Search for Cake Pricing on here. No one can tell you how much to charge because everyones costs are different.
$20 is a nice round number. Or you could take the advice offered by craftybanana.
How much will you have invested in making it? If you use a box mix it's at least $30 for supplies (including the base board; icing, doll (or pick) etc. Now decide how much you want to be paid for the time it will take you to completely finish not only the cake but do all the clean up etc.
In my book that should be about $75-$90 *minimum*.
AWhat do her costs have to do with what she should charge? She should just "decide" how much she wants to be paid? Seriously? This is not how the business world works.
How do you factor how much time she spends with customers into costing out the cake? And time spent with customers who didn't buy a cake. And bookkeeping and marketing. There is a lot more going into one's costs than time spent making the cake and cost of ingredients.
There is a market price for any cake and that's what it should sell for. Then subtract costs to determine profitability. If I get a good deal on fondant and you pay twice as much for the same fondant, if we're using cost to determine price, then I'd be selling my cake cheaper than yours. Do you see how silly that would be? Costs do not determine price.
ACost does not determine price? I never get involved in pricing threads but please dont say that. If it COST me for example $100 to make the cake(which includes material and 3 hours of employee wages) would I sell it for less than $100. No. So that right there determined my minimum charge for that cake. On top of that my COST for rent/utilities.
If the industry was charging $90 for something that cost me $100 to make, Im not going to lose $10. Maybe my staff work like snails(they dont) and maybe my costs are higher than others but ther are many places in the same vicinity that charge $250 for a 6" cake and others that charge $50. They dont use gold eggs and butter.
What I decide to charge for it would take my market value into account but it does not take away the fact that cost does determine the lowest possible price.
By "decide how much you want to get paid" , I read that as "set your hourly wage" for all of the labor involved as outlined by howsweet.
Your price ideally would consider general cost of supplies* + cost of labor + desired profit.
Then you have to survey your market, to see what the market will bear. As stated above, if the Market Price is less than Your Price, then you either work at a loss, or don't do the cake.
*usual prices. If you get a great deal, then of course you should not adjust downward for that cake.
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Cost does not determine price? I never get involved in pricing threads but please dont say that. If it COST me for example $100 to make the cake(which includes material and 3 hours of employee wages) would I sell it for less than $100. No. So that right there determined my minimum charge for that cake. On top of that my COST for rent/utilities.
If the industry was charging $90 for something that cost me $100 to make, Im not going to lose $10. Maybe my staff work like snails(they dont) and maybe my costs are higher than others but ther are many places in the same vicinity that charge $250 for a 6" cake and others that charge $50. They dont use gold eggs and butter.
What I decide to charge for it would take my market value into account but it does not take away the fact that cost does determine the lowest possible price.
I didn't say that costs are of no consideration, but they don't determine price. Not for a person starting up and trying to figure out what to sell her cake for. Market value minus cost tells you whether or not you should turn on the oven.
These ladies are going with the commonly given, and wrong, advice about figure your costs and add a wage and then you know what to charge. Then they are undercutting themselves and everyone else. It's a big shame.
You may focus on minimizing costs like I do to maximize profits and because there's a volume issue, right? But these new-to-business people are worrying about saving $1.50 of extra batter in the freezer and giving away the cake for $50 less than it's worth.
You and I can argue over the larger picture about how the price of cake boards effects over all cake prices, but it won't help anyone here stop selling themselves short. And if you do have staff a store front bakery, I would expect you'd want to help these folks get a grip on their undercharging problem. That's the number one problem. Second in line is the issue of their time spent, which is a type of cost. And last is cost of supplies and "overhead".
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