and have you raised prices since you started? I want to start out at a decent price so that I don't have to tell customers that I am raising them, but I don't want them to be way too high, either. I'm in Nebraska, so its not exactly a Mecca for high priced baked goods.

I also want to share my website, but I think I'm still too nervous yet. I can't take too much criticism yet However I really would like some (nice) opinions on things I could improve. Hmmmm....I may post it tonight. I don't know yet.

I just kind of picked one in the beginning lol . I think I did call a couple of local places and priced myself in the low middle of that (but I was brand new). That price was $3.25 (or was it $3...?) per serving to start in 2004. I now have my own shop and start at $6.50 for anything tiered. Its about to go up, too.

When I came to CC just short of 2 years ago, I was $1.75. Then I saw what CC'ers were getting for their cakes and went WOW!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!

Fortunately, instead of taking the view of "I'd never be able to get that for my cakes!", I looked at it with the view of "If THEY can get it, *I* can get it!" Some quick local research and my pricing started to climb.

I'm now at $3/serving and I recently discovered I'm in the "more expensive" category around here. And my wedding-cake-only orders are double what they were last year. (wedding-cake-only is a drop-off cake .... I dont' stay and serve it and I'm not doing the catering.)

[quote="yelle66"] I'm in Nebraska, so its not exactly a Mecca for high priced baked goods.[quote]

Are you selling baked goods or homemade custom cakes???

Custom cakes. I've been looking and even the people who make some pretty cool cakes and have been for years are only starting out at $2.25 a slice.

The reason I asked is because there is a BIG difference in baked goods and custom made cakes. So they are starting at $2.25 per serving? Well, with prices what they are and the wages people need to make the starting price is probably misleading...if they are in fact actually making money. If you figure out what it costs to actually make the cake in ingredients & supplies then figure in a good hourly wage for yourself you will find that it is next to impossible to sell it for less than $3 per serving. If you can come up with a new market product...like I only sell round cakes iced in buttercream with fondant accents (no one else around here has these types of cakes) then you can charge pretty much what you want....people will pay for your product if it is good. I get customers all of the time from a cake shop down the road that only deals in buttercream and charges 1/2 of what I do (they are basically a small cake factory dealing in volume)...they want my product!

I figured out how much it costs me to make a cake and figured out what I'd like to make for profit and went from there.

I decided that I make a really good product and that I should be compensated well for it. I am at $4/serving BC $5/serving fondant(or ganache). I wasn't going to lowball myself and fight to raise prices later.