I ave Bren making cakes for a couple of years. I charge per Cake.
I am starting to get into wedding cakes and I was looking online and fund tha a lot of people charge per serving.
How do you charge? Why?
I am just overwhelmed with all the logistics but want to be prepared so I don't screw myself over as I have in the past
Thanks for he input
Dina
I ve heard of people charging $4 or $5/ slice but I guess it all depends on you and how much bakeries charge in your town to give u a basic idea.
Since you are already selling cakes, I suggest you invest in the cakeboss software. It is $150 US (less 10% for Cake Central members) and is a tremendous value. It will help with the logistics, the cost, the pricing, the invoicing, etc.
Here's the info and another link to a fabulous article about How Much to Charge for Cakes?
http://www.cakeboss.com/Default.aspx
http://www.cakeboss.com/PricingGuideline.aspx
If you do not expect to charge a different price for wedding cakes (some charge more for wedding cakes than party cakes) you could simply divide your usual price per cake (how you do it now) by the number of servings in the cake. The total amount is the same, just a different way of getting there.
You could crunch the numbers for a number of your cakes based on their level of difficulty (your simplest cake to the most elaborate), calculate an average and range to see how much your cakes usually run. If a client asks for a quick range of your prices you can give them an idea pending the time you give a solid quote. You'd probably want to advertise a "starting" price if you have a website. So if your simplest cake is $3.00 per serving you could say 'BC cakes start at $3.00 per serving' with the price going up based on how elaborate the design is.
There are some good threads discussing price per cake vs price per serving in this forum.
The best way to set prices is to look at your costs, including ingredients, labor (your hourly wage), and allocated overhead for the various products you are selling. Once you have your costs, add a markup (usually 15-45%, this is profit that flows to your business) based on market prices in the area.
For custom cakes you will need to make this calculation on an ad hoc basis, so it's important to be able to accurately estimate how long a specific design will take.
I think charging per cake makes more sense and that's what we do here but I think most in the US charge per serving.
I charge per cake, and give the client a range of servings that can come from it, because there are different serving charts and you have no control over how many servings are actually cut from the cake after it's delivered. Here's my rationale (Keep in mind this is written for brides to read) http://acaketorememberva.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-i-price-my-wedding-cakes.html
Thanks everyone for your input.
I feel truly overwhelmed. I did not think the pricing thing through properly, but I have to sit down and really think about it.
As far as calculating my time and how long things take, I find that very difficult. I am fairly new (2 years) and I have yet to make the same cake twice so almost everything I make is new and a learning experience. That obviously takes longer than if I am constantly making the same thing and having take less time.
There is a lot to consider, but the websites you recommended came in handy
dina
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