not covered. Decisions made this way are final on the platform, and none of this limits any rights you have by law.

6. Recipe Vault subscriptions

Some Bakers offer a Recipe Vault: a collection of their recipes that a Customer can access with a monthly subscription. When you subscribe to a Baker’s Vault, you get access to that Baker’s published Vault recipes, including new ones they add while your subscription is active.

Billing and cancellation: a Vault subscription is billed monthly to your payment method through Stripe and renews automatically until you cancel. You may cancel at any time from your account or the billing portal; your access continues until the end of the current paid month, and partial months are not refunded. If a payment fails, your access may pause until billing is resolved.

Flourish Bakers’ role and fee: the Vault is the Baker’s product, not Flourish Bakers’. Flourish Bakers hosts the content and processes the subscription, and retains a 15% platform fee on each Vault subscription payment; the remainder is paid to the Baker’s connected Stripe account. Bakers set their own Vault price from the options Flourish Bakers provides.

Content licence and ownership: recipes and other Vault content are the Baker’s own content (see Section 9, Intellectual property). While your subscription is active, the Baker grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to view and use their Vault recipes for your own personal, non-commercial baking. You may not copy, republish, redistribute, sell, or share Vault content, or use it to operate a competing service. Your licence ends when your subscription ends.

No outcome warranty: recipes are provided as they are. Flourish Bakers does not create, test, or verify Vault recipes and does not guarantee any particular result, nutritional accuracy, or allergen information. The food-safety and allergen responsibilities in Sections 2 and 3 still apply, and you are responsible for how you use a recipe.

7. Customer reviews

After an order is completed, the Customer who placed it may leave a rating (1–5 stars) and a written review. Reviews are tied to a real, completed order with that Baker.

Reviews are public. They appear on the Baker’s storefront and across the Flourish Bakers marketplace, and the name you provide is shown alongside your review. Post only honest, first-hand feedback; do not submit unlawful, defamatory, harassing, or deliberately deceptive content. Bakers may publicly reply to reviews of their own shop.

Flourish Bakers may remove a review or reply that violates these Terms or applicable law. If you delete your account, your past reviews are retained but anonymised so they are no longer linked to your identity (see Section 13).

A Customer may also report a problem with a specific order. A report is visible to Flourish Bakers as well as to the Baker it is about: the Baker receives it by email and sees it on their own order page. A pattern of unresolved reports against a Baker may be grounds for review of the account under Section 12.

8. Prohibited uses

You may not use Flourish Bakers to:

• Sell products that are illegal in your jurisdiction
• Deceive or defraud customers
• Scrape, copy, or reproduce Flourish Bakers’ platform, design, or content
• Reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract Flourish Bakers’ source code
• Use automated tools to access the platform without permission
• Violate any applicable law or third-party rights

9. Intellectual property

Flourish Bakers and its platform, including the Flourish Bakers name, logo, and brand marks, visual design, software, and all original content, are owned by Flourish Bakers and protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. You may not use the Flourish Bakers brand without written permission.

Bakers retain full ownership of their own content: store descriptions, product photos, and any other materials they upload. By uploading content to Flourish Bakers, you grant Flourish Bakers a limited licence to display that content to operate the platform.

10. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Flourish Bakers shall not be liable for:

• Any illness, injury, or harm arising from food sold through the platform
• Lost revenue, lost profits, or business interruption
• Any indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages
• Data loss or platform downtime

Flourish Bakers’ total liability for any claim shall not exceed the amount you paid to Flourish Bakers in the 3 months prior to the event giving rise to the claim.

11. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Flourish Bakers from any claims, damages, or costs (including legal fees) arising from: your use of the platform, your violation of these Terms, or any food safety issue related to products you sell through Flourish Bakers.

12. Termination

You may cancel your account at any time from your dashboard settings. Flourish Bakers may suspend or terminate your account if you violate these Terms, engage in fraud, or cause harm to other users. We will notify you unless doing so would compromise an investigation or the safety of other users.

If you think we got a suspension wrong, email legal@flourishbakers.com and we will look at it again.

13. Account suspension, deletion & retention

You can temporarily disable your account at any time from your account settings. This hides your account (and, for Bakers, your storefront and pauses subscription billing) and is reversible any time you sign back in.

Requesting account deletion schedules permanent removal of your login and personal profile information 30 days from the request date. Signing back in during that window cancels the scheduled deletion. For Bakers, requesting deletion also cancels any active subscription.

After the recovery window closes, order records are retained in anonymised form for tax, accounting, and legal compliance. They remain in a Baker’s records but are no longer linked to a deleted Customer’s identity.

14. Dispute resolution

Any dispute arising from these Terms or your use of Flourish Bakers shall be resolved through binding arbitration under the rules of the American Arbitration Association, on an individual basis. You waive any right to participate in a class action lawsuit or class-wide arbitration against Flourish Bakers.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to its conflict of law provisions.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the platform evolves. Material changes will be communicated via email at least 14 days before taking effect. Continued use after that date constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

16. Contact

Flourish Bakers
Email: legal@flourishbakers.com