Farmigo alternatives for small CSAs

For a CSA under 300 members, the choice between Farmigo and its alternatives comes down to three pricing models, not three feature lists: platforms that take a percentage of every share, flat-fee software billed monthly, and running the CSA on your own WooCommerce site with a CSA plugin. On a 150-member farm, the percentage model costs the most by a wide margin, flat-fee software sits in the middle, and your own store costs the least but asks you to own a website. This guide covers what a CSA platform actually has to do, what to check before you switch anything, the cost of each model on a real season, and how to move members without losing a week of signups.

What CSA software has to do

Farmigo set the expectations for a generation of farms, and whatever you pick has to clear the same bar:

• Seasons and shares: a summer season with full and half shares, a winter season with a different box, each with its own price, length and signup window.
• Pickup sites and delivery zones: members choose a site or a delivery day at signup; the farm gets a roster per site per week.
• Payment plans: pay in full, in instalments, or weekly; a card on file; late signups prorated.
• A member portal: change pickup site, put a week on hold for vacation, update the card, see what is in the box.
• Weekly operations: a box planner, pack lists by share type, pickup rosters, and an email to members about this week’s box.
• Add-ons and a farm store: eggs, bread, extra tomatoes, sold alongside the share and packed into the same box.
• Waitlists when a site fills, and an export of everything if you leave.

If an alternative cannot do pickup rosters and holds, it is a store, not a CSA platform, however good the storefront looks.

The three pricing models

Percentage of sales

Some platforms charge the farm nothing up front and take a cut of every share sold, often alongside a per-order fee charged to the member. The pitch is zero risk. The reality for a healthy CSA is that the fee grows with your success and never stops: a farm that doubles its members doubles its software bill.

Flat-fee SaaS

A monthly or annual subscription in tiers by member count or by features, with payment processing passed through at the processor’s rate. Predictable, usually with real support, and the mid-range cost for most farms. Check what happens to the price when you cross the next member tier, and whether the off-season months are billed.

Your own WooCommerce site with a CSA plugin

You pay for hosting (which most farms already do for a website), a domain, and a plugin licence. Processing is at Stripe’s or your gateway’s rate. The farm owns the member list, the site and the data, and nothing is billed per share. The cost is that someone has to keep a WordPress site updated, which is an hour a month if the site is simple.

The cost on a real season

Take a farm with 150 members, an average share of $600, and a 20-week summer season: $90,000 of share revenue, plus around $12,000 of add-ons and farm store sales. Payment processing is roughly the same in every model (about $3,000 at typical card rates) so it is left out.

Model	Assumption	Annual software cost
Percentage of sales	4% of $102,000	$4,080
Flat-fee SaaS	$75 to $150 a month, billed all year	$900 to $1,800
Own WooCommerce site + CSA plugin	hosting $150, domain $15, licence $199	$364

The percentage model is the most expensive at every size above about 40 members, and the gap widens as you grow. The flat-fee model is a reasonable buy if you want a support desk and no website to maintain. The own-site model wins on cost and ownership and asks for a little technical confidence, or a local web person for a few hours a year.

Feature by feature, model by model

The features above are table stakes, but the three models deliver them differently, and the differences are what you will live with every Tuesday morning.

What you need	Percentage platform	Flat-fee SaaS	Own WooCommerce site
Seasons, shares, instalments	Yes	Yes	Yes, with a CSA plugin
Pickup rosters and holds	Yes	Usually	Yes, with a CSA plugin
Box swaps before a cut-off	Sometimes	Sometimes	Depends on the plugin
Farm store in the same box	Yes, with fees on each order	Usually	Yes, it is WooCommerce
Member list and data	On their system	On their system, exportable	In your database
Your website	Theirs, or a link from yours	Theirs, or a link from yours	One site, one login
Support	Email, varies	Email or phone, included	Plugin support plus whoever keeps your site
Cost scales with	Your sales	Your member count	Nothing

The last row is the one to think about in year three. A CSA that grows from 150 to 300 members keeps the same software bill on its own site, roughly doubles it on tiered SaaS, and exactly doubles it on a percentage platform.

What to check before you switch anything

1. Export. Get a full export from your current platform now, before you need it: members, emails, share type, pickup site, payment status, balance owed. If it cannot export balances, you will be reconstructing them from receipts.
2. Payment timing. Members who paid for the season on the old platform have a balance there. Either finish the season there and move at the boundary, or move the balances as credits on the new system. Mid-season moves are possible; mid-season moves with instalment plans are painful.
3. Pickup site logic. Can the new system cap a site, waitlist it, and let a member switch sites for one week? Rosters per site per week are the farm’s operating document; make sure they print the way your crew reads them.
4. Holds and customisation. Vacation holds with a cut-off, and ideally swaps within the box before that cut-off. Swaps are the feature members ask for most and the one that reduces “I got three kohlrabi again” emails.
5. Member emails. Who sends the weekly box email, from what address, and does it go through a proper mail service so it does not land in spam.
6. The farm store. Per-weight and per-unit products, pre-order windows, stock, and charging to the card on file so the egg order lands in the same box.
7. The exit. Ask the same export question of the new platform. If the answer is a shrug, keep looking.

Moving members without losing a week

1. Move at a season boundary if you possibly can; open the new season’s signup on the new system and close the old one.
2. Import the member list first, with pickup site and share history, so returning members see their usual site preselected.
3. Send one email with one link: “Sign up for summer on our new site, your pickup site is already set.” Returning members should be done in two minutes; test it with a friendly member before the blast.
4. Keep the old platform readable for a month for the records, then export one last time and close it.
5. Run the first two weeks of rosters from both systems side by side if any member paid on the old one; after that, one system.

Mistakes that cost a season

• Switching in week three. Members have paid, rosters are running, and now half the data is in each system. Finish the season, then move.
• Importing members without their pickup site. Every returning member then has to choose again, and a tenth of them choose wrong. Import the site with the member.
• Sending the signup email from the new site’s default mail. It lands in spam, signups stall, and you conclude the new platform does not work. Authenticate the domain and send through a mail service first.
• Treating the farm store as separate. If add-ons do not land in the same box on the same roster, the crew packs twice and members get two deliveries. Insist on one box.
• Forgetting the off-season. Flat-fee platforms bill in January too. Ask whether there is an off-season rate, or plan the licence as an annual cost.

Running it on your own store

HarvestShare is the third model: a CSA plugin for WooCommerce with seasons, share types, pickup sites and delivery zones, a member signup block and member portal, a weekly box planner, pickup rosters and member emails in the free plugin. Pro adds box customisation with swap groups and a weekly cut-off, a farm store with per-weight and per-unit products charged to the card on file and packed into the next box, and waitlists with timed offers, for $199 a year for one farm. The member list, the season and every roster live in the farm’s own site.