i've just started making cakes and have had a few people ask me to make them cakes of various shapes and sizes etc. i'm not doing cakes as a business but would like to put a small amount on for time taken to make decs. any ideas how i could price them would be useful or am i being cheeky asking for payment over the cost of ingredients.
Thanks
Definitely not cheeky! Why shouldn't you get compensation for your time and talent? Time is money.
I do something similar here and I usually start with a charge of 3X ingredients. Sometimes less if it is a simple cake, sometimes more for extra details.
Don't sell yourself cheap, because otherwise if you do go into business, people will expect amazing cakes for next to nothing!
I really like what I see in your photos, and yes, you should be getting something for your time too! Before I did this seriously as a way of making money, I used to charge people the cost of the ingredients + something for my time. So say your cake cost you £10 to make (and don't forget to include the price of your board, the box, ribbons, add on some for colourings used etc, etc, your electric/gas bill), and took you 4 hours to make and decorate your cake, then asking £30 minimum for it is more than reasonable! Any reason why your time & talent should be worth less than minimum wage?!
Now, as a money making venture, I cost out the price of each cake, estimate my time and charge per hour what I want to earn, and charge for delivery! This can sometimes be a shock to some people - I had a lady want a Simpsons cake similar to the Wallace & Gromit cake in my photos, with all the family modelled around the dinner table etc. When I told her that it was going to cost her 125 euros (about £85), for a cake that would serve 16, she nearly died! I explained to her that if she wanted me to spend a full day working on a cake (and that cake would have taken me around 10-12 hours to do!), then she was going to have to pay me for a full day of my time - needless to say she went with something a lot simpler (and cheaper)! Good luck!
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