I have owned my cake business for about a year, and lately I have been getting some weird requests. Today I had one wanting 20 pies! I do not advertise for pies, but I told her that I would think about it. I have NO idea how much to even charge for pies! Anyone got any ideas??? I am clueless on this topic! Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks ladies!!

Ashley

I understand that it's hard to turn down business, and if you need the money then I understand taking the order.

BUT! IF you don't make pies, then you will have to do some work to figure out how much you need to charge for those pies in order to make money. Will figuring out the costs involved (including finding a recipe you like) worth the sale? Guess at a price and you could be losing money! And if you sell them one batch of pies, are you willing to sell to them occasion after occasion? And sell pies to their friends?

Do you even know how to make pies? That's a weird request if you don't advertise them.

I just listed pies on my website at $24 each, but I make them all from scratch. There's another bakery in town who I have no doubt is using premade ingredients and they sell them from $8 to $10. There's no way I could sell them for that and make any kind of a profit. You'll need to decide if you can even handle pie orders first, then price out your ingredients etc. to see how much to charge. I guess it would depend on how fast you could do them, too.

I do know how to make pies, my mom taught me very early on to make pies. I just never thought the money was in pie making and I enjoy cake baking and decorating a TON more, so I never advertised them on my business site. I was just wondering if someone maybe had a ballpark figure on what to charge for them. I hate to compare to some of the grocery stores and such because I am only one person and I can't really compete with them.

Just be careful, if it's for a wedding they may want a free tasting which is really difficult to do for pie, seriously.

I have quite a few pies on my site. They show the price. If someone wanted twenty, my questions would be how many flavors and are they for the same time frame? If there are ways to cut the time, I would discount slightly. If they were different flavors, it would have to be the regular price. I have started doing more corporate events and I now have several buffets on the calendar. I have not discounted any of the items. I did discount a great customer that ordered 50 caramel popcorn orders. But this recipe is easily streamlined.

Total up how much your ingredients are costing you. Then decide how much time it takes you to bake a pie or a number of pies. You have to rate how much your time is worth.

The best way to do this is get your receipts together and figure how much it actually costs to make one pie. Figure how much time it takes to make that pie and charge accordingly. Are you making pies to order? or do you make them and sell them as is? It matters, because if you make them and sell them as is, you have the possibility of more waste. You need to charge more to offset the waste.

If you make them based on orders, then there is less waste and you can actually charge less. You also need to take into account that seasonal ingredient cost more in the offseason and that local produce might be cheaper or more expensive depending on the weather.

Good luck with your business. I am making an apple pie right now.