Terms of Service

Version 2026-08-15. Last updated: August 15, 2026.

Cottage is made by Divinital. Questions about anything here go to cottage.support@protonmail.com, and a person reads that address.

These are the rules for using Cottage. They're written to be read, not skimmed past. Using the app means you agree to them, so if something below doesn't sit right with you, don't use Cottage — and tell us why, because we'd rather fix it than lose you.

The short version

• Cottage is software, not a bakery and not a store. We give bakers a place to post what's fresh and neighbors a place to find it. We don't make, handle, inspect, or deliver any food.
• The baker is the seller. Every sale is between the baker and the buyer. We're not a party to it.
• We never touch the money. You pay your baker directly, in cash or through whatever handle they give you. Cottage takes no cut and holds nothing.
• Bakers are responsible for their own food, labels, licenses, and taxes. The app helps you get the Florida rules right; it doesn't take them off your hands.
• Cottage is for Florida. Hand it over in person, or mail it to a Florida address — Florida's law allows both. Not across a state line.
• We have zero tolerance for objectionable content and abusive people. Report anything in one tap and it leaves your board that second; block a bakery and you're done with them. We look at every report within a day.
• You can close your account from inside the app, any time, and we can close an account that's being used to hurt someone.

What Cottage is, and what it isn't

Cottage is a storefront tool. A baker uses it to keep a page, write down recipes, print a legal label, set a pickup spot, and post what came out of the oven today. A neighbor uses it to see what's fresh nearby and ask for some.

That's the whole of it. We are not the seller, the maker, the handler, the inspector, or the deliverer of any food on this app. We don't set prices, we don't verify anyone's kitchen, and we don't guarantee that a bake is what it says it is or that it's safe for you to eat. When you ask a baker for a bake, your agreement is with that baker.

We also don't take a cut of anything sold here, and we never will. That's a decision, not a phase.

Your account

You need an account to follow a baker, ask for a bake, or start selling. Browsing needs nothing.

• Your account is yours. Don't let someone else use it, and tell us if you think somebody has.
• You have to be 13 or older to have an account, and old enough to enter a contract where you live.
• Give us true information. A phone number a baker can't reach isn't a phone number.
• One person, one account. Don't sign up on somebody else's behalf.

If you bake, this part is yours to get right

Cottage helps you follow Florida's cottage food law. It doesn't follow it for you. When you sell here, you're saying all of this is true and staying true:

• You run a cottage food operation in Florida, out of your own home kitchen, and you sell only to people in Florida — handing it over yourself, or mailing it to a Florida address. Not across a state line, and never to a shop or anyone reselling it. Every order is one person buying for themselves.
• You sell only foods the law allows. Shelf-stable things that don't need a refrigerator: what you bake, and also jams, jellies, honey, candies, dry mixes, granola, roasted nuts and popcorn. Not hot sauce, salsa, pickles or anything else kept safe by controlling its acidity — those need a process authority and FDACS registration, which is a different kind of business than this one. The app warns you, but the call — and the consequence — is yours.
• If you mail it, you pack it so it arrives as food. Cottage doesn't handle, pack, or carry anything. What's in the box, and what shape it's in when it gets there, is between you and your buyer.
• You label every product the way the law requires, with all six elements, including your name and address and the exact FDACS statement. The app generates that label for you. Printing it and putting it on the package is your job.
• Your address goes on it, and a parcel carries it twice. The label the law requires has your operation's address on it, and a mailed order needs a return address on the outside of the box as well. That means everyone who buys from you by mail, and everyone who handles the box, can read where you bake. We can't soften the label and we don't put your address on your page — but you should know this before your first parcel, not after it.
• You tell buyers the truth about allergens. If a bake has a common allergen in it, say so. This is the one place where being casual can send somebody to the hospital.
• You stay under Florida's annual sales cap (currently $250,000) and you understand that going over it means you're no longer a cottage food operation.
• Your taxes are yours. Cottage computes no sales tax and files nothing for you. What you owe, and to whom, is between you, your accountant, and the state.
• You honor what you accept. If you accept a request, have it ready, at the spot you named, when you said. If you can't, cancel it in the app so the person isn't standing on your street wondering.
• Your pickup spot is a real place you can safely meet a stranger. You choose it, you write the directions, and you decide who sees them — the app releases them only to a buyer whose request you've accepted. The one exception is yours to make: you can mark a spot public, which puts its address on every bake you post from there for anyone to see. That's for a market table or a church lot, and it is off until you turn it on.
• What you post is yours to stand behind — your photos, your descriptions, your prices, your bakery's name.

