How to take deposits for custom cake orders.

The short answer

How should a home baker take deposits?

Take a deposit when the order is booked, sized to cover what you would lose if the customer cancelled, and ask for the rest before the handover rather than at it. Say what the deposit covers and when it can be refunded, in writing, before you take it. That last part is what makes it stick.

This is practical guidance, not legal advice. The consumer-law points below come from regulator guidance in Ireland and the UK, checked on 8 October 2026. If you are unsure about your own terms, the CCPC in Ireland and Citizens Advice or Trading Standards in the UK are the people to ask.

1 · Why

What a deposit is actually for

A deposit does two jobs. It turns “yes, I’d love one” into a booking, because a customer who has paid something is far less likely to vanish. And it covers what you spend before the date: ingredients and decorations bought for that order, a stand or a topper, and the slot in your week you turned someone else away for.

That second job is also what makes a deposit fair, and fairness is what decides whether you can keep it. More on that below.

2 · How much

Setting the size of a deposit

Work it out from your own costs rather than copying a percentage. For a typical custom cake, the honest question is: if this customer cancelled the week before, what would I be out of pocket?

• Materials bought for this order. Anything you would not use for another cake: a printed topper, a particular colour, a tier of a size you rarely bake.
• The slot. A Saturday in June that you held for them is harder to fill at short notice than a Tuesday in February.
• Work already done. Design time, a sketch, a tasting box.

A larger order, a busier date or a more unusual design justifies a larger deposit. If you have already priced the cake properly, the costing guide breaks out most of these numbers for you.

3 · The rules

“Non-refundable” does not mean what most people think

Writing that a deposit is non-refundable does not, on its own, let you keep it whatever happens. In both Ireland and the UK, a term in a contract with a consumer that is unfair is not binding on them, even if they agreed to it.

• If the customer simply changes their mind, a business is generally entitled to keep a deposit. That is the case a deposit exists for.
• If the deposit is far more than your real loss, a term keeping all of it is at risk of being unfair. UK guidance says a business is generally only entitled to keep enough to cover the losses that directly result from the cancellation.
• If you fill the slot with another order, the loss you can point to shrinks, and so does what you can fairly keep.
• If you cancel, or cannot deliver, the customer is entitled to their money back. All of it, and promptly.

4 · Cancelling online orders

Do customers get 14 days to cancel a cake?

Usually not. Orders placed at a distance, online or by message, normally come with a 14-day right to cancel. But that right has exceptions, and two of them describe most custom cakes: goods made to the customer’s specifications or clearly personalised, and goods that spoil quickly.

A cake with a name on it, made to a design you agreed, falls squarely inside those exceptions. A batch of standard cookies ordered online sits closer to the line. If you sell both, say in your terms which orders are made to order.

None of this changes the rules above. The exceptions remove the automatic right to cancel; they do not make an unfair deposit term fair.

5 · Taking the money

How to take a deposit

• Bank transfer or Revolut. Free, familiar, and the money arrives with the customer’s name. Give them a reference to use: their order number or the date.
• A payment link from Stripe, SumUp or PayPal. The customer pays by card, you get a record, and the provider takes a small fee. Card payments can be disputed, so keep the agreed terms somewhere you can show them.
• Cash at a tasting or a market. Fine. Write a receipt.

If you use PayPal, ask for a payment for goods and services, not a payment to a friend. The friends option is meant for personal transfers, and it leaves both of you without the protection a business payment has.

When to ask for the rest

Ask for the balance a few days before the date, not at the collection. A customer standing in your kitchen with a cake in a box is the worst moment to discover they meant to pay next week.

6 · In writing

Put the deposit on the order, before you take it

A deposit agreed in a chat is a deposit you will argue about. Before the customer pays, they should be able to read:

• how much the deposit is, and what it covers;
• when the balance is due, and how to pay it;
• what happens if they cancel, and by when;
• what happens if you have to cancel.

These belong with your other policies worth stating up front, and on the order itself: the cake order form template has a deposit line and an agreement box for exactly this.

A message you can send

“Lovely, I can do that for the 12th. A deposit of £30 books the date and covers the ingredients and decorations for your cake. The balance of £65 is due by the 10th. If you cancel more than 14 days before, I refund the deposit less anything already bought; after that it is not refunded. If I ever have to cancel, you get it all back. Bank details are below. Use your order number as the reference.”

7 · About ours

Where Rapid Cart fits

This section is about our tool. Everything above works without it.

• Every order on your Rapid Cart page has a reference, which makes a tidy payment reference for the deposit and the balance.
• Put your deposit terms in your page description, so customers read them before they send the order rather than after.
• Keep a private note on the order when the deposit arrives. Your customer never sees it.
• It does not take payment. You take the deposit the way you choose, from the list above.

A deposit situation this guide does not cover? We would genuinely like to hear it: info@rapidcart.co