How Much Do You Charge For A Full Sheet Cake?
Decorating By swick55 Updated 12 Oct 2007 , 12:48pm by swick55
I have to say, my signature line say it all in this case. But I'll add some
*steps onto soap box* Ahem
Serving 100 people dessert can not, should not, be done for $70. We're insulting our own intelligence and undermining the value of our time and skills, plus making no profit, when we charge less than any local Denny's or Walmart for a piece of custom-designed and decorated, personalized, gourmet, homemade from scratch cake. (I can't speak for box-mix profits, because I imagine they're a different margin than all-scratch, gourmet, organic ingredients, but still). Tell them to get with the times or go to Walmart; this is a custom product. Imagine going to some exclusive, specialized, custom-design-making, hand-crafter in ANY milieu, painting, pottery, bead work, hand-knit sweaters, whatever, and ask them to produce their craft at prices that reflect outsourced work to Pakistan or South America, for pennies on the dollar, and see if they'll do it for that! I bet they laugh you out the door.
*steps off soap box*
sorry--I have to get that off my chest every now and then
BRAVO homecook! Ok, I have to add that I can see there is a whole different size issue between what I think of as a sheet cake (2 full 2" layers stacked with filling between, making a 4-1/2" deep cake). Are people actually ordering 2" deep, unfilled, single-layer sheet cakes from custom cake artists? That sort of amazes me... 
Even so, $1 a serving is way way, not enough.
I guess to me, a serving of cake is a serving of cake whether it's tiered or sheets. BUT I really struggle with asking for a fair price on sheet cakes but from the looks of things, I charge more than most for a single layer sheet cake: 11x15= $40 (not even $2. a serving!)
12x18=$50 Now for tiered, I charge $2 per serving no matter what and use Earlene's serving chart. This pricing thing is the most frustrating thing for me!!!
I agree that a serving is a serving, whether it's 1 x 2 x 4 or 2 x 2 x 2, but I don't charge less for non-wedding cakes than for wedding cakes. I'm still baking the same amount of batter, spending the same on ingredients, working just as hard on the decorating, driving just as far to deliver.
$3.00 (and I just moved to $3.50 for next year) per serving is a very fair deal for a plate of gourmet dessert that's been freshly made , plus the one-of-a-kind details that go into the design work on the outside, the you-pick-the-flavor choices, and the hand-delivered-by-the-artist option, etc.
Heck, we pay almost that for a cup of specialty coffee, why are people so funny about "it's just cake!" ?? It's not just cake, any more than it's just coffee. It's an experience. It's quality and ingredients and service. (sound of heartwarming music in background). You can't put a price on that stuff. *sniff* I need a tissue...
lol
Can you tell I've had too much caffeine tonight!
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