I made this cake for free for a friend of mine . . . I don't charge for cakes yet and wouldn't know how to set prices if I did. My friend was curious how much a cake like this would cost - any idea??? It's an 11x15 inch chocolate cake with chocolate filling and icing. The first picture is of the topper, which stood up on the cake. The numbers themselves are chocolate transfers which when hardened were covered with small buttercream drop flowers.
I'm sorry I can't help you with a price but I just wanted to say that I love it. It's VERY pretty. I absolutely love that topper!
Well, my prices never seem to relate to many people's on this site, but I would charge around $135. Lovely cake!
On the low end I would charge $110. That's cutting 1.5 by 2 inch pieces because it looks like a nice tall cake. That would yield 55 servings and $2 a serving is the minimum I charge.
Wow . . . I guess I am out of touch with cake pricing because I never would have guessed anywhere NEAR $100! It was a pretty big cake . . . 11x15 with three layers and two layers of filling and the cookies alone were $15+. I am really glad I asked because if I had tried pricing this cake, I probably would have said something like $50! When I start selling cakes, I am definitely going to have to do some heavy duty research into pricing. Thanks for the responses!
As far as charging extra for the topper, it really didn't take much time at all and the materials were minimal. It was just a matter of piping the chocolate, letting it set, and covering it with buttercream so I don't know if I could charge as much as $25 for the topper. But I have to say that I'm going to be making a lot more chocolate transfers like this because it packed a big punch for such an easy technique!
This is why so many of you, who charge for cakes, undercharge for your work. And this is why we are here, to help each other decide.
Now, think about what everyone is saying to you. Your work is worth more than you think, and when the time comes that you start charging for your work, remember what everyone here has said to you.
Theresa 
Thanks!
I don't know when / IF the time will come to charge for my cakes . . . Missouri is one of those states that requires a separate kitchen. I could rent space somewhere but with little ones at home and a hubby that travels constantly, I can't see ever being able to find time to go somewhere else to bake and decorate. Maybe when the kids (now 2 and 3 1/2) go off to college and I'm an empty nester! =) Gives me something to look forward to, I suppose!
Hey, time flies, and they will not want to hang around mom forever (puberty is a bigger heart breaker than empty nest). That is when you will have the time to do what you want to do. Enjoy them while you can.
Theresa
Thanks!
I don't know when / IF the time will come to charge for my cakes . . . Missouri is one of those states that requires a separate kitchen. I could rent space somewhere but with little ones at home and a hubby that travels constantly, I can't see ever being able to find time to go somewhere else to bake and decorate. Maybe when the kids (now 2 and 3 1/2) go off to college and I'm an empty nester! =) Gives me something to look forward to, I suppose!
LOL....that's why God invented Mother's Helpers!!! Babysitters and Grannies!! 
Lu,
I'm in the Ballwin / Wildwood area. Technically I'm unincorporated but Wildwood starts at the base of my driveway. I'm about 3-4 miles from the Manchester / Clarkson intersection.
Have you taken cake classes? Where did you take them? I took mine at Sallie's and really enjoyed it.
Nice to "meet" you!
Carol
This is a lovely cake. do not under any circumstances sell that cake for $50! It probably cost you at least $30 in materials alone!
Oh and and HoosierMomOf5 . . . get that baby out of the bucket!
hehehe...Jack loves my bread flour bucket. He uses it as his football helmet. 
First I wanted to tell you your cake is so neat and pretty!! How on earth do you "not" charge for that beautiful work? So basically you are spending your money, but not getting anything back? My husband would kill me!!! I wouldnt do that to myself! All your time& money, whhooohhh. You are very generous for sure! I stay home with my daughter so there is no income on my part. So it's basically my husbands that supports my habit, there is no way I could do it for free!! Anyways, just wanted to tell you it is a gorgeous cake and you get definatley sell that for good $. I agree with everyone else on that one, atleast $100.00
I really like the numbers! Very creative and pretty!
This cake is inspirational. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the hand made numbers. Gorgeous. I'm saving this pic to my computer.
