I am going to make my first wedding cake in a month for my friend's daughter. They wanted 3 tier (14; 10; 6) all BC + groom cake Ganache with strawberries (size 11x15). She wanted the price, and I was going to tell her pay ingredients cost + $250 for my work. It is our close friend, and I wanted to be cheap, but not ridicules cheap. Did this sound to you alright? Can I go higher, or lower. This is my second "pay" cake. I really don't know how to count ahead, and I don't want to go by typical cake cost chart. Please give me your opinion, I appreciate it!! Thank you.

Square - 6 inch serves 18, 10 inch serves 50, and 14 inch serves 98 = 166.
Round - 6 inch serves 12, 10 inch serves 38, and a 14 inch serves 78 = 128.

I know you said that you don't want to figure it out, but I don't know how you could decide what to charge if you don't figure it out. I'm not even sure what shape of pan that you want to use.

If you want to give her a deal, it seems like $250 plus supplies is a really good deal to me! Just my thoughts! Hope this helps!

I am sorry I did not give you more information:
round 3 tier cake BC cake (14,10,6) + Ganache cake with strawberries (11x15), all will serves about 100 people. As at the wedding will be no other desert served, they needed to cut bigger pieces. I will count the ingredience cost as I bake (I don't know how to count it ahead), and I was thinking $120 for my work - this I am not sure. I really don't know my friend's daughter so well, and wanted to give her very good deal. So if the price would be fair, kind of low, that way I would like to go...
Thank you for your opinion!

Well from my research I have found that wedding cakes base rate are anywhere from $5-7 a serving and thats a good rate..... so I think that you are giving them too good of a deal. I would probably say $350 min.....I have found, I'm just starting wiht payed cakes as well, that at first people think t's high but then they take their idea to a bakery I find out their price....it doesn't take long for them to come running back! Some of the best advice I've gotten from everyone here at CC is if you are giving someone a 'deal' make sure you let them know the actual price without the deal.
I completly understand your dilema though....I'm doing a two-teir topsy turvy for $80!!! It's hard to sya what you really want them to pay because you don't want to seem like a money grubber!!!
Best of luck, I know it's hard but don't sell yourself short!! Your time is worth it!

I just did a cake on Monday for "cost". It was square 14, 9, 6 plus a small sheet cake and a grooms cake round 9". Servings were right at 200 and I charged her $250. The cakes were fondant covered so that cost me $40 bucks right there. They were also all different flavors so that is a bit more expensive as well. I have figured that here in California $1.10 per person is about what it cost me to make a cake. Oh ya, I had to rent the pans 'cuz I don't have square that was $20.

Just a vent here: why is it that when you give the cake away they want the kitchen sink as well. When I asked for the 2nd half of the money they asked if they could give me a post-dated check!! I had already spent the money. I bet she didn't ask her make-up girl if she could give her a post-dated check! So be prepared, try not to get bitter like me

Hope that helps, good luck!

I think $250 is way to cheap ,you need to give yourself some allowance as well, in case something happens,you might need to buy more stuff or burn a cake and have to redo and all that.

It sounds like a decent amount of cake that you will be working with I think that $250 might be cutting it close. I know you want to give your friend the best deal but remember your time that you put into it. I have learned after spending a day or two on a cake that maybe the base price wasn't enough to cover the cost. My friends know they already get a deal and are ok with paying. Good luck with your cake

kim

I understood op to say she was asking for cost of ingreds PLUS $250 so the amount of ingreds will not cut into her $250.
I think you should try to figure out approx your cost ahead of time so there is no sticker shock. Thats a lot of cake and when you start talking about needing 60cups of cake batter...plus I dont even know how many pounds of butter and sugar for the frosting plus cake boards, dowels or whatever for support, boxes etc. the ingredients can get up there. I do think if you are happy making $250 then thats up to you. If it was my first wedding cake and I knew I'd make $250 profit in addition to getting my ingreds paid for I'd be happy.

