The $80,000 storefront most people picture is the reason they never start. You do not need it. A home bakery runs under $1,000 if you bake under your state's cottage food law.
Nearly every state has a cottage food law that lets you bake and sell certain goods from a home kitchen with no commercial lease and no separate inspected facility, usually up to an annual revenue cap. Breads and most cookies qualify because they are shelf-stable. Anything that needs refrigeration, custard, cream fillings, cheesecake, does not, because it can grow bacteria at room temperature. Read your state's exact allowed-foods list before you plan a menu, because it decides your entire product line.
The catch worth knowing up front: cottage rules almost always limit you to direct sales, farmers markets, your own pickup, local events, and often ban wholesale and shipping across state lines. That is fine. Direct is where the margin is anyway. A loaf that costs you a dollar in flour and power sells for eight at a market stall.
You do not need a deck oven to begin. A good home oven and a Dutch oven produce genuinely excellent artisan loaves, the covered pot traps steam and gives you the crust people pay for. Add equipment when demand, not ambition, forces it.
Sell on pre-order, not walk-in. Take orders during the week, bake to that number, and sell out. Baking a guess and hoping people show up is how bakeries throw away their profit in unsold stock every night.
The rest, your state's cottage food specifics, the pre-order market model, and how to price for the revenue cap, is in the full plan:
See the full home bakery business plan →
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