If your state or your county requires anything else of you, that's yours too. We tell you what we know about Florida's rules and we link the statute; we are not your lawyer and none of it is legal advice.

If you buy, here's what to expect

• You're buying from a neighbor, not from us. Cottage doesn't inspect kitchens, taste anything, or vouch for any baker.
• Cottage food is made in a home kitchen that is not inspected by the state. Florida requires bakers to say so on the label. Take it seriously, especially if you have allergies — ask the baker directly before you order, every time.
• You pay the baker, not us. Cash at pickup, or through whatever handle they give you. We never see it, so we can't refund it, hold it, or get it back for you.
• Pick up when you said you would, at the spot on your order. Somebody baked that for you.
• If something goes wrong with an order — the food, the price, the pickup, the parcel, the money — that's between you and the maker. A parcel that arrives late, broken, or not at all is theirs and the carrier's to sort out; Cottage never had it. We'll help where we can, but we can't decide it for you.
• If a bake, a bakery, or a photograph on a kitchen's wall shouldn't be here, report it. If you'd just rather not see a kitchen again, block it. Either one takes effect the moment you tap; "Zero tolerance" below says what happens after.

Money

Cottage is free right now, for bakers and for neighbors both. If we ever charge bakers, it will be a flat monthly subscription billed through Apple, and we'll tell you what it costs and what it includes before it starts. We will never take a percentage of what you sell. Apple handles billing and refunds for anything bought through the App Store, under Apple's rules, not ours.

Payment for the food itself never runs through Cottage. That's between the two people in the order.

What you post

What you write and photograph stays yours. By posting it, you give us permission to show it inside Cottage — on the board, on your page, on an order, on a kitchen's wall — so the app can do its job. That permission ends when you delete the thing, or your account, except for copies already made in the ordinary running of the app.

Post only what's yours to post. Don't use someone else's photos, someone else's bakery name, or a picture with somebody in it who didn't agree to be there. And remember what the privacy policy says: bake photos are public, and so is a photograph you post of what you picked up. Keep house numbers, mail, and other people out of the frame.

Anything you post that breaks the rules below comes off Cottage, and the account behind it can go with it. "Zero tolerance" says how that works, both for what you post and for what you find here.

Things you can't do here

• Sell anything that isn't a cottage food you baked yourself. Not other people's goods, not resold food, and nothing that isn't food.
• Sell anything Florida's cottage food law doesn't allow, or anything that needs a license you don't have. Nothing alcoholic, nothing containing cannabis or CBD, no supplements, no home remedies.
• Lie — about what's in a bake, about allergens, about where it was made, about who you are, or about a review.
• Harass, threaten, or endanger anyone, or post anything hateful, obscene, or aimed at a person.
• Use somebody's pickup address for anything other than picking up their bake. It was given to you for one order.
• Scrape, copy, or resell what's on the app; break into any part of it; or try to get at data that isn't yours.
• Build a competing service out of what you take from here.
• Use Cottage to arrange anything illegal.
• Come back after we've removed you. A second account opened to get around an account we closed, a bakery we took down, or a neighbor who has put you out of sight is the same account as far as these rules are concerned.

Zero tolerance for objectionable content and abusive people

There is no objectionable content on Cottage, and there is no room for anyone who abuses another person here. That means anything obscene, sexual, hateful, violent, discriminatory, harassing, or aimed at a person; anything that isn't yours to post; and any bake, photo, or bakery that is a lie about what it is. None of it belongs here, and none of it stays. We don't put up with a little of it either, which is why this gets a section of its own.

Three things make that real, and each of them does a different job.

