I'm sorry to be asking about pricing but I need opinions. I just did a chocolate wrap cake, it is the polka dot wrap in my pictures. The cake was done with a checker board design 3 layers tall. I used good quality chocolate and around 25 strawberries. I did it at cost for my mom but if I had charged for the cake would $90 be way out there for this type of cake. I'm good at pricing my wedding cakes now but party cakes always seem to get me everytime. I guess I feel guilty charging what I do per serving for wedding cakes. If I charged what I do for wedding cakes $90 would be low but it seems awfully high for a birthday cake. Anyway, I really would appreciate soom feed back on pricing. Thanks a head of time!!!
What size is the cake?
It looks delicious and rich.. I could TOTALLY use a piece of that right now! 
A few more questions though.. along with size.. what kind of cake is it made of? What is it filled with? What is it frosted with before you applied the chocolate wrap? Any other details you can give will greatly help me tell you what I would have charged for it.
okay.. base price for a cake 2$/serv
ganache adds $0.75/serv
pita charge for the checkerboard-ness of it (as well as the 2 flavors and 3 layers) adds $1.00/serv
Frosted with Ganache adds $1.00/serv
strawberries add $2.00 each
Chocolate Wrap $10.00 (I've never done one so I don't know what to charge really)
Chocolate accents $5.00
so that's 25 servings at $4.75 per servings plus $75.oo for the chocolate work and berries.. for a grand total of $183.75
The strawberries are what make it so pricey.. especially this time of year when good berries are hard to come by.
Your cakes are your cakes no matter what occasion they are for. Just because it's for a birthday doesn't mean it was any less cost for you or effort to make. 
If you charge less for a birthday cake than for a wedding cake then Brides will say "Yeah we're getting married but we are not having a reception we are having a birthday party afterwards to celebrate the "birth" of our new family and expect birthday prices.
I agree that you are setting yourself up for trouble if you have two different prices. Brides will QUICKLY figure that out and you're doing the same work for potentially a lower price. Also I would hate to have two customers that happen to live next door to each other ... one buys a 10" round for a birthday and one buys a 10" round for a wedding .... and they get to comparing what they paid for it.
As I've explained before, I use the wilton wedding chart to determine my pricing. The 10" round serves 38, so I tell people it will serve 25-35 and the cost is $xx.xx. I do NOT go into "well the chart says it serve this many and the price per serving is $xx.xx." They don't care. They just want to know how much the cake costs. How I came up with price is really none of their concern.
They are welcome to cut it any size they want, but if they cut them bigger and need more cake, then they need to order more and PAY FOR more cake.
Thanks for your replies. I guess one reason I have always charged less for party cakes is because a party serving is bigger then a wedding serving on most charts so you come up with fewer servings for the same sie cake. Do you guys not do that? Once again thanks for your help. The break down of charges was helpful.
I charge less for party cakes also. Everyone around here expects to pay more for a wedding cake. Even if you do go to Walmart, they charge more for a wedding than a birthday.
You charge LESS for a bigger piece of cake??? 
The math:
10" round serves 38 wedding size pieces. Times $2.50 per serving = $95
10" round serves 25(*) party size pieces. TImes $2.00 per serving = $50
That makes absolutely no business sense to me whatsoever. Please tell me what I'm missing here.
(*)just pulled the 25 out of thin air as a for-instance)
I don't charge less for celebration cakes based on serving size. I base all of my pricing on the wedding slice. My celebration cakes come filled and frosted with BC.. wedding cakes come with a filling other than BC and a satin ribbon.. that's the reason for the difference.
The whole party sizes are bigger so you get less servings is not a reason to charge less.. if you want a party sized slice it'll cost you MORE. I give serving size options.. my normal size (1x2x4) is $2/serv.. "party" size (1.5x2x4) is $3/serving.. You are getting 1/2 a slice more cake per serving than my normal price point serving.. you are not getting it cheaper.. no way.
a 10 inch cake is a 10 inch cake no matter how many slices you cut it into.. I mean technically it could serve 1. No way you are getting it for $2.00 though..
You charge LESS for a bigger piece of cake???
The math:
10" round serves 38 wedding size pieces. Times $2.50 per serving = $95
10" round serves 25(*) party size pieces. TImes $2.00 per serving = $50
That makes absolutely no business sense to me whatsoever. Please tell me what I'm missing here.
(*)just pulled the 25 out of thin air as a for-instance)
I see what you mean, I would love to be able to get that out of a party cake. Sure would help the old pockets out. I will have to do some figuring and see what I come up with. I have only been selling for about 4 months. Maybe I do need to up my party cake price, people are always paying me more than I charge, saying that it is worth way more. How do you charge for a 1/4 of a sheet(9x13)? It seems like I have seen where you don't do sheet cakes, or maybe not. I don't know I have read so many different things on here!! I love advise though. I just did not want to over charge. I live in a small town,1200 in city 2300 in total city and county. There is just not really any where to base a price on. No bakeries. One man that makes cakes and has for a while. I know that he charges $1.50 for round wedding serving,$2.00 for shaped per serving. I don't know about his party cakes.
Well I am embarrassed! 
You are right, it really doesn't make any sense at all! I don't know where I came up with that idea but you have changed my mind. With that said, I think I'll stick with wedding cakes. Most people around here are willing to pay my prices for wedding cakes. I don't think they would be as willing for a party cake considering they usually arn't as important as a wedding cake.
Thanks for your replies everyone!
I agree. If its the exact same cake, the occasion shouldn't matter. That gets tricky when your trying to estimate servings, but a 10 inch 2 layer cake takes the same amount of time to make/decorate no matter how many servings will be cut out of it in the end.
Now if you put different ingredients or more decorations/detail on a wedding cake, then that would affect the price. The one issue that does make a BIG difference, is stacking tiers because that adds difficulty, but for single layers I don't see why you would price them differently.
darrah, you are right, I rarely do sheet cakes and I DON'T do 9x13's. The smallest I will do is 11x15.
A cake that is 1/4 the size is also not necessarily 1/4 the price. Always consider "if I were paying an employee to make this cake, how much would my payroll be?" It takes the same amount of time to mix batter for a 9x13 as it does for a 11x15. It takes about the same amount of baking time (ergo you are paying your employee the same hourly rate while it bakes AND same amount of electricity), it takes hardly any more time to ice and border a 9x13 than it does to ice and border a 11x15. Definitely same amount of time for clean up.
It's called overhead and it's why small orders cost more than large orders.
It's as much a part of the cost of the cake as your eggs, sugar and flour.
This is why you will see so many decorators on here state they they will not even turn on the oven for under $50-75.
Hi, I used to feel bad about charging properly for any type of cake when they could get cheaper ones from the supermarket (But we all know what they taste like and how small they are!). I've talked myself out of feeling bad though by thinking that I would never ask my customers to go to work for no pay all day so why should us cake makers? Hope this helps!
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