About
Recipe.Site is an independently owned company. I started it in 2023, and currently work on it full-time. The company is run by me, Alexandria Baert (operations, full-time), and Chris Bendel (engineering, part-time).
Over the past few years, I have become somewhat obsessed with the experience of publishing and reading/cooking recipes. I think that obsession, combined with my love for design and technology, is what compels me to continue working on this tool, and to help creators build beautiful recipe websites and digital cookbooks. If you're interested in learning more about the project, I would love to hear from you: alex@recipe.site
In 2018 I joined Wikipedia, where I spent five years leading the design of the reading experience. I learned a lot about how people publish and read educational content online. During that time, I was cooking more and more. I naturally became curious about different ways to format, present, and interact with recipes. Sometime around 2021, I started to prototype digital recipe layouts. I eventually also became curious about the authoring and publishing experience for recipe creators, and how they make money. Recipe.Site evolved out of those explorations.
Other contributors
Stephanie Lau is an ongoing contributor. She has helped with ideation, strategy, and community building, and most recently curated Mixtures, a community cookbook featuring 20 recipes exploring the transition from summer to fall.
Conor Davidson was an early technical contributor to Recipe.Site (part-time, throughout 2024 and 2025). He was instrumental in standing up the recipe editor, recipe sites, subscriptions, newsletters, comments, digital cookbooks, and other features. He also brought an attention to detail that shaped much of the early product design.
Leo Intelisano was a technical contributor during the summer of 2025. He built the initial version of the recipe parser, which allows creators to easily import recipes from plain text into the Recipe.Site editor.
A Letter to Chefs & Recipe Creators
I’m Alex — I’ve been designing and building websites & software for the past 12 years. Most recently, I led the 2023 Wikipedia redesign. I also love to cook (lately lots of Detroit-style pizza). Over the years, I’ve found so many good recipes online, so I am grateful to you all. Recently, I’ve been thinking about the experience of discovering and cooking recipes, as well as the experience of writing, publishing, and selling recipes.
These days, so many recipes are being published on social media and in newsletters — it’s a wonderful explosion of creativity and knowledge sharing. But the experience of cooking from these recipes often falls short of what it could be. Imagine if we had well-formatted recipes with built-in timers and a hands-free mode (so we didn’t have to scroll our screens with messy hands). Easy ways to make personal notes, substitute ingredients, scale quantities, and convert measurements. And if everything were well organized and easily searchable.
Writing and publishing recipes should also feel effortless while still respecting the craft’s nuances. Imagine a tool that you actually enjoy writing recipes in, where your creative process is supported rather than hindered by technology. Where you could easily iterate, track changes, and refine your work. And perhaps most importantly, a tool that helped your business grow.
More and more people are willing to pay for digital recipes, as shown by platforms like NYT Cooking and Substack. But what exactly are they paying for? Yes, they want great content, but they also want a thoughtful, purpose-built experience. The ability to bookmark recipes, create collections, and access recipes in a format designed specifically for cooking. And while monthly subscriptions are proving successful, there’s room to explore other models too. Some creators might want to sell individual recipes or curated bundles. Others might want to enhance their brand partnerships or affiliate relationships in ways that feel natural and valuable rather than intrusive. The key is having flexible tools that support whatever business model works best for you.
With more and more people leaving the WordPress + Google AdSense model behind and moving toward a creator-to-subscriber model, we’re at an exciting moment of change. The success of NYT Cooking has shown how important a purpose-built interface can be. That’s why I’m building Recipe.Site — to combine modern monetization tools with an exceptional cooking experience. A platform that serves both creators and home cooks better than anything that exists today.
Every few months we send an email announcing new features, future plans, etc.