I have been requested to do a women's torso w/corsett cake and extras on top. enough cake to feed 60 ppl. I said 120. now thinking that too much. please help, don't want to over price and lose this job...I need the money. thanks in advance for any help. robin

*sorry no one in the other forum. so i edited content*

Sounds like you underpriced to me. Go see how much the ingredients cost & you'll see how much you underpriced. I don't care how much I need the money, I'm not underpricing ANYTHING! I have to buy my ingredients, go to the store (which uses gas, another expense) to get what I need, pay for the electricity that runs the oven & mixer, and then there is the cost of my precious time. A basic buttercream cake would be $180. What you are about to do would be $350-400.

did the customer request for 60 people and you made it for 120? that's a big difference.....just a suggest though you can charge by the slice. Also, depends on how detailed your cake is....if it's extremely detailed and you put a large amount of time into it, then charge in the high end. Can't really say how much to charge, but it's what you think your work is worth and you are satified with the price.

no i quoted $120., to serve 60 ppl. and yes alot of sculpting decorating details and a big extra on top...lol. i guess my level would be between 1-5 I would be a 3.

$120 would be underpriced in my opinion. Once anything is carved or specialty - the price goes up b/c its your time they are paying for. I agree with LaBellaFlor, i would be charging 350 - 400 at the least. Your not considering the amount of time and any time consuming challenges you might face when doing a sculpted cake for the first time. Plus the time you will spend doing the corsets details a plus the extras ... think about it... and good luck

Can you do the job & do it well? I looked at your pic. & I can't really tell what your capable of. I'll be honest, when ever I see a lot of star piping, I'm concerned about someone's ability to do hard design work. Please don't take that personal. If you feel you can do it (and I'm assuming you can, cause I don't think you would accept the job if you couldn't...at least I hope not) then you charge appropiately. This sounds like a lot of work. Just designing the corsett & getting it on the bus is gonna be work.

Oh my! I do plan on doing alot of detail work, she wants it very sexy. But I have already quoted the price though, guess I won't go down on it though. I think they thought that I would price this like I do family, and I had already told them that they had very special pricing. Guess I need to take the time and try to create some sort of guideline for myself for pricing.

if you don't mind, would like to see a picture of the cake when you are done with it......thank you.

Listen level is relative. If you can do it, you charge the right amount. $120 is ridiculously low. You will regret what liitle you got paid when your sitting there getting the details of the corsett right and then getting it on the bust without it lossing it's shape. I gurantee it!

I know what you mean, I am sitting here now regreting not taking the time to post here first. But I can't go back on my original quote, even though they know I am new at the pricing thing.. And if I do the cake I will definitly post it here.

Since on the subject of pricing...lol. I also have a request for a wedding cake for 100 ppl. all bc with fondant pearl trim and lay on flowers, she wants a 16' base layer...all her request, again I feel this is something I can do. if i do it 16 on bottom 12 middle 6 top will that be enough and how much. ball park figure will do. cake is for oct. 10

Follow Wilton's chart for servings, the wedding one for ALL cakes, don't even look at the party servings, EVER! You can see how serious I am about that. Now, that is a lot of cake for a 100 people. A 16" alones serves a 100 people. I don't like your cake sizes either. A 6' on top of a 12' is a huge difference in size. Personally, if she insist on a 16' bottom, I would do 16-12-8. That gives you 4' around which is a lot. That comes out to 180 servings! A lot of cake. And she has to pay for EVERY serving, not just how many servings she needs. I don't know what you mean by lay on flowers, but that cake for buttercream, with those sizes, would be $540. She could do 6-9-12 and get a 100 servings for $300. My buttercream starts at $300 a serving. Once again, look on Wilton's site for any future serving questions you may have.

Sorry, I ment to say $3.00 a serving, not $300. Don't I wish!

Gumpaste flowers get VERY expensive. Not sure if your making them or ordering pre-made ones. Depending on how many it could up the price to another $50-$250. Like I said, you may have a few, your cake maybe entirely covered like Sylvia Winestock. It can get expensive. Figure out how much your supplies are and how much you want to make an hour. If you order, figure out the cost & if your gonna need to enhance & your time for ordering & any labor involved. Good luck & don't forget to post a picture of the bust on a thread. We'll never get to see it if you just upload the pic.

Thanks for all your advice it is very helpful. And I will post a pic. She just confirmed and is bringing me half down. So it's on...

OKAY IT'S DONE, AND THEY LOVED IT. AND YEAH I MADE NOOOO MONEY OFF IT. NOW HOW DO I POST THE PICS HERE?

Dang I want to see it! I don't know how to post pics. though. ANYONE?

Just post it to your photos, we can all look at it there !

IT WON'T LET ME UNLESS I BREAK THE RULES...THEY ARE POSTED IN THE NAUGHTY FEMALE SECTION THOUGH. OR I CAN EMAIL TO ANYONE THAT WANTS TO SEE.