How do I price my cakes on cake boss. The spreadsheet Kelley sent doesn't have fondant and additional ingredients that I use. It's taking so much time to price out each ingredient and portions. Is there an easier way to price cakes or to add the info on cakeboss? how do you price your cakes? What do you charge for extra fondant work like 3d figures?
The customer service from CakeBoss is great. Kelly has gotten back to me within the same day, I would suggest asking her directly through the Cake Boss website. Good luck. If you get an answer and wouldn't mind posting it back here, I'd be curious for any additional tips on this program. Thanks.
I actually have emailed Kelley and she was not sure how I would price out things like fondant figures,LD,gel colors etc...so this is why I am asking for help on CC. I want to know how other bakers price their cakes particularly sculpted cakes with fondant accents. Everyone must price there cakes so I was hoping for a big response on CC.
If I add embelishments to my cakes I usually add an additional 10.00 if its a larger cake then I raise it. If I make figures I charge 10 per figure.
Keep track onhow much time it takes you to make 1 figure and the amount of fondant you use. This will give you a better idea on how much to charge.
I use cake boss all the time. I use it to figure out mainly what the raw cost of the cake is (ingredients, utilities etc). you are going to have to spend some time getting all your info in there, but then costing is a breeze as it will do it all for you every time. You need to get all your ingredients put in to the database (and that really doesn't take long), then develop your recipes from that, then all you have to do in future is click what you are using for each project. E.g. 1.5 recipes of vanilla cake, 1 recipe of buttercream, 2lbs fondant etc. I also have things like lustre dust, colourings, disco sparkles etc in the recipe section with the cost of a jar of each. Then I estimate how much I will use (1/2 jar or whatever) and this will then add it to your costs. I also apply a sundry amount to every order to cover things like electricity, boxes and all those things you forget to include! This will then give you a basic cost for the cake before you've even lifted a finger. I then double this raw cost as a starting point. Then I work out how much time I think it will take me to do the cake (including baking, cleaning and other non-creative time!) PLUS 25% (I always underestimate my time!), and charge for that per hour on top of the cake costs.
So if Cake Boss works out that my raw costs for a cake will be $40 and I think it will take me 6 hours to do (@ $10 per hour or whatever you want for your time), I will charge $100 for that cake.
I charge extra for figures (based on the same ingredient + time formula) and delivery.
Hope that helps a bit?
yes that does help but how did you enter the extra ingredients into the spreadsheet. this is where I am stumped the most. I guess cost per hour is an individual thing and I never thought of clean up and electricity. how in the world do you figure out that? I doubt anyone has this down to a "t" it sounds more like you estimate, guess, add and that's it.
I've entered a "recipe" for my ingredients. It works as a master list of all ingredients I use(i.e 20 cups all purpose flour = $2), if costs change, I just go change it there, my actual recipes then update accordingly. As far as color, electricity, etc., I don't really have that figured out too well, I just add $3.00 for overhead in the invoice detail and hope that covers it. I add the cost of box, cakeboard and icing bags in the disposable materials section. I like Bonjovibabe's idea of adding the costs of luster dust and similar items to my master list.
yes that does help but how did you enter the extra ingredients into the spreadsheet. this is where I am stumped the most. I guess cost per hour is an individual thing and I never thought of clean up and electricity. how in the world do you figure out that? I doubt anyone has this down to a "t" it sounds more like you estimate, guess, add and that's it.
Just put them directly into the recipe section with the single ingredient, you can type in items yourself, they don't have to be on the drop-down list. For things like clean-up & electricity, I use the size of the cake as a basis and then just add a blanket charge, a minimum of $5 in my case, but on large cakes like wedding cakes it can be $30+. It is a bit of a guessing game, but since I've used Cake Boss, I've never felt cheated with what I've got in return for all those hours of hard work, before I was pretty much giving cakes away. I have worked out that I cannot sell a cake for less than $65 and have it be worth my time, so that is now my minimum price (and very few cakes are charged at so little, I would say my average birthday cake is $80-$100, and my wedding cakes have ranged so far from $350-$1200). I don't have a standard hourly rate either, again that is on a cake by cake basis. The more technically difficult the cake is, the more I pay myself!
This is one of the issues I have with CB. There really needs to be a part of the set-up that allows you to input set prices for things like that. They just aren't there yet with it. Until then you have no choice but to manually input every aspect of your order into the order form and manually input your price (not cost). Unfortunately the program only pulls the cost of your items into the order form and that isn't correct, you don't charge the customer your cost of the order, you charge them your price for their order. I don't think the cost calculator should be able to pull into the field that you charge the customer, but it does so you have to manually change the price of the order. If you forget then you end up only charging the customer for your costs. PITA, but you really have to be careful to make those manual changes.
Cake Boss has enormous potential, it is really raw right now but from what Kelley has said, some of the issues all of us are having are being dealt with, and new aspects are currently in production, can't wait for the next upgrade!
I actually have emailed Kelley and she was not sure how I would price out things like fondant figures,LD,gel colors etc...so this is why I am asking for help on CC.
I am posting my email to 4littlewops plus the screenshots I sent. For more on the conundrum of charging for all those miniscule items that add up over time, I recommend everyone read indydebi's post here: http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopicp-6198302-shop.html#6198302
My response was as follows:
Hi [4littlewops],
Well, I can tell/show you how *I* would do fondant figures.
1. I would create a recipe called "Ounce of Fondant" and put only one ingredient in the recipe - 1 oz fondant, and the price. I am attaching a new 'Baking Conversions' spreadsheet which has a calculator for Fondant at the bottom under the spices.
2. Then create a recipe called "Drop of Food Color" and again, add just one ingredient - 1 drop food color. As for the price, that is reaaaally hard to figure out, in fact I have no idea how you would do it, so if it were ME, I would choose a price per drop that I was pretty sure compensated me for the purchase and then some, like $0.10 per drop.
3. I'm attaching screenshots of the order screen, how I would list these figurines out on the order. I would create a separate line item for them, and then use the Pricing Calculator to choose how many ounces of fondant you used, how many drops of food color, and how many hours they took.
I hope I'm making sense!
Kelley
So I apologize if this makes little to zero sense for those without CakeBoss. 
HOW you choose to price is ultimately up to you. The spreadsheet I sent is a bonus to help you figure out some common costs, but ultimately you will have to do the legwork to figure out your costs. Fortunately this is largely a one-time job, and it pays off big time in the end because you know the cost of everything you sell.
All CakeBoss users (and anyone thinking about buying CakeBoss) are highly encouraged to watch the How-To Videos on our web site, and participate in our bulletin board (registration required). On the bulletin board you can ask questions and look in the "Did you Know...?" forum for tidbits about cool CakeBoss features you may not even have been aware of.
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