How ranking works
Two different things decide what you see on a city page, and we think you should know which is which.
The main list of bakers on every city and search page is ordered by how well a listing matches what you're actually looking for — a wedding cake maker:
- Rating, where we have one. This counts for the most.
- How wedding-specific the bakery is — how many cake styles they actually work in.
- Whether they publish a starting price. Bakers who tell you what things cost up front rank higher, because that saves you an email.
- Review volume — but deliberately capped. A famous bakery with 20,000 reviews for its bread does not outrank a specialist wedding cake studio with 200. Popularity is a tiebreak, not the answer.
No baker can pay to move up that list. There is no package, no tier and no upgrade that changes it. We removed the paid ranking boost that used to exist, because a directory whose order is quietly for sale isn't worth reading.
If you sort by price or rating yourself, that sort wins outright — it is never re-ordered underneath you.
Claiming a listing does not improve its position. Ownership can be confirmed by card payment, so counting it would make ranking purchasable through the back door — which is precisely what this page promises it is not.
Above the organic results, each city has up to 3 Featured slots. These are paid placements. They sit in their own band, under a heading that says so, and every card carries a “Sponsored” label.
Featured slots disappear entirely when you apply a filter, so a filtered result set is never quietly reordered by who paid.
- Bidding starts at $1/month. In a city where nobody else is bidding, $1 takes the top slot.
- You pay one increment above the bid below you — not your own maximum. Bidding high is safe: it protects your position without raising what you actually pay.
- Ties go to whoever bid first.
- Anyone can outbid anyone, at any time. No contracts, no minimum terms, no renewals you have to remember to cancel.
A worked example
Three bakers bid in Austin: $9, $4 and $1.
- Slot 1 bid $9 → pays $5 (one increment over the $4 beneath them)
- Slot 2 bid $4 → pays $2
- Slot 3 bid $1 → pays $1 (the floor — nothing is beneath them)
Nobody pays what they bid. Everybody pays what it actually took to hold their position.
If you're outbid mid-month
You drop down the ladder and we refund the unused part of what you already paid, straight back to your wallet. Your price never goes up in the middle of a month — if the going rate rises, that only takes effect at your next renewal, and we email you three days beforehand.
Bidding without winning a slot
If your bid isn't high enough for one of the 3 slots, you are not charged anything at all. We show you what it would take to move up, and you pay nothing until you're actually being shown.
$2 per quote request. When a couple contacts a baker through the site, that baker's wallet is charged $2. If their wallet is empty, the enquiry is still delivered — we never hold a couple's message hostage.
We take no commission on the booking. Whatever the baker charges for the cake is entirely theirs.
Listings themselves are free, permanently. There is no monthly fee.
Own a bakery? Claim your listing free, then decide whether Featured placement is worth $1 to you.
Claim your listing