Core Loop

Upkeep & Wear

A bakery is not free to run. Every tick it pays upkeep in $BREAD, and that cost is pulled straight out of the revenue it earns. What lands in your balance is the profit after upkeep.

Bigger bakeries have higher upkeep. A Bread Empire costs far more to run each tick than a Roadside Stall.
This is why high tiers need higher prices and steady wheat to be worth it. A big bakery starved of customers can actually run at a loss.

If your balance hits zero, your bakeries auto-close to stop the bleeding. Closed bakeries earn nothing and pay no upkeep until you get back on your feet. Keep a cash cushion so a bad stretch does not shut you down.

Wear

Bakeries slowly wear down as they operate. The more worn a bakery is, the higher its upkeep climbs, so a neglected bakery keeps more of your revenue every tick.

To fix it, run maintenance on the bakery. That resets its wear back to clean and restores its upkeep to normal. The repair bill scales with how worn (and how big) the bakery is, so it is usually cheaper to repair regularly than to let wear pile up.

Franchise slots cap your empire

You can only run so many buildings at once. Your franchise level sets that cap, and bakeries and Wheat Farms both count against it. The franchise eras, lowest to highest, are:

Home Baker
Local Bakehouse
Regional Guild
The Bread Baron
Bread Monopoly

Each upgrade raises your building cap by one slot. Upgrading costs $BREAD and wheat and requires you to have earned enough total revenue first, so more slots are a reward for a working economy, not something you can rush on day one.