Can someone please help me with pricing sculpted cakes? I charge by the serving, but how does one estimate the servings found in odd shapes? I am afraid I have been fairly arbitrary in the past, ( more or less just deciding on the effort required), but would like to be able to estimate better the approximate numbers of servings.
Any help would certainly be appreciated.

I have changed to charging by the amount of work as you have. It's really difficult to figure out exact servings in something shaped like a car. It's much easier to just make a big enough cake and charge by the work.

I have a minimum of $150 for sculpted cakes, and that's for about 20-25 servings. (I'll make sure that there's that amount of cake in the finished 3-D cake.) I also charge by the time required if they need more than that number of servings, though. The cost of the cake is the least of your worries if you're making a 3-D cake. The main cost is going to be the time that you have to put into it, either sculpting the actual cake or preparing any special structural things for it, gumpaste details, etc.

I can't say I've actually done a carved cake but I do know that if you charge by the serving, it can't be your standard serving price because there is SO much more work involved. Most carved cakes are priced by the job since each one is so unique.

As I get inquiries for grooms cakes, I tell them, "It's $150 to start and that's before I even pick up a pencil to find out what it is you want."