Is $99 a month too much before this is a real business?

It might be, and it is fair to ask. If you sell a handful of things a month, $99 is a real number next to that. What it pays for is the website on your own domain, your own sending address, the checkout, stock, your customer list, posting to social networks and your money figures, in one place rather than a separate monthly fee for each. The first 14 days are free with no card, so you can build the whole thing before deciding. If it is not the right time, you stop by not carrying on, and nothing is charged.

Is there a smaller, cheaper plan to start on?

No. There is one plan, at $99 a month, with all sixteen apps included. There is nothing to upgrade to, so you never find out six months in that the feature you need lives on a more expensive tier. There is no yearly discount yet. If one arrives, it will be a straight reduction, not a different plan with different limits.

Will I outgrow it if this takes off?

The things that grow when a business works are unlimited: products, orders, bookings and invoices. What is measured is room: 10 GB of storage, 5,000 email sends a month (order and booking emails do not count), 10,000 customer records and three people with their own sign-ins. If you need more of any of those, you add it in one tap and can take it away again. Nothing switches off when you reach a limit. The plan itself never changes.

I only have evenings. How much setup is there?

As little as possible. You start from a finished site for your trade rather than a blank page, and a setup checklist knows what you have already done, so each evening starts where the last one stopped instead of at step one.

I already sell on Etsy. Do I have to stop?

No, you can keep your Etsy shop. Piggles does not connect to Etsy today, so Etsy orders and Etsy stock are handled on Etsy. Your own website, your market table and your invoices run from Piggles. To get started, drop your Etsy listings file and sold-orders file into Move in: your products arrive with their photos and options, and your past buyers come across from the orders.

Can I run it from my phone?

The parts customers see are built for a phone: your site reflows to fit a small screen, and the checkout works on one. Behind the scenes, counting and receiving stock work from a barcode on a phone too, with a stripped-back screen meant for one free hand.

Start the evening project on something you will not have to replace.

It is you, after work and on weekends, and it might be a real business by Christmas. Piggles gives you the website, the checkout and the list of people who bought from day one, and if it works, the same account is still the right one. Nothing to rebuild, nothing to move.

Start free for 14 days Other kinds of business

Free for 14 days
No card needed
All sixteen apps included

Piggles for side businesses

My SiteA website that looks finished on the first evening.
SellTake real payments from the very first sale.
HomeTen minutes before the day job, and you know where things stand.

If this sounds like your week

You have one free hour, and setup eats it.

Tuesday night, the house is quiet, and the hour goes on choosing a template, working out which add-on takes payments, and reading about domain settings. By eleven the site still does not exist and nothing has been sold.

The free version works until it suddenly does not.

A free page with somebody else’s name on it, a link in your profile, a payment app meant for splitting dinner. It holds at ten orders. At fifty you are rebuilding it, copying customers across by hand, and losing the address people saved.

The business is scattered across your phone.

Orders in direct messages, payments in another app, who bought what in a screenshot. You cannot say what you made this month, and neither can whoever does your taxes.

You added a tool for every problem.

A site builder, a shop add-on, an email tool, a post scheduler. Each has its own login and its own monthly fee, and the fees add up well before the sales do.

Start on the thing you would move to if it worked, and there is nothing to move when it does.

What most side businesses are juggling, and what takes its place

~~a free page on somebody else’s address, with a link in your profile~~My Site
The address people saved is yours from the first day, so nothing breaks the month you outgrow the free version.
~~a payment app meant for splitting dinner~~Sell
A real checkout records what was bought, by whom and where it ships, and the money settles into your own account with the provider you chose.
~~a website builder with its own monthly fee, and a shop add-on on top~~Sell
The shop is part of the same account as the site, the stock and the customer list, so there is no second fee and no second login.
~~a free mailing-list tool with its own login~~Messages
The people on your list are the people who bought from you, so the thank-you and the check-in start by themselves when an order comes in.
~~posting to each network by hand, when you remember~~Get Found
Write it once on a Thursday night and it goes out Saturday morning, cropped and trimmed for each network, while you are busy selling.
~~orders tracked in direct messages and screenshots~~Home
Orders to send and messages to answer are counted in plain sentences, each one tap from the list behind it, so nothing depends on scrolling back through a chat.

A normal week for side businesses, on Piggles

Tuesday, 9pm
You start from a finished site for your kind of work, with real pages already in it, swap in your photos and your words, and publish in one click on a free Piggles address. Your own domain can wait until you are ready, and the security certificate takes care of itself when it arrives.
My Site
Wednesday, lunch break
You add six prints with sizes and frame options and connect the payment provider you already use. The money settles into your account, on your terms, and the checkout works on the phone your customers will buy from.
Sell
Thursday, 10pm
One post, written once, goes to Instagram and your Facebook page, trimmed and cropped for each. It is scheduled for Saturday morning, when your customers are actually awake and you will be at the farmers market.
Get Found
Saturday, 7am
Home counts what piled up while you were at the day job: two orders to send, and a message somebody left through the contact form on your site. Each line opens the list behind it.
Home
Saturday, noon
The last large print sells at the farmers market table. You ring it up in Sell, it comes off the same stock number your site works from, and your site stops offering it, so nobody pays for something you no longer have.
Stock
Sunday, 7pm
Everyone who bought for the first time gets a thank-you from your own email address, then a check-in two weeks later. It started because they ordered, and it stops if they buy again first.
Messages
Sunday, 8pm
Money shows what you kept this month: sales, less refunds and what the materials cost you. It is the number that tells you whether this is a hobby that pays for itself or a business starting to happen.
Money

The apps side businesses use most, up close

My Site

A website that looks finished on the first evening.

