Why deposits matter more than any other policy
A cancellation on a cake costs you the ingredients, the electricity, the time you turned down other orders, and the space in your fridge. A deposit is the difference between "I'm out a Saturday" and "I got paid for the work I did before they backed out." Every home food business that survives more than a year charges deposits. The question isn't whether — it's how.
How much to charge
Rules of thumb from operators on the platform:
- Standard orders (bakery, meal-prep): 25-30% of the order total, or a flat $20-$25. Big enough to matter, small enough that no one asks about it.
- Custom orders (cakes, catering): 50%. The larger your ingredient outlay and prep time, the higher the deposit needs to be to cover you if the client vanishes.
- Weddings and events: 50% at booking, balance due 14 days before the event. Full payment 14 days out is common for one-shot catering.
- Design fees (sculpted cakes, custom decoration): flat non-refundable fee separate from the deposit, collected at booking. Covers the design time even if the order cancels.
Refund policy that customers accept
Most deposit disputes come from unclear policy, not from unreasonable customers. State the policy on your storefront and in the confirmation email:
Deposits are fully refundable if you cancel more than 7 days before your pickup date. Cancellations within 7 days are non-refundable, because we've already sourced ingredients and reserved kitchen time for your order.
Tune the window to your prep cycle. Weddings might use 30-60 days. Meal-prep might use 48 hours. Whatever the number, put it in writing.
How deposits work in disbatch
Every disbatch shop can require a deposit at checkout: fixed dollar amount, percentage of the order total, or none. Stripe captures the deposit the moment the customer submits the order — the order isn't "confirmed" in your dashboard until the deposit clears. If Stripe declines the card, the order never gets to you.
Refunds happen from the order detail: click refund, choose partial or full, done. Stripe handles the customer notification.
Cash-at-pickup for the balance
Most home food operators collect a deposit at checkout and the balance in cash at pickup. disbatch supports this out of the box — toggle "cash accepted at pickup" per shop, and the customer sees "Balance due at pickup: $X" on the confirmation email. Everyone knows what they owe.
Handling no-shows
With a deposit, a no-show costs you time but not money. Keep the deposit under your policy, mark the order canceled in the dashboard so it stops appearing on your prep list, and move on. Do not chase. The reason you took the deposit was so you didn't have to.
Communicating the policy up front
Deposits work best when they're not a surprise. On your storefront, add a short "Ordering & Deposits" section describing the deposit percentage, the balance-due policy, and the refund window. In the confirmation email disbatch sends automatically, the deposit amount is called out. Customers who read it once won't argue about it later.
Ready to charge deposits like a real business?
Start a 14-day free trial and turn deposits on your first shop. The first no-show that happens after you enable deposits is the one that pays for the year of software.