I have a lady that asked for a double layer full sheet cake with strawberry whipped icing and she also wants 5 dozen cupcakes as well. I've never sold cupcakes before....so...

What do you charge for basic cupcakes by the dozen? They would just be vanilla with strawberry whipped icing and sprinkles on top. I called the local places here (grocery stores) and their average is $7 a dozen. Does $9 a dozen sound reasonable? What do you charge?

Also, I do have a price sheet another memeber sent me here (thanks again!) for cakes, but I also called the local bakeries as well. For a single full sheet, my price sheet says $60 and for a double it's $75. The same local places here charge $45 for a single and $100 for a double. What would be a reasonable price for that? $100? Would I charge more since mine is specially made and also baked from scratch as well? It would be the strawberry whipped icing with fondant accents.

I am fairly new to charging for cakes and am always told I under price my stuff. I've been decorating for a few years, but never really charged. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I can't give you an exact price because there are several things to take into account. One, of course, is what bakeries in your area charge. Another is your cost - and I mean EVERYTHING, including gas, electricity, ingredients, a small amount per order to amortize your investment in pans and other equipment and, above all, a decent salary for you - plus any profit you hope to make (and please remember that profit is calculated after you've paid yourself a salary). You may have to make an educated guess about some of these things if you don't do this on a regular basis. But, indeed, remember that you're doing something to order, from scratch and using a recipe that no local bakery uses, so it is only to be expected that your prices would be somewhat higher than a bakery's. I hope this gives you some ideas of how to think about your prices.

I can't give you a specific price because I don't know your exact ingredients costs, area market etc but, if your cupcakes are scratch based than $9 per dozen is way too low IMHO.

My standard cupcakes are priced at $26 per dozen with no filling or decoration apart from the standard IMBC swirl.

I wouldn't use grocery store pricing as your guage.

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-694973-pricing.html

Grocery stores are not where you should get your price comparisons from. Even going by what other bakeries charge isn't always accurate unless you are putting out the same exact product, have the same exact over head and so on.

You need to figure out how much it is costing *you* to make them. What it cost you to make something and what it costs someone else to make them, are two totally different things.

When you say a full double layer sheet cake, what size are you talking about? If you are talking about needing to bake 4 12x18s, then your cake would serve 196 1x2x4 inch servings.

At $100 for that size cake you are charging only .51 cents a serving. I'm sorry, but that's crazy!!!

Personally, I do $3 a serving for a buttercream cake. So the cake alone would be $588. That's a lot, but it's also a lot of work, and my time is valuable to me.

You need to do the math though, using the link above to figure out what you need to charge to make it worth your while. Personally I wouldn't go below $2 a serving, especially not for a scratch recipe and a specialty icing.

I would also price the cupcakes at about $2 per serving with just a simple swirl. So at least $48 per dozen, $240 for all 5 dozen.

TexasSugar, that's $24 per dozen at $2 each and $120 for 5 dozen. Let's not scare the poor girl any more than we absolutely have to! If it wasn't obvious from my post, I think she's way undercharging, too, but I know how scary it is to ask for fair value if you're not used to it.

Oops sorry! Thank you, Marianna. I doubled the math. I tend to think an 'order' of cupcakes is 2 doz. I wouldn't sell just a doz myself.

So yes $120 for the 5 doz of cupcakes.