I totally understand what you feel by wanting to give a deal and how it feels when they want to mess you over.As for me, after doing some cakes and a few regrets, I am now charging for my cakes. Baking cakes be it from scratch or box is a lot of work. And, people need to learn to pay for it. My thing is when you go to David's and buy your gown, to the florist and order your flowers, none of them care if you are on a budget or need a 'deal'. I don't either. Mind you I offer brides and clients a lot of options, and ways to have what they want and still spend what they can afford. But, I will never undersell my work again. It is just not worth it.

I am sorry, my English s not perfect, and sometimes hard to understand. Yes, I meant ingredient cost + $250 (profit).

Personal opion is $250+ ingredients is fine, but GET THE MONEY UP FRONT!! No postdated checks! You have to buy the supplies and they won't let you postdate, and the $250 up front is just in case you need other supplies. Or at least that's what I would tell them. The ingredients will be high, so a suggestion would be to show your good friend all of the receipts. It will keep your friendship.

good suggestion. I will try to count ahead the ingredient expenses, just to give her an idea. I know that people who don't bake don't know that it could get expensive to make a cake. It takes a lot of sugar, sometimes I am surprise how much sugar is in the cake; and other stuff which is hidden there (dowels, board and you name it)
I think I will end up total close to $400. Don't know yet.

figure your ingredient cost, then add 15%. gives you a cushion in case something messes up or prices change - learned that from my hubby - its a standard thing in home remodel jobs.

Those sizes will serve way more than 100 people - more like 185! Make sure they know that.

[Those sizes will serve way more than 100 people - more like 185! Make sure they know that.]

Good point that is true! If you only charge $250 total, you will be in the hole. If you want profit I would figure $250 + whatever profit you want to make. [/quote]

I am sad, I am lost in English
$250 just in profit.
As there in wedding will be no other desert, I wanted bigger pieces of cake to serve, that's why I figure out the size of the cake, I measured the pieces on board and by the serving chart, they are too small. I made my own chart. Hope this is clear now - I am getting more and more people confused

Ok, then you have the right sizes to feed 100 people larger pieces of cake than "wedding cake" size. And you need to charge $500 to make a profit of $250 because it will probably cost you $250 to make it. The cost of making a cake per person is based on the wedding cake size pieces so you should charge based on 185, not 100. Hope that makes sense. Honestly though you probably won't spend $250 on the cake so you could probably charge $400 and still make $250. This is what I would do:

Get $250 now. Then when you have purchased everything you can give them the additional amount due. Just be honest, say "I will most likely need $500 to do this cake, maybe more, maybe less but for now give me $250 and a few days before delivery I will give you the additional amount which will not exceed (insert whatever amount you want to say here, I would say $550)" Then they will know and you will know what to expect, more or less.

Hope this helps!

Pricing questions are really hard!

I think that is a fair price. I recently did buttercream cakes for a preschool graduation. I made about 500 servings. I purchased the ingredients for $100.33 (cake mix, buttermilk, eggs, p. sugar, shortening, margarine, flavoring, fondant for accents, disposable bags). I know people aren't going to believe that's all I spent on supplies because I was surprised myself, but it's true. I got eggs on sale for $.48/dozen and cake mixes for $.99 each. Anyway, I then decided that I would charge $10/hour labor including planning, shopping and cleanup. In the end, it took 19.5 hours, so the total charge was $295.33. Normally, I would have charged $465 total, but I wanted to discount this order. To be fair, the cakes I made were not hard to decorate...I made 6 double layer 11x15's and 2 decorative cakes that were double layer 9" and 6" rounds. The decorations were minimal.

The bottom line is, make sure you charge enough to cover the cost of your expenses. How much profit you want to make is entirely up to you! Good luck and have fun! I know your friends will appreciate it.

Thank you ALL of you for your opinions, I feel better now with my price.