By the way, Applegum, your Mud Cake is AMAZING! So delicious! I keep directing people on this forum to it when they ask for a good choc cake recipe. I think it's that little bit of coffee that gives it that zing (and I hate coffee)! (I am pretty sure it was your recipe)

Wow Melnick think I'd better throw a bucket of cold water on you - you'll have all these Americans thinking I set up my own fanclub!
That recipe has certainly done the rounds - been around for over 20years!

Don't miss the forum, all the info is still there - we just changed the format to a BLOG -
www.cakesandmore.org/blog because we got sick to death of doing the house-keeping .... hehehehehe YOU know - like we are in this post ...
TOTALLY OFF-TOPIC

Ok, I get what you are all saying. I think another point needing to be considered is the areas we live in. In certain parts of the country (and world) people will be willing to pay more. Even in different areas of each city.

I WILL consider everything said in the next month or 2 as I am getting things together. If I find as I have bought supplies and used my oven, etc if I am making a reasonable enough profit. I will also see how I feel by how long I work on various cakes. For what I am doing though, I will need to have some kind of base price ya now?

To start out, these cakes will be very basic. Maybe a charater like a teddy bear, or butterflies, poka dots, etc...but nothing too crazy. I will add onto the book somewhere that more detailed cakes are available and somehow tastfully put in there that they cost more. The owner of the place they will be ordering from has my number and I will ask her to give it to them if they want to discuss a specific cake that is not in the book.

Thanks for the comments.

Of course you need to have a base price. I think the best way to do that is to pick a serving chart and get a per serving price figured out (both how much it costs you to make your cakes per serving and how much you want to charge). You could do like Indydebi does and price your cakes per the serving chart and say this 8" cake will serve 15-20 people depending on how you slice it and it costs $xx.xx (always price your cakes my the maximum servings). So say you decide to charge $1.50/serving (which I think is low no matter where you live unless you are WalMart but that's not the point here) your 8" cake will cost (by my serving chart that 20 servings) $30.00 regardless of how they slice it. You still have the per serving price to easily tell people how much a cake will cost by your charts and you can easily add on extra per serving and get an easily calculated and, above all, consistent price.

I don't think that the point of all of our ramblings is that you have to charge a certain price, but to help you to think about all of the extra crap that you never think about in the beginning (I know I didn't) and to get you to see that you will end up working for pennies if you don't take it all into consideration. We all started out thinking like a customer... but that is the fast track to burn out hands down.

Good luck with your venture...

Here is my 2cents

I live in a rural area, I am a school teacher. Northern NY....10 minutes from Canada. So alot of my buisness comes from word of mouth. I have been decorating for 3 years. 90% of my cakes are buttercream. I buy my shortening and PS @ Aldi's. I get my vanilla, almond and butter extract from walmart.

13 x 9 = $30
11 x 15 = $40
12 x 18 = $50

Character cakes = $40.00 (I hate making these b/c all those little stars kill me)

8" Round = $30
10" Round = $40.00
12" Round = $45.00
14" Round = $50.00

Stacked cakes = $2.00/serving buttercream
$2.50/serving for fondant

I do charge extra for fondant decorations on a buttercream, usually $10.

That is my base for torted 2 layers of cake, 1 layer of filling. I charge more for 4 layers of cake, 3 layers of filling, usually by $15.00.

There is no way I could charge $100 for a 8" cake. If I did based on where I live, no one would hire me for a cake.

BTW....I do nothing from scratch, just simply don't have time. Everything I do is from a box, but I do often doctor up my box mix (for example...WASC). This is a hobby for me....extra money. Since I have a full time job, I simply can't charge and arm and a leg for a cake.

I buy Meringue Powder from Michaels with my 40% coupon and usually all decorating supplies with that coupon. I rarely pay full price for any of my decorating needs.

I hardly ever use gumpaste.....simply no time for me to do that, unless it is summer and I am off from school.

If someone wants to go buy a cake at Walmart for $20, then let them.

Hope that helps.

Thank you Danielle. You seem to understand where I am coming from here .

I charge $5/serving for a custom cake creation... my minimum order is $100.00 which is an 8" cake decked out with fondant and a custom board. If you want an 6" cake it's same price... that's my minimum order because that's what my time is worth to me.

But... we are offering 2 different products. You offer a basic cake with buttercream and borders... an everyday special occasion cake. I offer a custom item that people will order for a really special occasion. I'd never say you should charge the exact same as I do. I market to a different clientelle than you do. So when people quote my prices and say they could never charge that it just tells me the point of my posts has been overlooked. It's not the specific price I am pushing... it's the thinking about what you make when all is said and done.

