Cardel is a site builder for authors and solo creators with email, community and shop tools. Plans start at $15/month billed annually. See features and pricing.
Researched and fact-checked by Bartu Cavusoglu · Updated October 26, 2026
Cardel is a site builder made for authors and other solo professionals. Instead of treating a website as one product and email, a shop, bookings and a community as others, it puts them in a single account under the creator's own brand and domain. Its tagline is "One home for your craft."
The company describes the problem plainly: a website in one place, email in another, and a shop, bookings and community somewhere else, which means more logins, more bills and a lost audience. Cardel's answer is to bring the website, content, audience, email, commerce and community together.
Cardel Technologies, LLC operates the product. The founder, Orin Hutchings, is an epic fantasy author who runs his own Cardel site, and the company says that experience shapes the product for other authors and creators.
Cardel frames its workflow in three steps. In the first, you build your site with your theme, brand and pages on your own domain, using Guided Mode or Editor Mode. The homepage shows demo sites for authors, a bakery, an artist and a designer, which gives a sense of the range.
In the second step, you engage your audience. Contacts can be organized with groups and tags, or imported from an existing list, and you can reach them by email, blog, community and chat. The homepage also points to a Metrics area for tracking.
In the third step, you sell and earn by featuring your craft and getting paid through shop pages and bookings. Card sales run through Stripe. The company says you can build your site first and you don't pay until you publish.
On the site side, Cardel includes a custom domain with HTTPS, Editor Mode, theme and font controls, a brand kit and AI Theme Suggest. Public content tools include a blog, reader engagement, a community with channels, a video catalog, showcase pages and shop pages. SEO is included, and public pages are designed for WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility.
Email is a major part of the product. Users can send and receive from their own domain, use email templates and From addresses, build drafts with an AI Email Template Builder and run bulk email workflows. Transactional emails are unlimited on every plan, while marketing email volume rises by tier.
Messaging includes built-in chat, a Messaging Center and AI Suggest. Commerce features on higher plans include Stripe shop payments, orders and fulfillment, manual order entry, and scheduling and bookings. Pro and Studio also add per-admin permissions.
Cardel is a site builder for authors and solo professionals. It combines a website, blog, audience tools, email, community, chat and a shop on the creator's own domain.
Cardel has three plans: Starter at $15/month, Pro at $39/month and Studio at $79/month, each shown with annual billing. The site advertises a 20% saving for yearly billing. Sales tax is added at checkout where it applies.
The site does not list a free plan or a named free trial. It says you can build your site first and you don't pay until you publish.
Cardel is aimed at authors and other solo creators and professionals, such as artists, writers and designers. It suits people who want their site, audience and shop in one place rather than several tools.
Yes, through shop pages with Stripe card payments on Pro and Studio. Cardel takes a 0.5% application fee on those sales, and Stripe's own fees still apply. Starter lists outbound links only.
Yes. Every plan includes a custom domain with HTTPS and email sent and received from that domain. Cardel includes the DNS records for the site and for email.
The only integration named on the site is Stripe, used for shop payments. No other third-party integrations are listed.
Yes. Cardel lists AI Theme Suggest, an AI Email Template Builder, AI Suggest and an AI Assistant. They use a monthly token allowance of 1M on Starter, 5M on Pro and 10 to 25M on Studio, and unused tokens do not roll over.