You Want Me To Make What...for How Much??
Decorating By tanyascakes Updated 13 Apr 2009 , 3:25am by OfficerMorgan
I'm new to cake making so I never know how much to charge. I know I have been under charging though. How do I calculate the cost of my cakes?
Here's a thread where one of our cc'ers posted her pricing matrix (thank you Lisa 
).
The very 1st link on the 1st page doesn't work but if you go thru the thread you will find another one she posted that does. (I believe it's pg 2 and it's an .xls spreadsheet.
Hope it helps.
I just don't CARE anymore, I live on a military base overseas, I am the only game in town. And HOLY MOLY was I shocked by how people didn't want to pay for quality. I don't care if you think i'm expensive, you're going to be sorry in a month when I hike my prices again. Don't buy my cake, go ahead and buy the bakeries card board cakes that taste...no they don't taste like anything they are tasteless sugar covered abominations with cruddy plastic decorations. Your child will have a cake like every other child and the stepford wives will snicker behind their bejeweled hands at you! Your precious special little one will be devested by the fact that their party wasn't original and spend the rest of their lives in therapy because you wouldn't plunk down a measly $2.00 a slice for originality. They will think you don't love them as much as Johnny's mom who got him an original iron man cake and cry themselves to sleep......*panting* okay so maybe I still care a little bit. If you don't want to pay for my cake you wouldn't appreciate the art of it anyways. I'll take less cakes for money ANY DAY OF THE WEEK.
I just got a call this morning (8:15 on a Saturday morning!) from a lady asking about a slot machine cake. I asked her when she needed it?
Uh ..... TOMORROW!!!! 
I laughed and said, "No." Then explained "....that is a carved cake and with all of the details involved, it takes DAYS to make one of those." So she asks how much one would be. I didn't even ask her how many servings because I knew this was going no where .... just told her "Because of the time involved and all of the details involved, it would START at $150." She said, "oh ....... that's probably more than we want to spend."
I said, "I understand. A lot of people call me and ask about "Ace of Cakes" cakes. What they dont' understand is Duff has a $1000 minimum for his cakes .... and the cakes you see on tv are no where NEAR a lousy thousand-dollar cake."
So then she asks if we do cupcakes. (she goes from an intricately detailed slot machine to CUPCAKES???? 
). Yes we do them. No not for tomorrow. I'm not open tomorrow ..... actually I won't be in the shop this weekend at all. She said, "oh I forgot it's easter weekend. Well, if we want to do something next weekend, I'll give you a call." I said, "If you want something next weekend, you should call me by Tuesday."
walmart .... aisle 8 ..... knock yourself out.
In the meantime, I'm getting ready to go to my 6 year old granddaughter's first soccer game! It's a rare Saturday that I have no wedding to do, so I'm going to spend it at her game ('coz I know I"m going to miss a lot of them!)
It's not just family but friends, too. I just did a four-tier wedding cake, devil's food with white BC, handmade gumpaste bows for a dear friend. I didn't charge her AT ALL. All she paid for was the ingredients, and the cake pan set, which I didn't have. I also did the grooms cake, complete with a royal icing monogram and sugared fruit. Again, all for free. All told, I spent over 24 hours shopping for, baking, decorating, setting up, etc. I told her I wanted to bless her on her wedding day. I knew she and her husband were paying for the wedding themselves, and that their budget was really tight.
Well, she just e-mailed me asking me to bring her the cake pan set. She plans to bake her new husband a b'day cake this week. Apparently, she doesn't think the two cakes I provided for her wedding day were worth a stinkin' cake pan set. Sigh......
Break out of your potato bug role here and say no. That's your pay for the cake. Being a blessing is one thing--letting yourself get cake-raped is another.
Nicely tell her that you considered the pans as an investment in your hobby/business and that she owed you that much for doing all you did. She needs to start investing in her own kitchen now.
I mean I would even laugh it off and say "How silly. You know those are my pans now for all that work I did. Get your own, Girlfriend!"
I would so try something like that.
I mean a nice friendship is not worth a set of pans. So I'm thinking you're going to find out what kind of friendship you got going. You need to gently push back and she needs to take the hint.. If it gets dicey then (no surprise) not a good friend.
