Craftybase is Stocksmith now, built for product businesses with staff and six figures in revenue, opening at $49/mo. Cottage food is the opposite end: a batch of jam is fruit, sugar, pectin, and a case of jars — twelve half-pints, each needing a label, a price, and a sell-by — sold Saturday mornings at a table. MadeKeeper costs the batch to the jar, keeps the records your state's program asks about, and tells you whether the table beat staying home.
The app is live. Free during the pilot. Founding rate $19/mo, locked for life — no order-line meters, ever.
Honest up front: MadeKeeper is an early open pilot — free while we build with founding makers, and the core app is live today. Zero customers, so zero testimonials; every Craftybase fact below is sourced on the main comparison page.
Cottage food runs on batches and market days, and MadeKeeper is built around both. Every water-bath run gets a batch date and a sell-by, so what's fresh, what's close, and what goes in the discount basket is a glance. Market day is the P&L: table fee, miles at the IRS rate, and the morning's hours against what actually sold — the drive-home question, "did I even make money today?", gets a number. And the batch records — dates, ingredients, lots — sit in the app instead of a recipe-box card, ready when your program asks. Your state's allowed list and caps stay yours to check; MadeKeeper keeps the paperwork, it doesn't make the compliance call for you.
Your history comes across free. Export from Stocksmith, drop the files in, and purchases become lots, batches stay batches on their dates, and orders become sales — previewed, and undone in one click. See how the migration works →
Craftybase is Stocksmith now, and it's grown toward bigger operations — a fair path for them, and the right tool if you run at scale. But if you're a cottage food maker at one bench and one booth:
Everything Craftybase was loved for at your size, plus per-event fair profit it never had — and it stays this size on purpose. See the full head-to-head →
Materials and true cost per piece, batch "makes" with your labor amortized in, the suggested-price coach, product variants, sales that drain stock, the market-day quick-sale screen, lot tracking, the was-this-fair-worth-it event math, money-insight reports, multi-location consignment, the cure/best-by heads-up engine, mileage, expenses, and the Schedule C tax packet — all in the app today, with guided setup and the full Craftybase history migration to get you started. Etsy and Square sync, your own storefront, shipping labels, email to past buyers, and AI data entry are building, shaped with founding makers. Nothing above describes a feature that doesn't exist without saying so. See the full live-vs-building list →
MadeKeeper is $19/mo, one plan, everything included, live now — against Stocksmith's (formerly Craftybase) $49-and-up ladder built for scale. For a home kitchen selling at markets it's sized right: batch-to-jar costing, sell-by dates, market-day profit, and exportable batch records.
Yes to both. Batches carry made-on and sell-by dates, so your stock answer is "what's fresh," not just "what's on the shelf." And every market logs its table fee, round-trip miles, and hours against what sold — profit, profit per hour, and a go-back-or-skip verdict, answered before the drive home.
It keeps the records — batches, dates, ingredients, lots, and sales — organized and exportable, the paperwork your program asks about. What your state allows, caps, and requires on labels stays between you and your program's rules; MadeKeeper helps with the records, it doesn't claim to make you compliant.
The app is live and free during the pilot. Lock the $19/mo founding rate for as long as you stay.