I have been asked to make a themed cake for a customers set of twins. This is my first formally themed cake of peppa pig and on the back of this i have another couple of orders asking for the same cake. The thing is i am now making sugarpaste models which take up a bit of time and i dont know how to cost for these. Does anyone know how?

Aside from taking into account the amount of sugarpaste i use, should i calculate the length of time it has taken me to make them but also how much should i charge for my labour. Is there a set fee? should it be national minimum wage?

Any advice would be appreciated.

I'm not familiar with that character--but you're asking about an art fee, so that's subjective. You gotta figure what's fair for you and what the traffic will bear.

I mean each cake gets some amount of decor anway just for the base price so it depends on how much other decor there is too. So you gotta determine how much is above the line and how much to offset this being your first of these characters and all those other variables.

If someone came to me and wanted for example a bride and groom made to order--$100 to $150 depending on the details. I mean for stick people I might just toss in for the base price of the cake--it's all kinda depending. If the bride is wearing a Vera Wang she wants me to copy kaching kaching.

But often times for a child's character cake $150 for a character might be a deal breaker--you gotta balance it out.

Hope that gives you some ideas.

I know everyone has their own method for doing pricing but here's what we figured:

We work on the project and multiply it times $15/hour. That takes into consideration someone working at $10-12/hour plus the cost of materials and overhead. To do four of Nicholas Lodge's presents using patchwork cutters, it took me an hour. Working that out at $15/hour divided by four, I came up with $3.75 per package. Add that plus all the other items to the base price of the cake and it can add on some pretty change.

I would recommend doing the same thing for figurines, too.

HTH

Paul

well i did a bit of looking around so like say it all comes down to man hours. i looked at the cost of my basic materials for making the models and x3 so it gave me roughly £5.00 something per character x4 of. which if i do my sums my cake will cost around £60.00.

thanks for the help btw it came in use.