How Do I Price This Cake Order?

Business By sonia57 Updated 19 Apr 2009 , 11:59pm by costumeczar

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sonia57 Posted 19 Apr 2009 , 7:50pm
post #1 of 5

A bride wants to order a groom's cake for Sept 09. She wants a "round cake" with a lot of details on it. The "details" will showcase her groom's hobbies and interests. So, she wants a log cabin, trees, motorcycle, river, a guy fishing, a deer grazing on grass, signpost stating the name of the river, a sign saying gone fishing, a flag of her groom's country. I will be handmolding all these details and I am thinking that the smallest size cake for this order will be at least a 12 inch. So, how much should I charge for this cake?

4 replies
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indydebi Posted 19 Apr 2009 , 8:06pm
post #2 of 5

Number of servings times your per-serving rate = price of "basic" cake.

Number of hours it takes you to make all the bells and whistles times a DECENT hourly rate (and I'm not talking a lousy ten bucks an hour) = add'l design art fee.

If they want bells and whistles ... they PAY for bells and whistles.

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costumeczar Posted 19 Apr 2009 , 8:12pm
post #3 of 5

You might also want to try to make the detail pieces out of chocolate, like they do in the Whimsical Bakehouse cookbook. I did a cake like that and all of the "picture" pieces were chocolate, like a frozen buttercream transfer. You can do them ahead and just put them on the cake. Easier than hand-molding fondant.

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sonia57 Posted 19 Apr 2009 , 8:53pm
post #4 of 5

Thank you for the responses. I have done fondant figure modelling before but not to this extent. I can do the modelling way ahead in installments. My problem is that I have no idea how long it will take me to do everything. I am meeting with the client in 1 week and I would be forced to price the cake then. So, I need a ballpark. How much per serving?

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costumeczar Posted 19 Apr 2009 , 11:59pm
post #5 of 5

If I had to price something like that I'd charge $5 a serving because of all of the fondant modelling. For a 12" cake, assuming it's two layers, that's approximately 50 servings, so that's $250.

Even if I priced it at my base price then added on for time to make the figures, that would be $150 plus about $80-90, so that's still around $250.

I guarantee that she won't want to pay that, so it's up to you to either stand firm and charge her what you think your time is worth or undercharge and be really pissed off with yourself when you spend a lot longer on the figures than you thought you would! icon_sad.gif

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