Let's look at your pricing Danielle and use Wilton's Party Chart for reference. (please know that I am not trying to pick on you... yu are just the only other to offer up a similar pricing structure) Your 8" cake... 20 servings... that's $1.50/serving. Your 10"... 28 servings... that's $1.42/serving. Your 12"... 40 servings... that's $1.12/serving. Your 14"... 63 servings... that's $0.79/serving. This is what I am talking about. This shows me that there isn't a rhyme or reason to the pricing and you are doing more work (bigger cakes are more work) for less money. Again I will re-itterate that I am not trying to be confrontational or say "you suck" or anything silly like that. I am trying to understand the thought process and maybe spark a thought in others about their pricing. What says that a cake for 20 people costs $1.50/serving and that a cake for 63 people only costs $0.79/serving and how is that good for business? Why should your profit margin suffer (by almost 50% at that) for a cake that is more work? As a customer I'd be a little miffed at the thought as well.

Anyway... I think I have beat the proverbial dead horse to a pulp. I just don't want people to think that I think the whole world should charge what I do. I don't... just make sure that you are taking care of yourself because, in the end, this time you spend toiling on cakes is time away from your family and that is worth something.

I'm not saying "How dare you not charge $5/serving like I do!?!?!"... I'm saying look at your prices and make sure you aren't working for nothing.

(edited for a typo and a missing word)

My father-in-law has taught me the value of coupon clipping. If you need to trim your costs and not charge more, I can't say enough of spending a nice early Sunday morning with a cup of tea and some sissors!

Not sure where you live but I can find some real deals from online and Sunday paper coupons. Got sugar for free from CVS (pharmacy)!

He is sooo funny at 88 still getting "something for nothing". Although I would add in this time as part of your "work" time - it is still your time.

I use to worry that no one would want my cakes because I charged more than the food store, but after awhile that feeling will be replaced by pride....and repeat cake orders!

Hi all,
I was really interested in reading this post, as it has been something on my mind a lot lately with my own budding cake business. So many of my first cakes were done for friends and also for friends of my kids, who are all at the getting married and having babies age, so I priced way low. Now....I am getting better, and feel my time is worth more. So, I need to sit down and write out some basic pricings for my customers. It is also true that the area in which you live, is a big factor in pricing. I know a lot of excellent decorators who live in areas that don't ever want anything other than buttercream cakes. I say...WHAT????? Not here! At any rate, this thread has been most helpful for me to have a starting point for my pricing. Thanks to all. I LOVE this forum!

Whew!!!!!!! What a Lesson!!!I need to go back to the drawing board and review MY pricing cos I've been pricing damn too low for all the work I put into my cakes I never really considered a lot besides ingredients and gas but I think I like the idea of price per serving. Thank you all for the timely education more grease to your elbows(pans)

1st....Like I said before....if I charged $100 for an 8" cake I might as well pack it up....BECAUSE....no one in my area would hire me or anyone else for that price.

2nd....a special occasion is a special occasion. WHOSE place is it to judge one person's special occasion vs. another?

3rd....I do more than borders and buttercream.

4th....I have a full time job as a teacher, I am a class advisor and I coach 2 varsity sports. I don't need cake decorating to pay my bills. Therefore I can charge what I feel comfortable.

5th....the sunny island you live on??? Would that be Long Island where people can afford $100 for an 8" cake?? People all around me have modest jobs. I couldn't sleep at night if I charged someone $100 for an 8" when they need that money for bills and groceries.

I am only defending my position. I know there are other CCers out there that agree with me.

I hereby submit my vote to ban all pricing question threads from here on out...anyone with me????

I just don't get why people get so riled up over things like this.

If you don't like the advice, ignore it. If you do, take it. No one on this thread wants to run anyone else out of business, quite the contrary. No one wants to see the OP get "taken for a ride" and end up losing money. That's all this is. There's no reason to get catty or negative. To each his (or her) own, right?

All good businesses have a cost per oz/item breakdown. That's how they make sure they're bringing in more than they're paying out. It's called business management. If you're serious about running your own business, you look at what it's going to cost you to do it and you make sure you're paying yourself.

If you have a hard time charging people for money, they'll catch on and sure you'll become very popular, but not in the "She's such a skilled and professional decorator" type of way. It'll be more like, "I'm getting a great cake for nothing, sucker!" type of way. You have a hard time charging hard working people for the cakes they order from you, but I can bet you money that they won't have a hard time taking advantage of your hard work and low prices.

I too see these posts waaaaaay too often for it not to be a sticky or something so that peeps on here can immediately refer the OP to a link of the sticky, and then b00m, done, close thread . Maybe ApplegumKitchen can post their response in a sticky and add something like "find market value for your design in your location" in addition to all other factors. I like the walmart example but it wouldn't apply for extravagantly designed cakes

wow..."oyanami"....u got straight to the point..........i very much agree with you!!!!!!!!

Grab your coffee and kick back ... it's a long one.

