Bake with confidence.
Customers reserve tomorrow's bake and pay today. By midnight, or the time you set, you hold the exact list of what to bake.
No card. Drip & Bake takes 0% of your sales.
Open or closed, customers reserve for tomorrow and pay.
A bakery's hardest number is how much to bake.
Customers who order until midnight, or the time you set, give you the exact number of each item to bake. Bake too little and the regulars leave empty-handed. Bake too much and it goes in the bin at close. Each reservation is one less number to guess, and the more of them arrive, the closer the bake gets to what was sold.
Know before you bake.
01 / BakeAhead in action
Reservations open when the store opens.
On any item opened to BakeAhead, checkout offers a choice: collect today, or reserve for tomorrow. A customer can buy for now and reserve for tomorrow in the same checkout and pay once.
Every paid reservation joins tomorrow's count in the BakeAhead manifest along with the customer's order number.
Each customer also receives the appropriate pickup window set by the merchant.
02 / BakeAhead after you close
The Midnight Club
After you close, your storefront keeps taking orders through a second door: the Midnight Club, a speakeasy-style private menu that sets the regular menu aside and puts tomorrow's bake first. Until midnight, or the time you set, checkout takes BakeAhead orders only.
Guests who arrive after close see a locked screen with a button to the Midnight Club. They sign in or create an account to enter, and the account keeps their receipt for pickup.
03 / The manifest
BakeAhead has its own queue and order tracker.
BakeAhead orders have their own manifest and queue, allowing shops to plan the bake and fulfil orders without disrupting the regular queue.
The numbers come in throughout the day, and the final list is available after cut-off time for bakers to view, print and plan around the orders. Each order is already paid for and accounted for.
04 / Pickup
Collected in the store's pickup window.
Each store has the pleasure of setting their pickup window to manage the order flow and offer their product when it's best.
When the pickup window opens, customers are reminded with their code and the time they can collect their order. The counter tablet switches to morning mode, and today's reservations move to the top.
05 / Handed over
Handed over by code.
The code finds the order in a second. Handing it over is the same moment as any other order: your stock comes down, the sale enters your books and the loyalty points land.
When a basket holds both today and tomorrow, the two parts are handed over separately, each when its day comes. Reservations nobody collected are listed in your dashboard, and nothing is refunded on its own.
06 / The store sets the rules
Your window, your items, your limits.
Each store chooses the pickup window and what can be reserved from adding an item to the menu. Anything that cannot be made ahead is never offered for tomorrow. Each item can carry a daily limit, say 40 croissants. Customers see "6 left for tomorrow" as it runs low and "Fully reserved" when it is gone, so the store never promises more than it bakes.
BakeAhead has its own home in your dashboard, with Tomorrow, Items and Settings. The cut-off, the reminder and any saving on reserved items are set in Settings, where BakeAhead can also be turned on or off at any time. BakeAhead sits on top of your opening hours and never changes them.
Misconception, and advice
Before you switch it on.
What BakeAhead leaves alone, and what helps it work.
The same item can be bought now and later.
Regular orders carry on as they are. A customer can still order the same croissant for the regular queue's ready time, and the receipt, at checkout and on the final copy, separates what's for pickup now from what's for pickup tomorrow.
Reward the people who plan ahead.
A small reward for reserving gives customers a reason to order ahead, and each reservation is one more number you no longer guess. BakeAhead works with or without a discount.
Bake with confidence
Today's customers
write tomorrow's list.
Start free — no card needed. Print your counter sign, put it beside the till, and see what happens.