Up until recently, all my cakes have been freebies, practice and ingredients only....but people are now starting to ask to BUY them. typically whether a cake is big or small, I spend an average of six hours, baking, covering in fondant and decorating - so it almost seems silly for me to charge less than a hundred dollars per cake. I use expensive satin ice fondant, homemade butter buttercream, fresh fruit purees and ganaches, lroyal icing, luster dusts etc, so my costs typically run 30-40 for a small cake (4", 6" stacked) ...
how do you go about setting a minimum order standard? $5 per slice up to the first 20 slices? then 3.50-4.00 after that? i have in the past easily figured a cake for 35 at 3.00+ per slice so i charge $100, but what if someone only wants a cake to fee 10? its not worth it to me to do a cake for $50, not with the amount of ingredients and time detailing i put into it.
i need to get back to someone this evening with a price on a cake- so - suggestions would be much appreciated.
thanks reese04 and joannb,
they picked out a cake in my gallery (pink and purple- bleck!) that is 4" and 6" stacked. fondant covered, in mostly icey blues and whites, maybe a little brown, with pink daisy/pearl accents and the fondant curled overlay...royal icing, and painted with pearl dust. boxed, w/ ribbon etc, torted w/ 3 layers of filling....for a 16 yr old girls birthday.
sounds pricey to me, but my time is important to me and my family. this person is not hurting for cash...but its their first order and i dont want to scare them away. this lady talked earlier about wanting to start using me for her cakes, so she is used to paying, but we havent talked prices yet.
what i have is the "cold feet" pricing jitters....
oh, i was thinking of pricing it at $100-
and thats my problem....
it has 18 servings (1x2x4) but i would normally only charge about 3-4$ per serving.(on a large cake) ...but for that cake size, it would be $54-$72 at that price...which doesnt seem worth my time if i spend $30-40 on supplies alone plus 6 hours????
its almost the same time for me to decorate a cake of 6" and 8"....should i offer a bigger cake?
its just that most people dont think cake is THAT difficult or THAT expensive when they are used to a $1 box mix and $2 can of frosting with a few candles stuck on top....
I'm with Jen on this one--let them have a little leftover cake for that kind of $. It's easier to decorate a 6/8 than a 4/6 anyway 
Think of it as the minimum size cake you're willing to make for the minimum amount of $ you'll accept for that cake.
I had an order for a cake to serve 12--I just couldn't hand over a 6" cake. It would have looked cheap on my part, so I made a 9" hexagon that was 3" tall. It was still small, but at least I had something to decorate 
JMHO
Rae
thanks rae, how much did you charge for the 9"?
she just emailed me and said 12 servings...
i told her $80 for the 4/6 - any cake flavor, any filling, buttercream and satin ice fondant ...decorated.
now i am thinking i should have replied 100 for the 6/8..... ugh- we'll see what she says.
thanks for the honest opinions.
I charged her $40. It was buttercream iced and filled.
Rae
....its just that most people dont think cake is THAT difficult or THAT expensive when they are used to a $1 box mix and $2 can of frosting with a few candles stuck on top....
Then you tell then, "Aisle 8 at Walmart. Be sure the pan fits inside your oven."
Thank you everyone for your opinions and advice. I just recieved an email response and she happily agreed to $80 for the 4/6 stacked. YAY! that is so exciting for me. In my entire photo gallery, I only really made money on ONE cake (edgar allen poe books)- my neighbor gave me a hundred dollars (i didnt know what to charge her so i told her to pay me what she thought was fair. recently, i decided that i would start charging people who came to me to do this (per the request of my kids and husband who were tired of me working all day for free cakes). ...so a couple of weeks ago, got a request for a baby shower cake, i quoted 105- they said GREAT!, then this one i quoted 80- not a problem! i am so happy that people so far have not tried to haggle with me, they ask for a price, and take it. woohoooooooooo! i know i have a long road ahead of me until real business success (which i plan for someday) but i feel confident that this is a good start! just thought i'd share 
My husband has BANNED me from doing cakes for free... he is the one that has to clean up so I have to AT LEAST charge a cleaning fee
Remember, you are NOT competeting with Costco and the grocery store. When people ask for something that is similar to the grocery store, I tell them they should go to Costco (nicely). I politely let them know that my ingredients cost more than you can get a costco cake for and on top of that I put in HOURS to make a CUSTOM cake. If people are ordering a fancy custom cake they should be willing to pay for it, and as you've seen THEY ARE!
There are 2 ways to price your cakes (1) cheap to get lots of orders or (2) pricey to get less orders but the same or more money. I had started a thread a little while ago on working smarter and not harder. The tricky part is if you are pricing a little higher for your QUALITY CAKES THAT ARE WORTH IT then you are going to lose customers. It won't be anything personal, but you need to develop a little bit of a tough skin to realize that person wasn't in the market for what you make. Do you think the Lexus dealer feels bad when someone buys a Hyundai?
http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-120181-smarter.html
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