I feel fine about how much I charge for wedding cakes, but am struggling with my non-wedding cakes. I do a lot of shower and birthday cakes and am trying to come up with a pricing structure I am comfortable with. I have an order for a 10-inch round birthday cake,3-layer, with raspberry jam filling, to serve about 40. I quoted her at $1.50 without the filling and $1.75/serving with filling, which comes out to either $60 or $70 (no fondant). I feel like this is a good figure but am not sure . . . I know I personally would not want to pay more than $60-75 for a birthday cake to feed 35-40 but I also know the kind of profit I'd like to make . .
I live in a semi-rural area so this has to factor in.

I decided to make it easy on myself and price per serving regardless what the occasion. Cake is cake is cake. And for those that say more planning is involved and more hand holding for weddings, it's only a matter of time management and how organized you are.

I charge the same . I put the same work into a three tier birthday cake (sometimes more ) that I do into a three tier birthday cake.

Incidently I charge more per serve for cupcakes than I so for large cakes.

I would suggest that you NEVER, EVER use your feelings about how much YOU would pay for a cake to establish pricing. If this is difficult, simply substitute some other "skill" such as painting a mural on the side of a building instead of making/decorating custom cakes.

If someone wanted a mural painted on their building, would you determine your pricing based on how much YOU would pay for a mural? Nope. You would base it on the time involved, cost of supplies, and your skill level. After all, how many people can paint a really great mural?

Here is a fabulous, recent, thread about How Much to Charge. If you haven't read the thread and all the links provided by vgcea, it is well worth the time to read all the information.

How much to charge:
http://cakecentral.com/cake-de.....ml#7308992

Agreed - any custom cake is same per serving with additional for design. I do have a menu of pre-designed cakes that I charge a flat fee for, but they get no customization except adding "happy birthday". But even those aren't much cheaper per serving.

Charging people X for a "birthday cake", but charging XX for a "wedding cake" makes the customer think you are trying to rip them off.

Juuuust Google "Man Stroke Woman wedding cake" and find the video.

Apti I can not get the link to work. It keeps giving me error 404. Can you point me in the right direction on where to look for this thread. These type of topics always interest me.

We distinguish between tiered cakes and non-tiered cakes instead of wedding vs. party cakes. All tiered cakes are priced per serving, while all non-tiered cakes are a flat price (with an extra fee for premium decorations depending on the complexity of the design).

AZ that is so funny. At first a little scared to Google it given the name. My husband was laughing so hard we watched it twice so I could hear it.

Thanks it works this time

"Yes but this is a wedding cake." LOL!

I price per serving irrespective of if it's a birthday cake, wedding cake or funeral cake. The same cake is going to cost the same irrespective of where it's going.

GOOD video!

I charge the same. The highest-maintenance clients that I have are birthday cake clients. They. Are. Insane. Brides have nothing on them.

Same price as wedding cakes, usually other events are more work than wedding cakes.