This thread is hilarious. I had to tell you though, I had no clue how much cakes cost until I started making them. The cost for ingredients is a lot and I find I always make a lot of cake...more than I really need. People, especially in the rural area I live in, don't know what cakes cost because they don't have good quality bakers.
I also had a family member ask me about a cake. Well actually she asked my husband (I was busy with my own son's party) about planning her daughters next party and doing the cake. My husband told her I had over $200 in the party itself with the cake, food, and gifts that I did myself. She was shocked! I would love to be a party/event planner but it would never go here as people are not used to having to give the kind of $. Plus, the income level is much lower (30%+ of the kids in our school district are considered poverty).
Yeah...kinda like my email last week from a regular customer yet who emails me and say..."Well since I am the only one paying for my friends birthday cake and I looked at my bank account this morning and was shocked to see that I have spent more than I thought I had....."What can you do for me for $20.00 ?"
I felt like responding......"My foot up your A$$....."I mean really..I was insulted and ticked and she is a regular!!Like I care that she has spent too much money on other frivilous garbage but my cakes aren't worth more than $20.00....I promptly told her "Nothing"
Laurel
Okay, I haven't read through this whole post yet, and I'm sure someone else already said this, but that is the funniest damn thing I have ever read...... "My foot up your a$$....."
That's true, indydebi. I got married 8 years ago (before the internet was big, even!) and was thrilled with $4.50 per serving because magazines were saying $12. (But then again, I did buy my cake from the woman in the trailer with the llamas in her yard. Love that story.)
Okay, now, you'll eat llama cake but not bathtub mushroom steak????
Plus, the income level is much lower (30%+ of the kids in our school district are considered poverty).
I don't know where you're from but it's interesting you share this. People think because I live in Indpls (13th largest city in the country) that everyone around me makes big bucks and spending big money on cakes is nothing. Something like 42% of our school system gets free lunches. (note: I'm not in the Indpls Public School systems, but in a school district that is considered a more affluent.... and we still have numbers like that.)
It's amazing how little people think cakes that are designed, customized and hand crafted cost, not to mention
how little time they think it takes to make them. They forget that custom in any other industry usually dictates a MUCH higher price and is never done "for tomorrow"!
Maybe she just wants a coin purse?
That's what I was thinking, that or a knock off )
You all are so funny! I love it here. It is nice to know we are all in the same boat. But she did come back asking about how much it cost again. I told her the $125 and she had an "oops I crapped my pants"look on her face. So I told her to try making it herself and see what she can do. She then asked if I could show her how to do it. I told her that I don't give lessons and if I did they would cost, too. I don't think she will come back again.
I don't know how you quote your cakes, but I charge for ingrediants and then add an hourly rate ( $13 per hour). I think I would have charged her $46. What did you quote her???? Just curious.
I had one of my friends recently ask me how much her daughter's cake would have costed her if I hadn't "gifted" it to her. I told her I didn't want to tell her because she would feel guilty. After she persisted for another 20 minutes, I finally told her. Then she said, "I didn't really want to know after all!" We had a good laugh over it.
If anyone wants to give me an estimate, because I'm curious to see if I under-quoted, it's the pink/black two layer cake in my photos.
As for the Coach purse.... I would have told her to provide the bag and I'll shove 5 cupcakes in it! The coin purse was a great idea too!
I also had to comment on the "cake-raped" part, k8memphis! That is about the funniest thing I have heard. I fell out of my chair, litterally, when I read that one. My son ran in from the living room thinking I had slipped and fallen. You al are the very reason I come to this site! Not just for inspriration, but for cake humor, too!
You all are so funny! I love it here. It is nice to know we are all in the same boat. But she did come back asking about how much it cost again. I told her the $125 and she had an "oops I crapped my pants"look on her face. So I told her to try making it herself and see what she can do. She then asked if I could show her how to do it. I told her that I don't give lessons and if I did they would cost, too. I don't think she will come back again.
Yes, I will. For $150 per 2 hour session. Cash, please. 
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