I've been trying to read this thread in between batches of chicken (I have 3 skillets going ... have to cook 115 lbs of chicken with about a gallon of wine going over it tonight).

There is a plethora of excellent advice in here and I'm not sure how I can add to it. Please forgive me for not being able to credit who gave what great advice (but my chicken is cooking in between paragraphs here!). As I read the thread, I believe all the advice was given in the spirit of helping the OP work out her questions, and my response is in the same vein.

However, I'll tell you now it's going to get a little blunt because after 5 pages, the message is just not getting thru. If you read past this point, don't whine about being offended.

I think you first need to decide if you are or if you want to be a business, or if you just want to do cakes for fun and friends. If it's fun-n-friends, then ignore everything on here because it makes no difference whether you actually make money on it or not. If you want to do it as a hobby, then do it as a hobby, and the money is just something to offset your perceived cost of ingredients.

If you are comfortable with what you are selling (and I use the term loosely) cakes for, then don't even post this question, because you dont' really have a question. You're fine with the price, so keep doing it. If you're comfortable with it, then what we think doesn't matter and won't influence your comfort range. I say that because in reading this thread, I also get the impression that you didn't get the answer you wanted. You didn't want to know what we think ... you wanted someone to tell you how great your prices were (again, someone already mentioned this).

We kind of have a "Don't Ask ... Don't Tell" policy on here .... if you don't want us to tell you, then don't ask.

But ..... If you want to be a business, then you need to think like a business. Not like a mom buying a cake for her little darling and traditionally shops at walmart ergo she has no idea what these cakes sell for. A business has a proper pricing structure in place. Note the phrase "pricing STRUCTURE" ... that means there is a rhyme and reason for the pricing (as someone pointed out earlier). No pricing all over the board because it sounds right. A reason. A justifiable, logical, profit making reason.

If you want to be a business, then you couldn't have found more perfect resources than the people on here. Many of us have "been there done that" and the reason I (and others) share so freely is because it is a costly learning process and if I/we can help others avoid the pitfalls and if others can learn from our experiences, then everyone wins.

The great thing about this site is you will get a LOT of opinions and experiences that you can sort thru and draw from. Not all will work for you ... not all are things you would have thought of. But Grasshopper, you can sort thru the words of wisdom and pick what works for you!

From a business standpoint.....

I know some areas of the country can affect the price, but to make a blanket statement of "they won't pay that here" is just ... bluntly ... bull. When I see this statement, it just tells me that you (generic you) don't know how to market to those who can afford it.

If people in your town are driving expensive cars, carrying expensive purses, wearing designer jeans (*I* wont' pay that much for a pair of jeans!), own 4-wheelers, horses, and other expensive hobby "toys", then yes ... there are people who can afford it. Just because you (generic you) don't know the people who can afford it and will pay it, doesn't mean they don't exist.

My biggest dollar value wedding I've ever done is tomorrow and it's in my small home town where the factories are drying up and over 15% of the population is below the poverty level. Household median income is just $30K. If I had been influenced by those demographics, I wouldn't have generated an invoice that is about 4 times my avg invoice. And I know what they've spent on other things for this wedding .... it's not a "budget" wedding.

Somewhere in this thread was a comment about not wanting to charge that much when you know the customer has groceries to buy. Not your problem. If you want to run your own personal welfare dept, then have at it. But don't tell everyone you run a cake business, because you don't. Unless you refuse to do a cake by telling a customer "....because you need to spend that money on milk for your baby!", then dont' use that as a crutch as to why you are afraid to charge for your true value.

(Crap! I knew this would happen! I just burned a batch of chicken! Now whatEVER am I gonna do with the leftover wine!)

What I find as a common denominator among those who ask this question is that if they dont' write a check for it, then they don't think it's an expense. They dont' actually write a monthly check to their husband for "borrowing/buying" the utilties to make the cakes, so they don't think "it's all that much!" They don't actually use a separate car with a separate gas tank so they don't see the month-end gasoline bill on their company credit card, like I do. All they see is after putting out a little here (gas in the car) a little there (elec bill spike) a little somewhere else (a few ingredients), then a customer hands them cash and "Woooo-whoooo! I can go to the movies now!"

I dont' know how many times it has to be said that your ingredients is/are NOT the only expenses in making a cake. $20 for an 8" cake? Mixing/baking = 30-45 minutes? crumb coating, icing, decorating, add a couple of hours , if it's pretty simple and if you're fast? If I paid my high school girls their $7/hour, I'm in the whole on payroll.

And PLEASE do not give me the crappola line about "you dont' have payroll". If you PLAN to pay yourself anything, then you have payroll. Again, you're not writing a check for it, so you're not seeing the expense, but darlin' it's THERE!!!! It all goes back to are you a hobby or a business?

