Do send
When one account is worth enough to earn back the cost ten times over. When you've already emailed three times and heard nothing back. When you know exactly who you want to talk to and which address they sit at.
Comparison
Cold email versus a cake.
An honest comparison between a cold email and a cake on the desk. ColdCake is more expensive, slower, and doesn't scale.
Cold email versus ColdCake
More expensive. Slower. One at a time.
A ColdCake is a cake with your message on it, delivered to the desk of someone you don't know yet. Everything that makes email cheap and fast, this cake deliberately doesn't do.
Benchmarks 2024 · Lavender. Every ColdCake figure on this page is a target, not a measured result.
500 1
Five hundred emails versus one cake. Same message, different weight.
What it is
A cake as first contact.
A ColdCake is a cake with your message on it, delivered to the work address of one prospect you don't know yet. One cake, one name, one line. The goal is exactly that of a cold email, except this thing actually gets through the door. This channel is called coldcaking.
Nine rows, two columns
More expensive. Less. On purpose.
ColdCake loses every row below that's about volume or cost. That's not the bad news on this page, that's the mechanism.
| Per send | Cold email External benchmark | ColdCake Target, not yet measured |
|---|---|---|
| Volume per week | 500One template, sent five hundred times. Scaling costs almost nothing, so everyone does it and the recipient knows it. | 1One per week isn't a ceiling, it's the dosage. Sending more makes them worth less, not more. |
| Cost per send | A few centsTool, seat and list spread across thousands of addresses. So cheap that sending itself no longer proves anything. | €160 to €460Three sizes, delivered in Flanders and Brussels. The price isn't the problem here, the price is the signal. |
| Meetings per 100 contacts | ≈ 0.5Out of 100 emails sent, 1.7 get a reply. Some of those become a meeting.Calculated from Lavender 2024 | Target ≈ 28Target: out of 100 contacts, 40 percent reply, and a cake already opens the conversation halfway.Target, not yet measured |
| Work per send | Copy-pasteTemplate, merge tag, send list. The recipient can tell from everything that it wasn't written for them. | ChoosingOne name, one line on the cake, one address. There's no version of this work you do five hundred times. |
| How it arrives | In a listAmong dozens of other unread lines, under a tab nobody opens voluntarily. | On a deskIn a box, with a name on it, accepted by someone who has to sign for it. |
| Who else sees it | NobodyOne screen, one pair of eyes, and those eyes are already looking elsewhere. | The whole floorA cake gets shared. Reception, the team, the kitchen. Your message gets talked about instead of forwarded. |
| How easy to ignore | One keystrokeArchiving takes less effort than reading. That's not an accident, that's learned behaviour. | Nearly impossibleSomeone has to do something with it: open it, share it, or throw it out. None of the three happens on autopilot. |
| What it says about the sender | You were on a listThe message itself proves no choice went into it. A thousand others got the same one. | Someone chose youMoney was spent and a day was waited before you had to do anything. That can't be faked at scale. |
| What it can't do | Not stand outThe channel still works fine. Just not anymore the moment attention is the goal. | Not scaleNo automation, no thousand a month, no saving an offer that doesn't hold up. See Limits, at the bottom of this page. |
Column 1 is an external benchmark: Lavender 2024. Column 2 are target figures for the first hundred deliveries, not realized results.
Dosage
When you send one. And when you don't.
This channel's range is narrow. Outside that range, it's not a smart channel, just an expensive cake.
Don't send
When you need to reach five hundred companies at once. When you don't yet know who the right person is inside that company. When your offer isn't ready: a vague pitch doesn't get better on a cake, just more expensive.
Why the numbers differ so much
Four reasons why a cake gets through.
It's not about the cake. It's about what a cake on a desk causes, and what an email in a full inbox doesn't.
Physical presence
An email exists in a list. A cake exists on a desk. Visual, tangible, shared with colleagues.
No spam filter
No DKIM, no sender reputation, no Promotions tab. A cake always arrives, opened or not.
Direct reciprocity
Sending someone a cake creates a mini-obligation to reply. That's behavioural psychology, not marketing.
The price does the work
An email costs nothing and therefore proves nothing. A €160 cake proves someone spent something first. That's exactly the part you can't automate.
From name to desk
How you send one.
Five decisions. Not one of them can a tool make for you, and that's exactly why this works.
-
Choose one name
No list, one person. A company with a real office in Flanders or Brussels, and someone who's there on a normal working day.
-
Write one line
What goes on the cake fits in one line. No pitch, no link, no three bullets. What doesn't fit on a cake doesn't fit in a first conversation either.
Build your cake -
Choose size and flavour
M from €160, L from €250 or XL from €400. The flavour doesn't make the cake better or worse at what it does, so pick the one you'd eat yourself.
See the options -
Give the work address and a day
Delivery on a working day, at reception, in Flanders and Brussels. No home address: a cake that arrives at home is a gift, not a message.
How it works -
Call or email the next day
The cake opens the conversation, it doesn't carry it. Wait one day, refer to the line on the cake, and ask for twenty minutes. If it stalls, mail info@coldcake.be.
Delivery on working days in Flanders and Brussels.
Limits
What a cake doesn't do.
Six things we'd rather say now than afterwards. ColdCake has existed since 2025, works with one Antwerp bakery, and is open for orders. Everything listed above as a ColdCake figure is a target, not yet measured.
It doesn't scale
One bakery, real ovens, a real courier. There's no version of this product you do five hundred times a week. Anyone who needs volume needs email.
It doesn't automate
No sequence, no merge tag, no scheduled follow-up. Every cake costs someone a decision, and that's exactly the part you can't code out of it.
It costs more per contact than any digital channel
€160 to €460 versus a few cents. Target: about €400 per reply. Do that math before you order, not after.
It needs a real work address
A reception desk, an office, a colleague who signs for it. Companies without an office and home addresses fall outside what we can do. We deliver in Flanders and Brussels by default; Wallonia on request.
It doesn't rescue a bad offer
If your pitch doesn't work in an email, it won't work on a cake either. A cake buys attention, not interest. What you do with that attention is still on you.
It doesn't promise a reply
Our reply rate is a target, not yet measured. The ±40% applies to the first hundred deliveries and isn't a result. Anyone selling you a guaranteed reply is selling you something else.
Does your situation match one of these? Then don't order. Mail what you're trying to achieve to info@coldcake.be, and we'll tell you if this is the right channel.
The pitch
Send one. Or don't.
One cake costs more per contact than your whole cold email campaign. That's the bill, and also exactly why it stays on the desk.
Delivery in Flanders and Brussels · info@coldcake.be