I just bought this with my Michaels 50% off coupon:
Celebrate It 14/10/6x3-inch Set Round Cake Pan.

I tried to make a cake in the 10 inch pan using one cake mix (betty crocker) and the cake crowned really badly and turned out being really thin. I pretty sure that I used the correct amount of ingredients. Is there a guide for how much batter you should use for each size cake pan. I keep seeing all of these beautiful tired cakes, but I don't understand how they get the cakes to be so thick and pretty.

I appreciate any help you can provide. I'm sorry if there are previous post on this. I searched, but couldn't find any.

Definitely! Google the Wilton Serving size chart. It will tell you how many cups of batter for each size pan. One box cake is only enough for about 2 8 inch round pans. That's about 1 cake tier. You can also find extender recipes on this website. They will tell you ingredients to add to a box cake to get more batter. Try the White Almond Sour Cream recipe (WASC).

This should help:

http://shinymetalobjects.net/cake/calculator/cake_calculator.cgi

Also, you're not counting on one layer being your entire cake are you? I only ask that because of your question about the thickness of cakes. Even if you use one layer, you can still torte and fill it to make it taller. Add another torted layer and you've got a pretty tall 4-layer cake going on.
For any pan 10" and over you need to use either a metal flower nail or some other core in the center to help with doming and to cook the cake evenly. One cc'er here uses a cleaned soup can as a core...I haven't tried it but it sounds interesting. I always fill my pans 3/4 full so I make sure to have a rise above the pan. I like being able to level it when it's still in the pan. I don't use 3" pans...just 2". HTH somewhat!

Stay tuned in here on CC and I promise you will learn more than you ever wanted to know about cakes. Have fun!

my 8 and 10 round pans are 3 inch pans. I use one box for the 8 and 2 for the 10. I still don't think they are as tall and pretty as everyone else. I usually only cut the cake in half and put icing between. Sometimes I'll do 2 cuts (3 layers). Is this why my cakes are not as tall? Should I use 2 inch pans, or just always do 4 layers?

A 10" round pan (2" deep) takes one Betty Crocker cake mix. If it domed high and was thin at the edges, I'd suggest you use the baking strips and reduce your oven temp. Your oven was too hot for that cake. The metal in the pan bakes the cakes edges faster than the cake in the middle can bake (think back to 3rd grade science where we learned how metal is a conductor of heat).

Here's the science of why that happens and how baking strips will fix it: http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopicp-6626888.html#6626888

I never measure batter by cups. Here's what I use and I use Betty Crocker exclusively:

1 cake mix makes: two 6" rounds with batter leftover or two 8" rounds.
2 cake mixes make: two 10" rounds or two 8" squares
3 cake mixes make: two 12" rounds or two 10" squares
4 cake mixes make: two 14" rounds or two 12" squares

Thank you all so much! This helps a lot! Carmijok - I'm not planning on one layer being the entire cake...just the one part of the tier.

I'm new at doing all of this cake decorating, but I love it! It is such a creative release!

Hmm, late last night I totally missed that your list included "squares" too instead of just "rounds"! Oops! Thanks, indydebi! This helps a lot!

I bake form scratch, however, I weigh my pans, fill then weigh pan with batter. I fill my pans to 2/3 or 3/4 full when I weight. I make note of the weight of each size with batter since not all batter will weigh the same with the same volume (3/4 or 2/3 full).

I am so tired of leveling cake so I really need to start using the strips...too much left over cakes.

VaNella I am thinking if you google you'll be able to find something, it's very common! HTH!

VaNella I am thinking if you google you'll be able to find something, it's very common! HTH!

VaNella, I would have given you a link but I know that if you google it you'll get tons on the subject and it would probably be faster then we would link you to one! :]