i just got an Email request for a wedding cake. She isn't sure if she wants to do 15 small cakes ( 1 for each table) or 1 large cake. I don't know if I should price it the same or differently. I think there would be more work involved in doing 15 small cakes.. I'm just starting to really charge for my work and not sure about this .. any help would be appreciated. Thanks

I think you charge the same per serving, but I find that doing the 15 small will probably end up being more. Anybody else have an opinion?

I think is the same price per serving, I agre with Karateka...

No!!! You definitely charge more. You are doing more work by decorating each table cake. You must be paid more! Not only is this right for you...it is not fair to your competition if you underbid this huge amount of work! You are worth it ~

You should charge for each cake. It may be the same amount of servings, but you will be decorating 15 cakes instead of one.

I once did 50 individual cakes to go on each guest's plate instead of doing one big cake. It was a nightmare!!! I mean it all turned out good, but instead of doing just one cake, I was doing 50. I only charged by the serving and I should have charged per cake.

I know it's gonna be hard to tell the person that they will owe you so much, but just think...if you were doing 15 cakes for 15 different people what would you charge???

Just a thought!!!

AT least charge your max amount that you'd charge per serving if you do it that way. The extra time baking the cakes alone will at least double and you will spend more than double the time decorating them. Just work up two prices and explain why the fifteen cost more because their is soo much more time involved, I think I would understand that.

In June I did a "cupcake" wedding. Five flavors (gourmet..filled...fancy recipes) each with their own unique icing and decor. Decor ranged from moulded initial chocolates to gumpaste flowers....RI flowers...Hand-painted gumpaste hearts.... It was a huge amount of work. There were 29 dozen cupcakes. I charged $3 per....and that was way under what they should have been. Never again.

You definitely need to charge per cake. It's a lot more work and time required to do 15 smaller cakes than it is to do one larger one.

She's probably going to spend more with the smaller cakes simply because of the per-serving price. How many people is she expecting and how big are the smaller cakes?

without that info, let me give a for-instance example:

If she wants 15 cakes for 15 tables, I'm going to assume 120 guests (8 people per standard round table x 15)

3-tier cake to serve 125: 125 x $2.50/per serving = $312.50

Assuming she wants an 8" cake per table.
8" cake has 24 servings x 2.50 = $60 per cake x 15 cakes = $900

The problem with "cakes per table" is there really isn't a cake that serve 8 pieces (unless it's a really teeny tiny cake), ergo the bride spends more on cake because she has to buy more cake than she needs.

The mistake I see decorators make on this situation is they allow the bride to determine "I'm serving 8 people per cake" and try to price per cake, instead of taking control and telling the bride how much cake she is ordering and charging the proper price per serving .... just like they should with any other wedding cake.

Those numbers alone should convince her.

Thank you so much for the input. I'm sure youare all right. Thats why i love this site...
now she is saying that she wants a " fake layer underneath a small cake for each table and 2 "fake tiers" for her cake so they can have something big for pictures. that seems like an awful lot of decorating to me.

Fake cakes to not get much of a discount (if any depending on the detail) the reason cakes cost as much as they do is because of the time/labor/and talent that is involved in decorating. Doesnt' matter if it is styrofoam, cake, or rice krispy treats, it still takes the same amount of time to decorate.

Here's a thread on pricing dummies:

http://forum.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=3949533#3949533

i just did this for a wedding in july only she wanted each table to have a 2-tiered cake.....by all means, try to convince her to have just one big cake! doing 15 is so much more time consuming!!! and unless you have a commercial kitchen, you will never have enough space to store all of them. whether you charge by the slice or the cake as a whole, you will not get out of them what you put into them.
good luck!!!

I agree with LyCoChef!!! I would definitely try my best to get her to just do one big cake!!! She might want to consider the fact that guests are going to be cutting their own cake and if they do, some people might cut a big ol chunk which will greatly reduce the amount of servings she is hoping for. I doubt she is going to have someone cutting each cake for her. I would mention that to her.

If she wants a big cake for the pictures anyway, why does she want all the individual cakes??? So she won't have to fork out money for a floral centerpiece??? I would probably tell her I couldn't do it. Mainly because she keeps changing her mind.

I know it is hard to turn away work...especially when it is quite a money maker like this one could possibly be. But you want to make sure you ARE making money. I would charge her per slice for each cake and each dummy cake. The same amount of time goes into decorating a dummy (like the others have stated).

Did you present her with the breakdown on pricing that was mentioned by indydebi?? Sorry to go on and on. But I just don't want you to get taken advantage of.....