Cheesecake Labs

What Cheesecake Labs does

Cheesecake Labs builds software for US companies from Florianópolis, Brazil. Six service lines are listed: AI implementation, application modernization, data and analytics, product engineering, AI-accelerated delivery, and embedded engineering teams. The AI line promises agentic workflows, retrieval augmented generation, and enterprise search in production within 8 to 12 weeks.

The firm was founded in 2013 and reports more than 13 years in business and more than 300 products shipped. The CMS record lists more than 100 employees within a 50 to 249 headcount band. The site names partnerships with AWS, Google Cloud, Databricks, Snowflake, Anthropic, and Stellar, and states it is a preferred integration partner for the Stellar blockchain network.

Engineers work nearshore in US time zones, on site, or from the US, either embedded in a client team or owning delivery end to end. The site says its own process uses an agentic software development lifecycle, with senior engineers accountable for architecture, quality, and security, and that it has run AI in SOC 2 and HIPAA environments since 2024.

Pricing and engagement

Cheesecake Labs does not publish rates. The CMS record lists $50 to $99 per hour and a minimum project size of $25,000 or more. That minimum is higher than most nearshore peers at the same hourly rate, which points to team engagements rather than small fixed-scope jobs.

Engagements begin with a consultation call, after which the agency says it will map scope, architecture, risks, and a timeline in weeks rather than quarters. Case studies show two shapes of work. Embedded developers were added to existing client teams at Knapsack, SWIRL, FINN, and Tapcart, and end-to-end builds were delivered for the MoneyGram wallet and the AES virtual power plant. The MoneyGram roadmap went from architecture in four weeks to a beta in three months. Contract length and billing cadence are not disclosed.

Who should hire Cheesecake Labs

The strongest fit is a US product or operations team that needs senior engineers quickly and cannot wait through a local hiring cycle. FINN credits the team with scaling US operations more efficiently than its German office. Listed industries are financial services and insurance, manufacturing, healthcare, retail and consumer goods, private equity, and telecom.

• Fintech and blockchain products. The firm built MoneyGram's non-custodial wallet on Stellar with USDC balances and cash-in and cash-out across more than 100 countries.
• Companies replacing a legacy web platform, as with Wedgewood's move to Contentstack and Next.js that grew leads 23 percent.
• Regulated teams adding AI. Knapsack's AI transcription platform ships with SOC 2 Type 1, HIPAA, and GDPR controls.
• Shopify and mobile commerce brands. Cheesecake Labs ran Tapcart's Android development for more than two years, shipping over 1,000 apps from one codebase.

Who should look elsewhere

Cheesecake Labs is a Brazilian firm with a small San Francisco presence, so buyers who require an on-site US team for the full engagement will not find one here. The $25,000 floor and senior-team positioning also rule out small budgets.

• Companies that want a simple marketing site or an app template. The portfolio is weighted to platforms, data pipelines, and internal tooling.
• Buyers who need the vendor to hold its own SOC 2 report. The site says AI has run in SOC 2 and HIPAA environments, which describes client systems, and no certification held by Cheesecake Labs itself is stated.
• Teams that need disciplines beyond engineering and design, since digital marketing, SEO, and content are not offered.

Track record and signals

The portfolio lists 37 case studies. MoneyGram had Cheesecake Labs design and build a non-custodial Stellar wallet with USDC balances. Architecture took four weeks, a beta launched in 2023, and a 2024 MVP went live in the US, Mexico, Brazil, and the Philippines. Wedgewood, a veterinary pharmacy serving 70,000 veterinarians, moved to a Contentstack headless CMS and reports 23 percent lead growth and twice as many vets managing prescriptions online.

Knapsack's compliant AI notetaking platform is credited with removing a typical $50,000 in-house build cost and cutting churn 25 percent through embedded chat. SWIRL AI Connect, built with Python and Django, connects more than 100 enterprise systems and reports up to 80 percent less time spent searching internal data. FINN grew from 10 cars to more than 7,000 across 12 US states on low-code tooling. The AES virtual power plant won the 2019 International Energy and Innovations Award.

Named client quotes come from MoneyGram, Tapcart, FINN, AES, and Wedgewood. The site claims a 4.9 rating and the top AI position on Clutch, and the CMS record adds a seventh-place global Clutch ranking for 2025, first in Latin America, and Clutch Champion 2023. All outcome figures are self-reported.

How Cheesecake Labs compares

Against other software agencies in this directory, Cheesecake Labs' $50 to $99 hourly range is at the low end, but its $25,000 minimum is above most peers at that rate. Comparable nearshore Latin American firms rarely publish this much case study detail or hold a blockchain network partnership. Its differences are the Stellar and fintech depth, the shift to modernization and production AI, and the Clutch rankings. Its gaps are no published pricing, no stated company-level security certification, and a portfolio that leans on embedded-team work where outcomes belong partly to the client.