Pricelist For Beginners....help!!!

Business By suprena Updated 14 Jun 2007 , 3:32pm by missmeg

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suprena Posted 13 Jun 2007 , 2:05pm
post #1 of 9

I am new to the cake decorating world and I am not confident with the pricing. I have read through Alice's matrix and I understand some of it but I feel it is too complicated for my level at this time. I think it is an awesome tool and would love to use it in the future. However, does anyone have anything simple and quick for me to use? I have 2 decorated round cakes for Father's Day to do and 2 pound cakes by this weekend. Please help!!! Thanks!

8 replies
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darcat Posted 13 Jun 2007 , 4:17pm
post #2 of 9

I dont sell cakes but I would think it depends on the cost of living in your area. Also how much your ingredients cost, the level of difficulty in the design, how many it feeds, how long it takes you to make. In any case here is a bump and hopefully someone with experience can help you

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kelleym Posted 13 Jun 2007 , 4:49pm
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Call other bakeries (not Wal Mart or a grocery store) and see what they charge for a comparable cake.

My basic prices are $2/serving for a 1 or 2 tiered cake, and $3/serving for a 3-4 tiered cake. Level of difficulty of the cake may add to the price. As a beginner though, you probably won't lose money if you start at $2/serving.

A lot of beginners also figure price by calculating the cost of ingredients, then charging that much times 3. For me, this does not work out to pay me enough, but it can be a good place to start. icon_smile.gif Good luck! thumbs_up.gif

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suprena Posted 13 Jun 2007 , 5:16pm
post #4 of 9
Quote:
Originally Posted by kelleym

Call other bakeries (not Wal Mart or a grocery store) and see what they charge for a comparable cake.

My basic prices are $2/serving for a 1 or 2 tiered cake, and $3/serving for a 3-4 tiered cake. Level of difficulty of the cake may add to the price. As a beginner though, you probably won't lose money if you start at $2/serving.

A lot of beginners also figure price by calculating the cost of ingredients, then charging that much times 3. For me, this does not work out to pay me enough, but it can be a good place to start. icon_smile.gif Good luck! thumbs_up.gif


Thanks kelleym. My husband keeps telling me to charge for ingredients just as u said, but he says to charge as if I had nothing and had to get everything to bake the cake. Excluding the cost of baking pans and utensils, the ingredients total to Approximately $15-$18. If that just covers ingredients then how do I pay myself? Or maybe because I won't technically use the entire carton of eggs or use all of the milk or flour, sugar, crisco, etc...would that be how I would pay myself?

I will visit your cakeboss site tonight at work when I get a break! Sounds interesting!

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indydebi Posted 13 Jun 2007 , 7:01pm
post #5 of 9

Suprena, there is much logic in that. If you are doing cakes every day or every weekend, the odds of you using that full dozen eggs is pretty good. But if you only do 1 cake a month, then you are going to throw out 9 eggs. In the manufacturing world, it's costed out as "scrap factor" and is figured in as part of the cost. This is why some caterers have a minimum of 25 or 50 people on some dishes .... the way I am forced to buy the ingredients just is not cost effective for only 3 or 10 people.

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purplebutterfly1234 Posted 13 Jun 2007 , 7:47pm
post #6 of 9

That's interesting. I didn't realize some people charge for the total cost of the packaged product,(like a tub of crisco, a dozen eggs,etc.) even though they don't use it all. I think I am understanding this right.

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kelleym Posted 13 Jun 2007 , 8:02pm
post #7 of 9

I would only charge for the entire package (eggs, crisco, etc) if it is something you will not use for anything else and you will likely be discarding. For my recipes that require buttermilk, this is what I do, because buttermilk is not something I use around the house, and it goes bad quickly, so I probably can't use it for another order.

For eggs, flour, crisco, sugar -- these are all things I use all the time -- whether for a paying order or for my family (scrambled eggs make a quick dinner when nothing else is defrosted, lol). So I would only charge a customer for the eggs that go in to their order.

What if they have a cake order that requires 2.5 recipes of a cake recipe? Well, unless I can easily halve the recipe, they're going to get charged for 3 recipes. The leftover .5 recipe of batter is truly scrap -- in all likelihood you won't be able to use it for another order.

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indydebi Posted 13 Jun 2007 , 8:06pm
post #8 of 9
Quote:
Originally Posted by purplebutterfly1234

That's interesting. I didn't realize some people charge for the total cost of the packaged product,(like a tub of crisco, a dozen eggs,etc.) even though they don't use it all. I think I am understanding this right.




Which is how we explain to some customers the reason we are more expensive than Walmart is volume ..... volume selling and volume buying of ingredients. I'm fortunate to have a manufacturing background (in costing and inventorying raw materials) to have learned this.

Here's a for-real example: Had a bride who wanted an appetizer table, including watermelon. Now, I have to buy the full watermelon for 40 guests and I have to buy the full watermelon for 50. Same expense for me, but less money with the 40 guests. I have to buy certain produce and fruits from Sysco in full flats and full cases ..... so it either costs me more to buy the smaller units at the local grocery, or it costs me more to buy it cheaper per unit, but I have to buy more units. So I issued the quote on a 50-person minimum.

If I can use it later down the road, then I can charge them for units used. If there is a min buy requirement for me, then it's a min-buy requirement for them. It's plain, everyday business practices. Done all the time.

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missmeg Posted 14 Jun 2007 , 3:32pm
post #9 of 9

My father and I came up with a simplified pricing scheme that's worked up till now. He's an accountant with the bulk of his experience in small businesses, so this is his forte.

Our simple spreadsheet marked all ingredients by price. Example, box mix 88 cents; bag powdered sugar, 1.38; 2 cups crisco, 2.19. And so on. We broke down per egg and per merangue powder. That gave us (for a simple cake recipe) a complete total of cost of ingredients per cake mix. We multiplied that by 3 (as others have done). We also add in there any extra ingredients needed as well.

I keep track of how many times I use a particular cake pan. For the first 3 times I use the pan, I charged the customer 1/3 of the price of the pan. After that the pan becomes part of my Usable Stock. Same with any other special items I needed to purchase to complete the cake.

Then I decided on what my wage per hour should be. Since I don't consider myself a expert yet, I average between $12-15/hour for my time to decorate. Right now I don't charge for prep or clean-up time, since I do it at home and I'm frequently jumping in and out of the kitchen during the day doing prep and baking.

I'm confident enough now that I sell a 1-box cake (either small sheet or a character pan) for $45. That's my ingredients x3 and two hours of decorating @ $15/hour.

As I get more proficient I will move over to the matrix and do a "per serving" pricing structure.

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