I'm new to cake decorating and I've only done freebees for useful practice.... I have a lot of people requesting cakes for cost now and have no idea what to charge!!! what does everyone else charge? for example, i'm making a 12x18 sheet cake with the 3-D elmo face on top for a friend-of-a-friend and I'm charging $40. She agreed but I really have no idea if that was a fair price for me and for her!

First, welcome to the best source of cake-info in the world!!!

If you haven't had a chance to scan thru the Business Forum, grab a big glass of tea, kick back, and spend a couple of hours reading thru all of those posts. You'll find lots and LOTS of posts on this subject.

Pricing is very subjective ... depends on the market, your area, etc.

But I think $40 is way too low for that cake. A 12x18 serves 54, so you're under $1/serving with just that one. A 3-D cake is usually priced much higher than sheet cakes.

Just as a guidelline, I get $75+ for a 12x18 alone.

WOW! I had no idea I was that far off! So people really pay that much for a birthday cake?! well thats good for ur makers! At least I know better for next time. Thanks for the advice

I struggled with this for a long time. I just got Cake Boss for mother's day and LOVE it. You put the price in for every ingrediant and it calculates the cost of your cake and then it will calculate your hourly rate for you and tell you how much the cake costs. It also keeps track of all your orders.
It is a one time fee of $99 but SO worth it. You can also get a 30 free trial to see if you like it. Just and idea.
Good Luck!

I agree with Debi. Whats also good is to look at other bakeries in your area, grocery stores and see where their prices are at. What I did is try to stay a tad bit under some of the big bakeries since the area Im at its out in the boonies and not really a place people would spend money on a cake unless it was from Walmart! So that helped get me some business. But I also didnt make it so low that it wasnt worth my time to do them! (also sometimes people think if the price is too low their not of good quality or that you dont think much of your craft).
Cakeboss is an excellent way to calculate what it actually costs you to make the cake. It can give you a general idea of what you should charge because it calculates not only your ingredients but also you cake boards, and time it takes you to make it by giving yourself an hourly rate. Ive had it now for about a year and a half and love it. I had my laptop destroyed with a glass of water from my daughters a couple of months ago. And they were nice enough to send me the copy again so I could upload it on my new computer. And I had a ton of trouble trying to get it to work and one of the lady's spent a lot of time and helped me to actually figure out what the bug was. So I highly recommend it, especially if your going to be selling a lot of cakes.

Another idea--just in case you weren't properly swamped yet, , is check out restaurant desserts too--how much a plate--Like at Houston's here in Memphis it's $6 or $7 per serving. And I mean Memphis is not exactly New York City either. I mean just regular restaurants it's $3 or $4 bucks.

So just to give you the idea that it's ok to charge real money for this stuff. It's done. And I'm sure it's done in your area somewhere.

Pricing is hard.

Oh wait, you're in Phoenix???

Totally start psyching yourself out on this money thing.
Practice in the mirror. Yes indeedy people pay big bucks for this.

Thanks everyone for the tips! I guess since i've never spent big bucks on a cake before, I didn't know other people did! when i made my first cake, it took me FOREVER!!!! I had never read anything about cake decorating, I just saw pretty cakes and wanted to make one myself it came out pretty nice so my family started telling me that i should sell them but the time and labor was pretty discouraging! But thats before i realized that people really do pay for pretty cakes!!!! I've only done freebees for friends and family but by word-of-mouth i now have a lot of people interested. Thanks again for the tips. I cant wait to research bakeries now!!!

one more thing..... for all you home bakers.... how do you present your work? prices? I was thinking a website (facebook or something of that sort) would be easiest to show the whole picture. any other ideas?

Once you are inspected, there are a lot of ways to get yourself out there. I started by bringing boxes of cupcakes with a card on top (that had my website on it) everywhere. I would drop off 10-15 a week, it got my name and product out there really fast. Certainly some social network advertising is a good thing, like facebook. You should figure out who you are marketing to and advertise appropriately.

not sure if you mentioned it or not, but if you are not legal, i wouldn't advertise. you don't want to bring too much attention to yourself.

pricing a cake depends on your area and your skill level, so its an extremely hard question to answer.

Thank you Debi for saying that. There are so many people out there that will pay for cakes and then there are the ones that dont think cake is worth it. Like my husband said "If when we were getting married and someone told me my cake was going to be $600 I would of told them to keep it." He is one that doesnt believe in paying for a cake. Ofcourse he is also the same way with appliances and any other purchases unless its something he is interested in! But now that he see's what others charge and what I can do, he also believes that its worth the money for what I put into it. He will see a lead I get and see how little they want to charge and he is the first one to say "take a hike!"