Starter
Free
Test it on your store with no commitment.
Start free- ✓Reminders for up to 50 customers
- ✓Occasionly branded widget
- ✓Default email wording
Birthday reminders that bring customers back to your bakery
Your customers save the birthdays and anniversaries of the people they bake for. Before each date, Occasionly sends a reminder under your bakery’s name, so the next order comes to you.
What Occasionly does for a bakery
Your customers already tell you who the cake is for. Occasionly gives them an easy way to save it. They add the names and dates of the people they bake for, birthdays, anniversaries and any other occasion, in a short form on your website. A couple of weeks before each date, a reminder goes out under your bakery’s name, with a button that takes them straight back to your shop.
The dates repeat every year, so one sign-up keeps working long after the first order. You do not chase anyone and you do not keep a spreadsheet. Replies go to the address you set, and every email carries an unsubscribe link.
Who it is for
Cake shops, patisseries and bakeries that take orders for birthdays, anniversaries, christenings and the other dates people plan around. It suits shops that already know their best customers order for other people, not just for themselves. The form works on Shopify and on any website where you can add a link or an embed.
Running a cake shop? See the page for cake shops.
How it works
Add the form to your site
Sign up, add your bakery’s name and colours, and copy your form link. Put it in your footer, on a product page, or wherever your customers are already thinking about the next order. It takes a few minutes and needs no developer.
Customers save their dates
A customer enters their email and adds the people they bake for: a name, the kind of occasion and the date. They can add as many people as they like in one go. They get a confirmation email straight away, so they know it worked.
Reminders go out on their own
The first reminder arrives 14 days before the date, and a second follows 5 days before, for the customer who has been meaning to order. Both carry a button back to your shop. When the date comes round again next year, the cycle starts over without anyone doing anything. You can change both timings in your settings.
What you control
Reminders should sound like your bakery, not like a software company. On every plan you choose the sender name your customers see, set the reply-to address so replies land in your inbox, and preview any email or send yourself a test before it goes anywhere.
On Pro and Business you can rewrite all three emails: the confirmation, the first reminder and the second reminder. Change the subject, the message and the button label, add a short promo line, and drop in details like the person’s name, the occasion, the date and your shop name. The form your customers use then carries your branding only, with no “Powered by Occasionly” line.
On Business you can send reminders from your own address, such as hello@yourbakery.com.au, set up once with a few DNS records. That makes the email unmistakably yours, and it is the option to choose if your shop already has a domain people trust.
To see what the reminders are doing, your dashboard shows who has signed up, which dates are coming up and how many people click through from each email. For Shopify stores, a small tracking snippet also shows estimated revenue from orders placed within 30 days of a reminder click.
What a reminder looks like
An example of the default wording. On Pro and Business you can rewrite it.
Subject Mia's birthday is coming up
Hi Sarah,
Mia's birthday is on 14 July. Just a heads up so you have time to sort something out.
Example Bakery
You are receiving this because you saved dates with Example Bakery. Unsubscribe.
Plans
Recommended
Pro
$29AUD / month
An unbranded widget and editable emails for growing stores.
Choose Pro- ✓Reminders for up to 500 customers
- ✓Editable emails
- ✓Unbranded widget
Business
$99AUD / month
No customer limit and your own sender domain.
Choose Business- ✓No customer limit
- ✓Everything in Pro
- ✓Send from your own domain
Every plan also includes a custom sender name, a reply-to address, a test send, the second reminder and estimated revenue tracking for Shopify stores.
Past your plan’s limit, new sign-ups are still saved and reminders are held until you upgrade.
Frequently asked questions
Does it work with my website?
Yes. The form is a link or an embed, so it works on Shopify and on any site where you can add either. Revenue tracking is built for Shopify stores today.
Do my customers need an account?
No. They enter their email and the dates they want to be reminded about, and they get a confirmation email straight away.
When do the reminders go out?
By default the first reminder goes out 14 days before the date and the second 5 days before. You can change both in your settings.
Can customers opt out?
Yes. Every email has an unsubscribe link, and one confirmation is all it takes. Addresses that bounce or report an email as spam are stopped automatically.
Will the emails reach the inbox?
Reminders are sent through an authenticated email service, and on the Business plan they come from your own domain. No tool can promise inbox placement, and we will not either, but mail from a sender your customers recognise gives it the best chance.
What happens if I have more customers than my plan includes?
New sign-ups are still saved and customers still get their confirmation email. Reminders go to your earliest customers up to your plan’s limit, and the rest are held until there is room, for example when you upgrade. Customers who have unsubscribed or whose address does not work do not count towards the limit.
Can I send reminders by text message?
Not at the moment. Occasionly sends email only.
How do I know it is working?
Your dashboard shows who has signed up and how many people click through from each reminder. On Shopify it also shows estimated revenue from orders placed within 30 days of a click. It is an estimate because it counts orders that follow a click, which is not the same as proving the reminder caused them.
Can I remove a customer?
Yes. You can delete any customer from your dashboard, and customers can unsubscribe themselves at any time.
What if a customer gets a date wrong?
They can fix it themselves. Every confirmation email and every reminder email has a link near the bottom that opens a private page for that customer and your bakery, without signing in. There they can change a saved date, meaning the person's name, the occasion, the day and the month, add another date, remove one, or remove all of them. The page shows your bakery's name, and its logo if it has one, and the customer's email address partly hidden, and it works whether or not they have unsubscribed.
More answers are in the full FAQ and the documentation.