Thanks!
And, oh yeah, charge through the nose for this. People can't get this in anywhere but from you.
First I wanted to tell you your cake is so neat and pretty!! How on earth do you "not" charge for that beautiful work? So basically you are spending your money, but not getting anything back? My husband would kill me!!! I wouldnt do that to myself! All your time& money, whhooohhh. You are very generous for sure! I stay home with my daughter so there is no income on my part. So it's basically my husbands that supports my habit, there is no way I could do it for free!! Anyways, just wanted to tell you it is a gorgeous cake and you get definatley sell that for good $. I agree with everyone else on that one, atleast $100.00
Basically, I am still pretty "green" with all of this cake deco stuff. I feel like it's still hit or miss with me. This is one of only a few cakes that I feel like I really "nailed". I don't have the consistency yet, but I'm getting there. That's one reason I don't charge. Also, I don't get a lot of opportunity to practice cakes . . . my hubby doesn't eat them, my sister doesn't eat them (though I was at her house finishing up this cake on Friday night because our power went out in the ice storm we had and my sister who "doesn't eat cake" polished off all of my leveled cake scraps!) but aside from family birthdays (EVERYONE gets a cake from me!) and sending stuff into my hubby's work, I don't get to practice much so when someone asks me to do one (I admit that more often than not, I offer in order to GET them to ask!) I look at it as a chance to try something or to practice. They're all still guinea pigs to me. Once I get consistent enough and feel like I'm on solid ground, I'd like to figure out a way to start charging. But, I don't have my own separate kitchen like the health dept. requires and renting a space won't work for me now because I'd never be able to get away and use it. So, for now, I'm just happy to have people to try stuff out on! And, the friend that I made this cake for is insisting that she get me a gift certificate to a local cake store because she wasn't happy that I wouldn't charge her. So I'll be able to get some cake stuff out of the deal.
I wanted to point out that you didn't count the flowers that were added to the topper, when you mentioned how long it took you to make it and the materials used.
The flowers were just buttercream drop flowers and I used the same colors that I had on the cake so I had all of the icing bags already ready to go. So really, adding all of those drop flowers took maybe ten minutes in all and then I just left it to dry a bit. Truly, the topper was the quickest, easiest part of the whole thing! I love it because it LOOKS like it must have taken a lot of effort but it absolutely didn't! By the way, buttercream drop flowers and MMF ribbon roses are pretty much the only flowers I can do!
This cake is inspirational. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the hand made numbers. Gorgeous. I'm saving this pic to my computer.
Thanks!
And, oh yeah, charge through the nose for this. People can't get this in anywhere but from you.
Wow! Thanks! That's amazingly flattering. You all have truly made my night!
Beautiful cake, I just wanted to say that $100+ seems right to me as well!! And please... tell more on how you did the numbers, the chocolate?
The numbers were each about 4" tall. I drew them out on paper, melted some white candy melts that I had tinted sage green, and i put a piece of clear vinyl (can use waxed paper, acetate, etc . . . ) over the numbers and I traced and then filled them in with the melted chocolate. I did a few layers to make them pretty thick as I stuck bamboo skewers into them so they would stand up and I wanted to be sure that the skewers were in really well. Normally, when doing chocolate transfers, you would pipe in reverse (flip the numbers and do them backwards so that the "front" is the side that is face down and it's nice and smooth and shiny) but I didn't do that this time because I was covering the front with the flowers so it didn't matter if it was smooth AND I didn't do flowers on the back (since I used buttercream I wasn't able to flip it over once it had flowers on it or it would smush) so I wanted the back to be smooth and pretty. Once the chocolate set up (maybe 15 minutes after my last layer) I just took my three different colored icing bags, used a small drop flower tip, and piped drop flowers randomly all over the numbers. Then I piped alternating color dots in the centers of the flowers. That's it! It was really that easy. If you haven't done chocolate transfers before, there are a TON of tutorials / posts about them here and I absolutely love to do them because I think they look AND taste good!
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