What Hotplate does
What is Hotplate?
We get this question a lot because Hotplate powers the sale of food in a way that is new and unfamiliar to most people.
The short version: we’re on a mission to make it possible for anyone to start and scale a profitable food business.
Businesses on Hotplate can start same-day, with almost no capital or money in the bank, and will make 50-80%+ profit margins, depending on the kind of food they make and sell.
The longer version goes a little something like this:
What does Hotplate do?
Hotplate automates everything for your business — from creating your website to communicating with customers, managing inventory so you don’t oversell, processing payments, generating order tickets, calculating your prep list, and surfacing actionable insights.
Focus on the food, let Hotplate handle the rest.
Orders through Hotplate are pre-orders, which means customers purchase their food before coming to pick it up. (You can read more about why we support that model here [link].)
What does Hotplate not do?
We are not a consumer marketplace. This means we don’t advertise you in a sea of other businesses for customers to browse through. Each chef or baker on Hotplate gets their own storefront that is a 1:1 connection between them and their customers.
Choosing not to be a marketplace is an intentional choice. And it’s one that aligns with our values:
Our mission is to make food businesses more profitable, not less
Marketplaces often kill small businesses, taking a 25%+ cut from every order.
You should own your own customer data
Marketplaces own the customer relationship, you do not. At Hotplate, we believe we should continuously work for the opportunity to support your business. At any point, if you want to download your list of customers and go somewhere else, that’s entirely your purview. Other marketplaces won’t let you do that.
Your individual brand should shine
Most marketplaces minimize your brand so that consumers are more connected with the marketplace than with your individual business. At Hotplate, we believe individuality is what helps businesses cultivate a loyal customer base and scale it.
This does mean that chefs on Hotplate hustle to build their own customer base [link to learning library]. That said, we help accelerate your efforts. A number of our features are designed to help grow your subscriber list, reward your regulars, keep everyone in the loop, and save you time.
And because Hotplate drops are way more fun and socially engaging (we’ll talk about the Customer experience in a sec) than your typical methods of placing an order, they naturally lead people to spread the word. Friends don’t let friends miss out on the best food in town. 🤷♀️
So, what features do I get with Hotplate?
You get a lot included with Hotplate:
A system built for pre-orders
Anytime you want to sell, you set your menu, inventory, schedule when orders open and close, and when and where customers will pickup.
Texting and customer communication
We automatically notify your list whenever your orders open, and allow you to send additional messages for promotions or customer touch points.
We let you chat with customers 1:1 via the Hotplate Inbox in case you need to get in touch directly.
We send automated reminders so your customers don’t forget to pickup their order
A website for your business
We automatically create a website for your business, which you can customize with your branding. There’s no need to pay money or spend time trying to build your own storefront.
Customer engagement tools
Customers subscribe to your storefront to get notified of your drops. You can turn on our loyalty program feature and create discount codes to reward your best customers — or the brand new ones! You can also prompt customers to leave a review which you can showcase on your storefront.
Payment processing
Hotplate uses Stripe for payment processing, so everything is secure and seamless. Stripe is PCI-Level 1 certified — the highest level of payment security. Once you connect your bank account, you can cash out anytime.
Inventory
We have an agile inventory system that actually prevents you from over-selling. Limit inventory per item, per customer, per time slot — or some combination of those — to sell exactly how much you want to sell.
Item waitlist feature
Once an item sells out, customers can enter their phone number to get added to your waitlist.
Insights
We make it easy to see how your business is performing in terms of revenue, tips, which items are performing best, subscriber growth over time, and more.
Community
We support thousands of businesses across the country, and hundreds are active in our online community. You’ll get to join the group to ask other Hotplate businesses about anything, share learnings, test upcoming features, and be the first to hear about product updates.
Constant iteration
We’re constantly building, testing, and improving features to increase conversion, dollars made, and time saved for Hotplate chefs.
Last but not least…
…an actually human team!
We’re a small team of 9 in San Francisco, CA. We will actually get on a call with you to help you get set up, increase your sales, answer your questions, and take any feedback right to our product team.
We don’t charge ‘extra’ for any of our features. Everything in Hotplate is accessible to you once you create an account for free.
How much does Hotplate cost?
It’s completely free to create and hold an account on Hotplate. We only make money when a customer places an order.
Hotplate chefs only pay payment processing: 2.9% of the transaction + 30 cents, which goes straight to our payment processor, Stripe.
To cover the features we provide, we charge a fee to your customer: 5% of their subtotal + 55¢. We never charge on tip or tax. This comes out to $1.80 on a $25 order.
If you’d like to take on more of the fees, or pass more onto your customer, you can actually customize the split. That said, 80% of Hotplate chefs keep the default as-is.
Who is Hotplate for?
Hotplate is built first and foremost for pop-ups, cottage food operations (CFOs), microenterprise home kitchen operations (MEHKOs), home-based restaurants and cafes, mobile food trucks, and folks selling food from commercial kitchens.
We are primarily built for food-sellers who don’t have a restaurant or brick & mortar and who need more flexible systems than a standard point-of-sale.
We are a pre-order platform — not an in-person point-of-sale system.
We also help brick & mortars manage long-lines and sell outs, allowing customers to order ahead, pickup and skip the walk-in line. Because Hotplate is purpose-built for pre-orders and designed to handle limited inventory and heavy demand, it’s especially helpful for holiday rushes. Think cookie boxes, Thanksgiving pies, or Mother’s and Father’s Day specials.
How does Hotplate work?
An order through Hotplate is a pre-order. They are placed through drops.
A drop is a typical way of selling concert tickets, sneakers, and limited edition merch, but it’s not the traditional way of selling food.
Here’s how a drop works:
Setting it up
You create a drop with the menu, inventory, pickup locations and times.
You schedule when orders open and close.
Customer experience
Right before your pre-orders open, Hotplate sends a text to your subscribers with the link to your drop.
Customers click the link and see a short countdown before orders open. There’s a fun, anonymous chat you can enable to let customers get hyped up.
Once orders open, customers add items to cart as quickly as they can to beat out the competition.
Customers select their pick up day and time and checkout.
If a customer abandons their cart or takes too long, their cart timer expires and their items will be released so that someone else can buy it.
After placing their order, customers receive an order confirmation text and email.
Your customer receives pickup reminder(s) as their pickup approaches.
Customers leave a glowing review after their pick up, and post about their experience to drive some extra traffic to your storefront!
Your experience
As soon as your customer places their order, that revenue is available to you to payout. You can do so at anytime.
We create a prep list based on all your orders, and a series of customer tickets so you can see who ordered what, alongside all of their pickup details.
Most Hotplate chefs will space out their prep over a few days in preparation for a later pick-up date.
This cycle continues, your customer list grows, and your drops sell out faster and faster.
How can I get started?
Create your storefront by going to hotplate.com and clicking Sign up. Type in your phone number, answer a few short questions, and you’ll be well on your way to starting a profitable food business.
