Grower application
Chivle is a farm-to-table marketplace for Michigan growers using regenerative practices. We're not open to general sign-up yet — this application is how we get to know your farm first.
What you get
Your farm
4.2 miles away · Vegetables, herbs
Certified Organic · Chivle Verified
Heirloom tomatoes
$4.50/lb
Rainbow chard
$3.00/bunch
Garlic scapes
$6.00/lb
Public, shareable, built to be found in search. Point your existing customers at it and the ordering handles itself.
You set every price. Stripe pays into your bank on its normal schedule — no invoicing, no net-30, no chasing.
Pickup, your own route, or an on-demand courier where that's switched on. Never pushed into a model that doesn't fit.
Mark what you cut and it carries a harvest date buyers filter by. One tap, and it's the strongest trust signal here.
Buyers set up a recurring weekly or monthly order. It charges and coordinates itself — revenue you don't have to chase.
One dashboard for incoming orders, messages with buyers, and what actually sold over 7, 30, or 90 days.
If we approve a freshness claim, the refund comes out of the platform fee reserve — not out of your payout.
The AI tools normally sit behind Grower Pro at $39/month. Founding Growers get them at no cost, for the same reason the fee is zero — you're here first.
Not just a free listing app
Free listing apps let anyone post inventory the same day they sign up. Every Chivle farm goes through a human review before the storefront goes live — that's what the Verified badge means, and it's why a buyer trusts the marketplace enough to keep ordering.
No "send me a Venmo" or arranging cash at pickup. Stripe pays your bank account directly, on its own schedule, and a buyer sees a payment method they already trust — that alone raises what a stranger is willing to spend with you.
We monitor dispute rates across every farm. A real quality pattern gets caught and addressed before it erodes trust in the platform your storefront lives on — the marketplace's reputation is yours too, not just your own listing's.
The standard fee steps down the longer you sell, or the more you sell — 10% down to 7%, lower again on Pro. A free listing board doesn't get cheaper because you stuck around. This does.
Founding Growers pay zero platform fees for their first year — you keep everything you sell. Listing is free, you set every price, and payouts go straight to your bank through Stripe. The program is capped at 50 because concierge onboarding and a real say in what gets built stop being possible past that.
Platform fee
0%
for 12 months, then 10%
Processing fees
None
Chivle absorbs them
Founding badge
Permanent
shown on all listings
Onboarding
Concierge
1:1 setup calls included
The demand side
Two kinds of buyer. Households nearby who want to know which farm their food came from and will pay properly for it. And small kitchens — chefs, cafés, restaurants — who buy the same crop every week and would rather know the grower than the distributor.
Every farm gets a storefront page and every crop a category page, all written to be found when someone searches for what you grow. Buyers get a weekly seasonal digest, a notification when a crop they asked about is ready, and matching against what they've actually bought before. Paid buyer campaigns come once there are enough farms in one area to be worth showing up for.
That ordering is deliberate: a marketplace with one farm on it is no use to a buyer, so growers come first and buyers follow into a market worth arriving at. It also means the early risk sits with the first farms — which is the whole reason the founding year costs nothing.
After the founding year
The standard platform fee is 10% of what you sell — 7% if you take Grower Pro ($39/month, entirely optional and not worth it until you have steady orders). That rate is all-in: it covers the marketplace, payment processing, and putting your harvest in front of nearby buyers. There is no separate processing cut taken out of your payout, no listing fee, and no monthly fee to be here.
You get at least 60 days notice by email before the rate ever changes — no surprise in month 13. There is no contract either: leave whenever you like, keep your customers, take your list with you. If Chivle is not bringing you orders worth 10%, it has not earned the 10%, and we would rather hear that from you than bill you for it.
A note from me
My name is Elvis and I'm the one building Chivle. If you apply, I'm the person who reads it, and I'm the person who gets on the setup call with you.
Here's the part I'd want to know if I were you: you'd be early. Buyer traffic is light while I bring growers on, and I'm not going to quote you a number to make this sound busier than it is. What I can tell you is that the founding year costs you nothing, listing costs nothing, and you're never exclusive to me — keep your markets, your CSA, your farm stand, all of it. If Chivle turns out to be worth nothing to you, you will have spent twenty minutes and no money finding out.
And your free year doesn't start when you sign up. The clock starts the day the marketplace opens to buyers, so joining early costs you none of it — you're not paying for the months I spend getting growers on. That's built into how the billing works, not a favour I have to remember to do.
What I'm asking the first 50 farms for isn't really a signup. It's telling me what's wrong with it while it's still early enough for me to fix. That's what the founding year is buying.
Elvis
Founder, Chivle · info@chivle.com
Write to me before you apply if you'd rather ask something first. Real questions get real answers, and “this isn't for my farm” is a fine answer too.
What we're looking for
You don't need to check every box, or hold a certification — we just want to understand how you grow. We're prioritizing farms doing one or more of the following:
Takes about two minutes. Here's what happens after you send it:
01
I read it
Usually within a few days. Every application, me, not a filter.
02
We talk
A short call — we set your page and first products up together, about twenty minutes.
03
You go live
Your listing stays private until you say it's ready.