I'm thinking about instituting a minimum order for cupcakes of 2 dozen, until I am up and running full time. What do you think? 

I'm also going to be limiting specialty cakes to 8 inches and up, unless the order is for a tiered cake. 

jen

Oh yes, definitely a minimum order.

are you opening a retail shop with walk in customers?

if not then i think a minimum dollar amount is more efficient

because you will get an order with a picture of say a 10x8x6 and they book and then they call back and say oh we only need two servings and one of those is for a 2 month old

it's less of a headache to me to set the dollar amount--then the few of them that try & dumb you down only get so far

sure I can do a one inch with a half inch tier on top for you--it's $150, which is my minimum order 

just a thought

AI will do 1 dozen cupcakes for people because its easy for me to whip up a half a batch of cake. I have all my recipes calculated out for 1/2, 1, and 2 batches. Plus with the giant swirl on top, it takes a full batch of wilton recipe of icing for one dozen. But that's just me!

I have a minimum order of $50 for cakes and 2 dozen for cupcakes.

The smallest size cake I offer is an 8" round, unless it is a tiered cake.

It's not worth it for me (time or money-wise) to turn on my oven for less.
 

AYour minimum order will depend largely on your target market. If you are focusing on wedding cakes and have relatively affluent customers you may set a minimum in the $100-200 range. The bakery I founded focused on midmarket event cakes, so our minimum was an 8" round (starting at $44) or a dozen cupcakes per flavor (starting at $30). If a customer wanted a 6" round that was fine, but the price was the same as an 8" round. For the cupcakes we would sometimes make exceptions on the 12 per flavor minimum depending on workflow and our limited frozen inventory.

I will echo the thought of using a dollar amount as your minimum.  That's what it really comes down to doesn't it? How much is your time worth?  Ours is $75 for special orders.  We have an open retail shop and of course there is no minimum order for things we have in production.