I just had a lady call wanting a price for a cake for her daughter's wedding. This was to serve 400 people, covered with MMF and some gumpaste flowers and leaves. The cake itself was to be white cake with lemon filling. I quoted her at $4.50 per slice. She thought that was too much. That's at of work for a cake like that. Especially covered in MMF and the flowers. Can anyone else make a suggestion? Did I quote her too high? Thanks

answer...Nope....$4.50 is good for fondant..most high end decoraters in NY or LA charge upwards to $10.00 per serving for fondant and gumpaste flowers...some are more!! You are right it is alot of cake and a tremendous amount of work so don't do it for any less...Stand your ground!!

Considering the work/supplies/etc, I agree...stand your ground. If she doesn't want to pay it, she will go some place else and not have "the cake she wanted". Cheaper is NOT better when you're dealing with cake!!!!!!!

People just don't understand how much work goes into cakes. Nonetheless, how much the ingredients cost.

Totally agree with every single post on this subject. Don't let one person dictate your prices! She wants a bargain cake so let her shop at a bargain store. Keep your custom cakes for the serious cake purchasers who want a quality product and aren't afraid to pay for it.

Did she forget that she was serving 400 people. I think that your pricing was a really reasonable. What kind of flowers does she want? I know for me that one rose takes a long time and that has to be at least 4 to 5 tiers so the amount of flowers needed would be alot. Not to mention how many batches of mmf you would need to make. Assuming that you would be doing this by yourself. I would take a whole day to do the fondant alone and a couple of days to bake unless you have a commercial oven and even if did the time it takes to mix it. Maybe you should invite her over to watch you make a cake so she could have a reality check!!!!

what probably scared her was the $1800 price tag rather than the $4.50 a serving.

I have a part in my "how to plan a wedding" presentation called "Do you go math-dumb?" (It was actually in my last newsletter that I sent out last week). If they take 6 people to dinner for $10 each, they can figure out that it will cost $60. But if they plan 100 people at a wedding at $10 each, they can't seem to do the math to figure it's going to cost a thousand dollars.

People just go math dumb.

Had a friend ask me to look over the quote for a rehearsal dinner for her because she thought it was high. It was actually a very good price, but I told her "The reason you think it's high is because you're feeding 50 people. And 50 people at $20/each comes to $1000 no matter how you look at it."

And actually, I think your price is a bargain if that included the gumpaste work.

Perhaps you could suggest that she do a portion of those 400 servings in cheaper kitchen cakes and do a smaller tiered cutting cake. I can't imagine how big this cake would be if it is all in one cake...probably like one of those Kuwait wedding cakes!

I think you priced fine and you are looking at a lot of work.

To me, for a cake with handmade gumpaste flowers, that's actually UNDERPRICED. Don't sell yourself short... She's in for some sticker shock if she thinks she'll get cheaper (for the same quality) elsewhere.

My definition of a kitchen cake is absolutely no deco whatsoever, not on a fancy stand or dressed up board, nothing. Plain old cake. So, yeah, not much difference. But it certainly wouldn't have GP flowers on it.

I totally agree with what everyone else has said. I priced a cake this week $75 for a 3D tractor cake and the lady thougt that was too high. I would rather lose out on doing a cake than to give it away. People do not realize the time, money, work and stress that are put into these cakes, especially if you are doing hand made flowers, tiered cakes, 3D cakes and things like that.

Ok, first off...people do get "math-dumb". Crazy...but true. Next, sorry to change the subject, but how do you all get someone else's response in your response? I'm a total newbie here so if someone could help me out that would be great!

Thank you so much for everyone's support on this. I explained this all to her too and I total her to go ahead and get quotes from others and see what she comes up with. I have already called someone else and pretended to be looking for a cake and was quoted 2500.00

So, we will have to wait and see if she calls back or not.

Again thank you all very much.

I would also suggest doing kitchen cakes for a good amount of the servings too. I discount kitchen cakes $1.50/serving since they are just quickly iced in buttercream (on the outside... they are the same as the wedding cake on the inside) and I do not decorate them at all. No borders... no flowers... no nothing and I don't spend the time to ice it mirror smooth either. It takes me no time at all to ice a kicthen cake so I don't feel they should carry the same exact price as a fully decorated cake. My normal cakes start at $5/serving and come iced in BC and fondant and the kitchen cakes don't get fondant unless the client asks for it (and then they only get discounted $1/serving).

Your price was more than fair. Infact, if that price included the flowers, it was WAY low. People have no clue what goes into makeing a cake and sugar flowers.

I agree with everybody here,people have no clue what goes in and the effort in making them.

I had a lady email me about a cake for her daughter's wedding for about 50 people, I told her the minium order for a wedding cake is $300. I rent space from a commercail kitchen and it would cost $ 135 a day to rent the kitchen. Sorry I can't give the cakes away like they do at the Super Target where I work part time. I did a cake there for 300 people, four tier plus Two count them two full sheet cakes for $450.00. That's a 1.50 a serving for a four tier cake with fondant. I think after product and labor we made maybe 50-100 bucks, not worth it! That's why i hate grocery stores

I agree that your price is low to begin with. Just to put in perspective, I got married last year and I paid to have a cake made, I didn't want to deal with the stress and hassle on my wedding day. I wouldn't say that the area I live in is a "rich" area. Most people are used to grocery store cakes and an idea of a "night out on the town" is catching a matinee with a free popcorn coupon and afterwards going to the Olive Garden, if we feel like treating ourselves.

The bakery I got the cake from was recommended by the reception site and I liked the idea of not having to pay a cutting fee by bringing in an outside cake. This bakery would not do any colored icing on the cake because they didn't believe in using artificial colors. The only color they would use was pink, just by adding some raspberry sauce to the icing, and chocolate. Their icing was not white, it was ivory, because again, they wouldn't use any artificial coloring. (but my buttercream recipe uses no artificial colors and it still comes out brilliant white, so figure that one out) They don't use fondant because they think it tastes bad and uses (again) a bunch of artificial stuff. I feel like emailing them a MMF recipe! The only designs they do are the ones in their book. You can bring in a picture of a design and they'll charge an extra $60 for a custom design fee.

For my basic, all buttercream, no colors (and ivory didn't match the rest of the wedding) three tier hexagon cake I paid $4.95 a slice. Plus an extra 60 for a custom design fee because I didn't like any of their designs. Oh, it's an extra charge if you wanted to use chocolate ganache on the cake, but I don't remember how much that was. If you wanted to add any gumpaste flowers or ribbon or any other kind of flotsam on the cake, there was an extra charge. They showed me some gemstone picks they could add to the cake (about the size of a pencil eraser) and those were about $4 each. EACH! and they get those back!

So no, I don't think $4.50 for fondant and gumpaste flowers is a lot. Stand your ground and feel free to use my example if anyone tries to haggle and lower price out of you.