Is anyone using a cake pricing program, ie. Cake Boss, and what kind are you using? If you are not, how do you go about pricing you work? Please help. I think I am selling myself short. I live in Louisiana, and I know that pricing is different in all states. Thanks in advance for all your help.

I don't use a pricing pc programme but I don't do a huge amount of cakes either!

I just make a list of all the ingredients I use in a particular recipe eg. chocolate cake.

Beside it I write the price of a bag, box carton of each ingredient and it's weight or quantity.

Then I get the calculator out

You need to find how much 1 basic unit of the ingredient costs eg.

Flour 500g say it costs 1.99 so to get 1 unit(g) I divide as follows

500g = 1.99
1g = 1.99 divided by 500g

my recipe calls for 200g flour so you multiply the above answer by 200g and that's how much the flour costs in your recipe.

I do this with all my ingredients and then add them up which gives me the base cost of my cake.

Then you got to add on your labour costs and take a look at what others are charging.

Thats how I do it, very basic!

If you use cup measurements then you need to work out how many cups are in each bag of the ingredients you use.

eg. 1 bag flour = 10 cups and costs 1.99

recipe calls for 1 1/2 cup flour so same as before

divide price 1.99 by amount 10 cups then multiply by whats called for in recipe eg. 1 1/2

This is a very basic way of doing things but all you need is a pen paper and calculator no programmes etc.

Sorry I hope this helps I am not great at explaining things over the net

I would also total up my ingredients. You could also just decide, once you know how much ingredients you will roughly use on each cake, a set price for your buttercream cakes and fondant cakes per serving. Then if someone wants something special, deal with it on a cake-by-cake basis. Hope this helps!

I just purchased cake boss 3 days ago and I love it. I used to do all of the calculating and stuff up just like the others said but this program is a huge time saver for me and I can always use more time. I don't do many cakes either but I think this is still worth the investment. I seem to be getting a lot more busy lately too. The more cakes I do the better I get, and the more business that will bring. In my case its worth the money for my time.

I do what banba does. I have an Excel spreadsheet that I created for recipes that I use most often. Periodically I will do price checks on each ingredient and update as necessary. I just bake for family and friends, so my purposes for doing all this are to see what I have invested in this serious hobby of mine. PLUS ~ if I am ever in a position where I can get licensed, I figure this is good experience for me (for example) with respect to cost and inventory analysis.