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Getting Set Up: From Signup to Selling

Welcome to TimberCloud. This page is the map for your first day: it walks the whole path from creating your account to taking your first live order, and links to the detailed guide for each step. If you follow it top to bottom, you'll have a working shop — catalog, website, payments, and shipping — ready for customers.

In a hurry? Jump to the first-steps checklist at the bottom and work down it.

The big picture

Getting live is a short, predictable path:

  1. Create your account and verify your email.
  2. Create a company (or Start Free) — the onboarding wizard.
  3. Add a product.
  4. Set pricing (paid plans).
  5. Connect Stripe — you can take live payments even during your trial.
  6. Build your website.
  7. Configure shipping.
  8. Go live.

The rest of this page unpacks each step.

Step 1: Create your account

Sign up at app.timbercloud.com/create-account. You have three ways to get in, and any of them creates your account if you're new:

  • Email & password — the classic form.
  • Continue with Google — one click, no password to remember.
  • Email me a magic link — passwordless; we email you a one-time sign-in link.

If you sign up with email and password, verify your email by clicking the link we send you. Google and magic-link signups are verified automatically. Full detail: Create Your Account.

Step 2: The first fork — sell or buy

After verifying, decide what you're here for:

  • Create a Company — set up your own shop to sell. This is the path for shop owners and staff, and the rest of this page assumes it.
  • Become a Customer — you only want to buy from a shop that's already on TimberCloud. See Become a Customer.

Choosing how to start: Start Free vs. a paid plan

When you choose Create a Company, you pick your starting plan — and this is a real fork:

PathWhat you getCard required?
Start FreeA permanent $0, inquiry-only shop: build a catalog and collect quote requests. No pricing, payments, or hosted website yet.No
A paid planThe full platform on a 14-day free trial (currently on Commerce and Build, monthly): pricing, payments, AI, website, shipping.Yes (not charged during the trial)

Free isn't a choice buried inside the paid flow — it has its own separate setup. Pick Start Free up front if you want the no-card plan. See The Free Plan and Subscriptions & Plans.

The paid onboarding wizard

If you choose a paid plan, you'll go through a 4-step wizard:

StepWhat you do
1. Choose PlanPick Commerce, Build, or Production (Enterprise is contact-sales). Monthly Commerce and Build start your 14-day trial.
2. PaymentAdd a card. You're not charged during the trial — the card is just on file for when it ends.
3. Company DetailsYour business name and contact name, email and phone, address, industry, measurement units, and your shop's URL (its slug).
4. TermsReview and accept the Terms of Service, then create your company.

Full detail: Create a Company. If you picked Start Free, you'll fill in a shorter store-details form instead (no plan or payment steps).

Step 3: Add a product

With your company created, build your first catalog item — its name, description, options (attributes and line items), and photos. Even one real product lets you test the whole flow end to end. See Creating a Product.

Tip: AI can help as you build — the AI Photo Matcher matches a PDF catalog's photos to your option labels, the AI Pricing Assistant writes pricing formulas from a plain-English description, and the AI Advisory Generator writes configuration warnings. These are available on Commerce and up. See AI Product Builder.

Step 4: Set pricing

Availability: Pricing is a paid feature — Commerce and up. On Free, prices are hidden and the storefront is inquiry-only.

Set base, option, and line-item prices, and build formula-based pricing for products that price by size, material, or quantity. The Formula Builder handles complex rules, and the AI Pricing Assistant can write a formula for you from a plain-English description. See Pricing.

Step 5: Connect Stripe (and take payments during your trial)

Availability: Payments require a paid plan — Commerce and up.

TimberCloud uses Stripe Connect, so payouts go straight to your own Stripe account — TimberCloud never holds your funds. To take payments:

  1. Connect (or create) your Stripe account and finish Stripe's onboarding so charges are enabled.
  2. Turn test mode off when you're ready to charge real cards.

Important: You do not have to end your free trial to take real money. Live payments turn on when Stripe onboarding is complete and test mode is off — you can be charging real customers while your subscription still shows trialing. See Billing and Order Payments.

Step 6: Build your website

Availability: The hosted website is Commerce and up.

On a paid plan, TimberCloud auto-generates a branded, white-label starter website from your company profile and catalog. Open the Website section to edit pages in the Site Builder, then publish. You can also connect your own domain (with automatic SSL). See Your Website and Connect a Custom Domain.

Prefer to drop your shop into a site you already have? The embeddable storefront runs from the same catalog — use either or both.

Step 7: Configure shipping

Availability: Shipping and Carrier Services are Commerce and up.

Set up how orders reach customers: packaging, delivery options, and live carrier rates through Carrier Services. See Shipping and Shipping Configuration.

Step 8: Go live

You're ready to sell:

  1. Share your shop — send customers your hosted site link, your custom domain, or embed the storefront on an existing site.
  2. Place a test order to confirm checkout works end to end.
  3. Launch — announce it to your customers.

Your first-steps checklist

Work down this list to get from zero to live:

Note: Team invites and role permissions start on the Build plan — Free and Commerce are single-seat. See Subscriptions & Plans.

Next Steps

PreviousCreate a CompanyNextSubscriptions & Plans