Report it, and it's off your board before anyone has read it. Every bake and every bakery page carries a quiet Report row at the foot. Tap it, pick one of five reasons, and you're finished — nothing to write, nothing to submit. The thing goes off your board that second, and it's still gone when you sign in on another phone. Nobody should have to keep looking at what they reported while they wait on us.

We read every report within 24 hours. If what you reported breaks these rules, it comes off Cottage for everybody — the bake, the whole bakery, or the account behind it — and where somebody's safety is involved we act first and talk after. Reports are private: the baker is never told who reported them, or that they were reported at all. A report can't be withdrawn, because it's our record of what happened, not a setting.

Block a bakery and you're done with them. Under Report is Block. Their bakes and their page leave your board, the follow comes off, and no request of yours can reach them again. They're never told, and it files nothing with us — a block is your own preference, not an accusation, and it's the one of these you can take back. The way back is Account → Hidden from your board, any time. Putting a bakery back doesn't withdraw a report you filed on it; those are two different things and only one of them comes off.

If we take something of yours down, you'll find out in the app: the post carries a note, and a bakery that's been taken down can't post while that stands. If you think we got it wrong, write to cottage.support@protonmail.com and say so — a person reads it. Write to us there about anything a tap doesn't cover, too.

What we don't promise

Cottage is provided as it is. We work hard on it, but we can't promise it will always be available, always be correct, or always be on time. Phones lose signal, servers go down, and a notification that a bake just came out of the oven may arrive late or not at all. Don't rely on Cottage for anything where that would be a real problem.

We especially make no promise about any food sold through the app — not its safety, its quality, its ingredients, its allergens, or whether the baker who made it is following the law. We're not there when it's baked and we're not there when it changes hands. To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim every warranty, spoken or implied, including any implied promise that the app or anything sold through it is merchantable, fit for a particular purpose, or free of defects.

The compliance help in the app — the allowed-foods warnings, the generated label, the answers about what Florida permits — is information, not legal advice, and the law can change faster than an app does. A baker is responsible for their own compliance.

If something goes wrong

To the fullest extent the law allows: we are not liable for anything that happens between a baker and a buyer, or for anything you eat, sell, lose, or miss because of this app. That includes illness, allergic reactions, spoiled or mislabeled food, a pickup that didn't happen, money that changed hands, or a fine or penalty a baker incurs.

And to the fullest extent the law allows, if we are somehow found liable anyway, what we owe you altogether is capped at what you have paid us in the past twelve months, or one hundred dollars, whichever is greater. We are not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential losses — lost sales, lost profits, lost data, or lost time.

Some states don't allow parts of this. Where that's so, those parts don't apply to you and the rest still stands.

If you cost us something

If someone brings a claim against us because of what you did here — the food you sold, what you posted, a law you didn't follow, or a rule above you broke — that one's yours. You agree to cover us for it, including what it costs us to defend, and to work with us if we have to.

Ending it

You can leave any time. Open Account and tap Delete my account. It happens right there, in one step, and it can't be undone. The privacy policy says exactly what goes and what survives on the other person's side.

We can close or suspend an account that breaks these rules, puts somebody at risk, or is being used to break the law. We'll tell you why where we can. Where safety is the reason, we'll act first.

If the account of a baker with orders in flight ends, those orders are cancelled and the neighbor waiting on them is told, rather than left waiting.

The parts of these terms that are meant to outlast the account — what you owe us, what we don't promise, and where a disagreement goes — do.

Changes to these terms

If we change these terms, we'll update this page and change the date at the top. If the change is a big one, we'll tell you in the app before it takes effect, and for bakers we'll ask you to agree again. Keeping on using Cottage after a change means you accept it.

Florida law, and where a disagreement goes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Florida, without regard to how it handles conflicts of laws.

If we ever disagree, write to us first at cottage.support@protonmail.com and give us thirty days to make it right. Most things end there, and it costs neither of us anything.

If that doesn't settle it, any dispute goes to the state or federal courts in Martin County, Florida, and we both agree to be sued there. Either of us can still bring a claim in small claims court instead, if it belongs there.