Store playbook · Recipe PDFs + cook-alongs
Etsy buried the taco night card under mugs.
Sofia cooks in a kitchen that is too small and writes recipes that are not. Etsy treated her like homeware.
Illustrative playbook. Sofia Alves is a composite creator based in Porto, moving from Etsy. The figures show how the numbers can work for this niche; they are not a customer's results.
- February
- €3,420
- Taco night card
- €9
- 3-night cook-along
- €29
“Someone searching ‘taco’ on Etsy does not want my card. My people are already on Instagram, watching me burn garlic. The store is the fridge door.”
01
Etsy is a street market. Her audience is a following.
The taco night card did well when Etsy’s search liked it, then vanished under ceramic plates. Sofia’s Instagram is 73,000 people who already watch her cook. Sending them to Etsy was sending them to a different city.
Gumroad was the other tab. Same problem: a marketplace account between the Reel and the PDF.
02
The fridge door is the store
Three products. The €9 card, the €14 sauce book, the €29 cook-along as a course with three unlisted YouTube nights. Stripe in Portugal. Apple Pay in the Instagram browser. PDFs on the confirmation page so they can print before shop.
adfl.to/mesa.sofia in the bio. Portuguese and English on the page because her comments are both.
03
A quiet February
€3,420. No ads. The cook-along sold out the first week because she capped it in the product — sales limit is a real close, not a badge. She is on Starter. She will look at Pro if March looks like February.
She still posts the free recipes. The store is for the ones who want the list on paper.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
- Can I sell a PDF from Instagram?
- Yes. Digital file, checkout in the in-app browser, PDF on the confirmation page. Buyers pay your Stripe, Razorpay, or PayPal account.
- Can I cap a cook-along?
- Yes. Sales limit closes checkout when the seats are gone. It is not a decoration.
Starter is free. 5% of sales until Pro. Buyers pay your Stripe, Razorpay, or PayPal account.
Start free — same store-in-bio