I was just wondering what some of ou charge for an hourly rate to decorate cakes.... I have a horrible time pricing cakes and figured if I could come up with a decent hourly rate I won't feel so bad!!


Thanks in advance!

I'm not good at prices either. I usually undercharge. Then I only do for family & really close friends.

Check the thread for pricing. Most people charge per serving which you put your hourly rate in with that. Take the cost of your supplies and triple it. (I think)

I would charge myself 15 per hour at least. Otherwise you would never make enough to pay yourself.

When I get faster I can think about an hourly rate. Right now, if I charged by the hour, my cakes would be way too expensive. I read on here a few times to triple your materials cost, so that's what I do, and round it to a nice number.

I charge per serving for cakes.
Jacqui

My hourly rate is probably a lot higher for my work because I also do catering. But what we did was figuring how many hours I spent with a bride on her wedding .... email, sampling, follow-up, cooking, baking, meeting the bride at the reception site for a walk thru, delivery, set-up, working the event, clean up. Those hours divided into the invoiced amount for the wedding gave me an idea of what my time was really worth. It can really surprising .... sometimes surprisingly high, sometimes surprisingly low.

You might also look at it as "If I had to pay someone to do this, what would my expense be?" (it's a good exercise if you're planning to open a shop).

kbochicks: I read that too, but the question is this....consider how expensive fondant is if you buy it ready made (at least $20 if you go with substandard Wilton), right? Well, if I make MMF I have drastically reduced the cost of materials, so how does that work out when you triple the cost of materials?

I am awful about pricing and haven't really sat down to figure out cost of materials since I have used boxes and stuff, which is rather cheap. And since I am new at some of the designing aspects, I don't feel comfortable charging an hourly rate. I kind of base it on a general level of difficulty and size.

I will definitely be following this thread for more help.

I have been trying to figure that out, as well. I sat down and figured the cost of everything I use to make a 2-tiered cake with a 12" base - from cake mix to frosting and filling ingredients to dowels and bases. I came up with about $30.

Now I am timing myself on a cake I am making for Mother's Day just for practice, but I didn't include baking time and I haven't figured out how much PG&E costs to run an oven for 2 hours (small oven ).

I would say that if I paid myself $15 an hour and it will probably take me 4 hours total, $60 for my time plus $30 for supplies is what I would like to charge. In CA, anyway, it's easy to get $100 for a whimsical cake. Thanks to the Food Network for showing bakeries that charge a minumum of $500 for their whimsy cakes.

Suse Ormon had a great comment: Why in the world would you charge less than you want? Do not do it just to get in the door because in this business word of mouth is huge, and if word of mouth is, "The cakes are amazing and cheap!" well, that's not what you want, right?

I am thinking of going for it and charging a minimum of $75 for a single tiered whimsy cake. To justify a slow start in business due to price, I really do not have time to build more than 2 cakes per week right now! Hopefully my ability--getting better and faster--will increase linearly with business growth.

Stacie

so this is kinda of related... How would you charge for gum paste flowers? It takes (me) much longer to do gum paste flowers than BC, and the GP flowers are really popular right now. I actually prefer them for outdoor weddings because then I don't worry about melting.