AI'm working on establishing my prices and policies and was wondering what equipment you rent, your deposit and what you charge for the rental. How do you handal it if your item returns damaged and you have to replace it? Do you decorate the cake table and if you do, what do you charge?

My thought as far as the deposit it would be the replacement cost of the item pluse 10% for the inconvenience of having to go out and replace the item.

So the things I was thinking would be rented would be:

Cake stand Cake knife and server Plastic dowels inside cake since they can be washed Pillers and plates

I would love to hear your thoughts on this!

Thanks!

Plastic dowels?  Like the cheap Wilton dowels?  Honestly, don't bother "renting" those...Just figure them into the final price of your tiered cakes.  I've never known any baker to ask for those back.

AFor anything that is worth being reused we charge the total replacement cost (including tax and shipping) as a refundable deposit plus 1/3 the cost as a rental fee.

AActually the lady who made my wedding cake had in her contract that the dowels were to be washed put in a plastic bag and returned with the cake stand. She even listed how many were in each tier of the cake and the total number to be returned. If we didn't return them then we would have lost some of our rental deposit.