You do not have a spare weekend to learn a website builder. My Site starts from a finished site for your kind of work, so the first evening is spent swapping in your photos and words, not deciding where the menu goes.

Everything My Site does

Ready-made sites come with real pages and real sections already in them, so you are editing from the start instead of staring at a blank page.
Colors and type are set once and worn by every page, so a change of look takes minutes rather than a night of editing section by section.
Every publish is saved as a version, so you can try something bold on Tuesday and roll it back on Wednesday.
Start on a free Piggles address and point your own domain at it whenever you are ready. The security certificate is issued and renewed on its own.
Every section reflows to fit a phone, which is where most people will land on your site from a link in your profile.
Messages people send through a form on your site are kept and readable, not lost in an inbox you check twice a week.

Sell

Take real payments from the very first sale.

The line between a hobby and a business is usually the checkout. Sell gives you a proper one from day one, with the money going into your own account, and it keeps working when ten orders a month turn into a hundred.

Everything Sell does

Products can have sizes, colors and options, and you can sell bundles and gift cards, not just a name and a price.
You connect a payment provider you choose, such as Stripe, PayPal or Square, and the money settles into your account on your terms.
Shipping is worked out by zone, weight or basket value, and tax by region, so you are not guessing at the post office counter.
Discount codes and automatic offers follow rules you can predict, so a launch-night code does not quietly stack with everything else.
Baskets people filled and left are listed, so a follow-up goes to somebody who was genuinely about to buy.
Returns end up right: the refund goes out and the stock count goes back up, once, with no fixing afterward.

Home

Ten minutes before the day job, and you know where things stand.

A side business happens in the gaps. Home is built for the gaps: one screen that says what needs you, in plain sentences, so the ten minutes you have go on doing, not hunting.

Everything Home does

Orders waiting to go out, chats waiting for a reply and messages sent through your site are counted on one screen, instead of spread across five apps on your phone.
Every line opens the list it counted from, so the sold-out line opens on just the sold-out items, not everything you make.
Things that have sold out or are running low get their own line, so you know what to make more of before the weekend.
When nothing is waiting, one quiet line says so, and a running record of everything that happened sits behind it, newest first.
Your business name, address and details are written once here and used on your invoices and documents from then on.
Two-step sign-in with a code from your phone protects the account that now holds your customers and your money.

Moving over

If you already sell on Etsy.

Download your listings file and your sold-orders file from Etsy, and drop them into Move in. Listings arrive as products with their options and photos, and past orders arrive as orders. Etsy has no customer list to export, so Piggles rebuilds your buyers from the orders file. Etsy counts stock per listing rather than per option, so give the counts a once-over afterward.

If you have a shop or a mailing list somewhere else.

For several of the common shop and website builders, Move in names the exact file to export and where to find it. Anything else comes in as a spreadsheet: say what each column means and see what will happen to every row before anything is saved. Your mailing list comes across the same way, and whether each person agreed to hear from you comes with it. The look of your old site does not travel, so start from a finished site here instead.

Then your address and your money.

Connect the payment provider you already use, so nothing changes about how you get paid. Keep the free Piggles address until the site is ready, then point your own domain at it. The security certificate is sorted out on its own, and the old site can stay up until the moment you switch.

Your first hour

Tell Piggles what you make. Your trade sets sensible defaults across every app, so a print shop does not start out looking like a salon.
Look around the practice records. The account arrives with sample products, customers and orders, so you learn on something that looks real.
Pick a finished site for your kind of work, change the words and photos, and publish it on your free Piggles address.
Add the first three things you actually have for sale, with photos, prices and options, and connect your payment provider.
Press the one button that clears the practice records. It removes every sample and touches none of yours.

$99 is real money for an evening project. Here is how to decide.

$99 a month

If you sell a handful of things a month, $99 may be too early, and it is fine to say so. If you already pay separately for a website builder, a shop add-on, an email tool and a post scheduler, add those up first. Piggles is one flat $99 with all sixteen apps, and the 14 days free are there so you can build the whole thing before you decide.

Try it free for 14 days Work out what you pay now

Included: your website on your own domain with the certificate, your own sending address, the checkout, stock, your customer list, posting to social networks and your money figures.
There is one plan and no cheaper starter tier, so there is also nothing to outgrow. Products and orders are unlimited.
The domain itself is one you register and own. Pointing it at Piggles, and the certificate that comes with it, cost nothing extra.
Your payment provider’s fees are between you and them, and they are not part of the $99.
The allowances are 10 GB of storage, 5,000 email sends a month, 10,000 customer records and three people with their own sign-ins. Most businesses never come near them, and more of any is one tap to add and one tap to remove.
If it is not the right time, you stop by not carrying on, and nothing is charged.

What side businesses ask before they start

Businesses a lot like yours

Everything side businesses need, for $99 a month.

Start free for 14 days See what it costs