I have a client that is looking for a 3D cake that will be a replica of a house. She only needs it to serve 20 people, but I've already told her that it will serve more in order to be to scale ( even if part of it is done in rice crispies). It's not so much the 3D part, but rather all the details on the house that I'm concerned about. I know this is going to involve a lot of time. I have no idea what to charge. My husband always tells me I under sell myself. I don't want to charge to little, I want to be reasonable but I'm tired of feeling that I'm working for peanuts. Please help

Can you make a house out of gingerbread or some other firm cookie and place it on top of a cake?

You can cover the gingerbread completely with icing or even fondant so that the cookie doesn't show through.

Calculate the cost of your ingredients, the cost of your overhead per order (liability insurance, license fees, etc. per year divided by the number of orders you fill annually), and the cost of your labor (a comparable hourly wage * the number of hours it would take to make). Add these costs, then add another 20-30% for your profit margin.

For example, let's say this cake will use $30 worth of ingredients, your overhead is $500 per year with 50 orders per year, the cake will take 10 hours to make, and a comparable wage is $20/hour. That works out to $30 + $500/50 + 10 * $20 = $30 + $10 + $200 = $240. Add 20% and the price would be $288.

Yikes! Sorry! My daughter was talking to me when I was reading your original post. I don't have a clue why I didn't realize it was a pricing question. Sorry!

Thank you Jason for the breakdown on how to calculate a reasonable price for this cake. This information was really useful and very much appreciated.