I'm a newby and I don't know what to charge for a 6" and 10" stacked cake with respberry filling for a baby shower. Please help

I'd charge $25 for the 6" and $45 for the 10". I live in a rural community and have to be careful not to price myself out of the market. Pricing is ALL about where you are located and what your competition charges.

I would charge $85 for that size cake.

I'm new, too, and while I'm on my "learning curve" I charge $20.00 for a 6" and $40.00 for a 10".

I myself would charge $50 because that's what I'm comfortable with. (if these are round cakes). you can check with some bakeries in your area to see what they charge.

Thanks for all the help.

I would charge 65. Hope that helps.

Be careful with pricing or you could find yourself paying people to buy your cake. don't know what I mean? Well when I first made my 8" cake I figured $15 would be a good price because I wanted to compete witht he supermarket cakes and I didn't think people would want to pay a whole lat for one of my cakes. This was a pumpkin spice cake with nuts raisins and cream cheese frosting and I was buying all of my ingredients in the supermarket. I came up with the number arbitrarily but when I finally sat down and figured theings out I realized that it cost me about $12 to make the cake and after figuring in packaging and my time my $3.00 didn't seem so good.
The first thing you should make sure you do is figure out how much it cost you to make the cake and then consider your market ect. I now charge $30 for that 8" cake and I never buy my ingredients in the supermarket so it cost me a lot less to make it. Figure out how much it costs you to make the cake set a comfortable price and then set out to find a way to buy your ingredients cheaper to maximize your profits for next time. For your cake I would charge about $70

I also have this problem with cake pricing I do not feel that my prices are not overtly high they are competitive with supermarket and bakery pricing however I find that many customers because I am making this from home want to pay like it's free. And in comparison to the special cake I am giving them with the time and decorations it took to make they just feel they should pay hardly anything. I get really flustered because the cake they are asking for would not be made by cosco or albertsons maybe your local bakery but for much much more.

I am horrible with pricing myself!! I did the frog cake in my photos along with 12 lily pad CC and only got paid $25!!!! I know I got ripped off but it's partly my fault. I tell people to pay me what they can afford or what they think it's worth. I too run into the problem of them not wanting to pay properly because they feel that I'm just starting out and doing it from home so it can't be worth that much. I figured out my costs for that order and I think my profit was around $2-3.00!! I still buy from the supermarket for supplies and whenever possible I go to Sam's for bulk sugar but I stock up when things are on sale.
Any good suggestions for low cost supplies??

How do you handle pricing when your just starting out and don't want to lose any potential clients??

Sometimes it helps to take a picture of a cake you have made or a picture in an magazine to your local baker and ask them how much it would cost to get something similar. Even ball park figure helps. I did this with a cake someone wanted for 40 people 3 tier stacked and i had quoted $100 the local bakery said they wouldn't make if for 40 only 75-100 and it would be $250 -300. I felt better about my cost.

I made a b-day cake for my daughter you can check it out in my pics if you like. it's the castle cake. I was asked to do a cake for one of my daycare kids b-day. It would have been for 40 people fondant covered a clown made out of fondant holding up the number 1. I quoted her $ 55.00. Well her eyes almost popped out she decided they get a small cake from walmart.

Any good suggestions for low cost supplies??

How do you handle pricing when your just starting out and don't want to lose any potential clients??[/quote]


If they aren't willing to pay you what you are worth then they weren't potential clients. I say let them go unless they lead to other orders. I have some clients that I regularly make discounted or free cakes for because they have lead me to other clients. In the begining, there was one client in particular that was one of those people that gave me a lot of grief about my pricing. One day, posing it as a joke, although I was really pissed, I told her that if she wanted cheap cake she would have to become my sales rep. It worked. She has helped me to spread the word in exchange for a half price cake or two and you should hear her tell people how worth it my cakes are!

I based my prices on making a profit from what it would cost me if I shopped at the supermarket for everything. I used Fresh Direct pricing and then set out to beat those prices. I try not to buy anything form the supermaket. currently the only thing I buy from the supermarket is flour because the restaurant supply store I use only carries Gold Medal. I try to buy everything from Costco or Restaurant Depo otherwise it is impossible to make a profit at the price points you have to set so that you don't price yourself out of your market.