I think Tita said this also, but one of my favorite quotes is:
If you put a small value upon yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price.
--- Unknown
and......
Letting your customers set your standards is a dangerous game, because the race to the bottom is pretty easy to win. Setting your own standards, and living up to them, is a better way to profit.
-----Seth Godin

Would I pay $150 for a sheet cake that serves 100? Nope! Do I sell them for that? Yep! Have I sold 10" rounds for $105? Yep. Have I sold 12" rounds for $165? Yep. Are there people who walk in my shop and won't pay it? Absolutely!

"Not everyone can afford me ... and that's ok!"

I will never, never NEVER understand the thinking of "If I don't make this cake for $20 that puts me in the red, then I'll lost the business!" Darlin' that not BUSINESS!! That's welfare. It would be easier on you to just hand them $5 or $10 and tell them to go to walmart. At least you're not spending 4 hours of your life NOT making money.

Oh .. and the fact that you already own the pans means diddly squat in your pricing structure. Do you give a discount if someone "loans" you a pan? Do you charge extra when you have to go buy a pan? The correct answer to both of these is 99% "no" (there's always an exception). So unless you charge the client each and every time for buying a pan, that argument holds no water whatsoever.

As someone already pointed out, equipment wear and tear is part of your overhead (uh, that's a business term that you need to understand if you are going to be a real business) and part of the price of your product has to include overhead expense.

Ok.... I GOTTA finish this chicken!

EDITED:-
hehehe - I must have pressed the ENTER button a second AFTER indydebi! - haven't had a chance to read hers yet - so if I re-hash - I apologise


Sheesh - I went to bed last night thinking this topic was 'done and dusted' - Heather's response was the last one here!!
And from all accounts is looks like we are all back to SQUARE 1.
I had a response typed but when FromScratch beat me too it I didn't post mine..... I wonder what would have transpired - had I hit the enter button ?
I agree with From Scratch though - this thing is like flogging a DEADHORSE!

There is NO way on earth these two camps are EVER going to agree -
but it REALLY irks me the way people that CHOOSE to basically give a cake away - come on this board and ask the question..... Pricing Question - is this enough? - is this too much? - then a lot of very experienced decoraters come back and answer them, TRY to help them, TRY to get them to see that you cannot run a successful business without THINKING LIKE A BUSINESS PERSON - even if you are an at-home baker baking for Joe-Average.

You say (and to be honest I can't be bothered going back to see WHO said it - but it was more than 1 person anyway!) there is no way your area would pay $100 for cake and that you would not sell anything.

Lets take CAKE out of the equation for a moment shall we - if your logic is correct - then in your area you can......
(and forgive me if MY examples are NOT accurate - but you will get my drift .... I HOPE!)

1. Everybody drives a BMW or Rolls Royce for $100 because thats all people will pay - SURE!! you can only afford the bus - you take the bus!
2. Nobody lives in a trailer park because you can buy grand homes there for 'what you can afford'

Look I am not trying to inflame this situation but I feel like I have spent the last 2 days beating my head against a brick wall - to be truthful - a cake is not a cake, is not a cake - translated that means that 6 people can make an 8inch cake and produce 6 VERY different cakes !!
You need to compare 'apples with apples' - I have seen some pretty tragic looking cakes here on CC (OK ...don't shoot me - I'm being honest! something that doesn't happen here too often!) and yet these same people seem to be able to SELL their cakes ...... so...

Go do what you do - make cakes - do your homework - charge what you want - make lots of money ...

And MOVE to Long Island ..... and compete with FromScratch


For the record - I live on .... An Island in the Sun too !!!
its called... A.U.S.T.R.A.L.I.A.

and I get $320 for an 8inch cake

Speaking of comparing apples to apples, Danielle and the OP have similar prices, but Danielle is doing 2 less layers of icing and cake, right? OP said 4 layers of cake, 3 layers of filling. Danielle said 2 layers of cake, one layer of filling... just sayin...

Danielle... I wasn't talking about your cakes when I was talking about the decoration... just your pricing and it was just for reference not to call you out. No need to get defensive. I was speaking of the OP's cakes because she has said time and time again that these will be simple designs for a bounce house. I will be sure to clarify in the future.

I don't live on an Island... I live in a small town in NH. The location I listed is the name of a Weezer song because... well... I like the song and I wish I was in fact on an island in the sun.

I sleep fine at night since I am not forcing anyone to pay the money for a cake. I would hope someone wouldn't order a decked out cake from me if they couldn't afford it. I am happy that you are happy making what you do on cakes. Me... this is my job... I can't afford to work for $1/hour. It wouldn't be worth it for me. I am in the process of converting my garage to a commercial kitchen... $30 cakes will not pay for that (and keep me from burning out). I'd rather work smarter than harder. I'd rather make one $200.00 cake than ten $20 cakes anyday. I do what I do... I know I'm not going to make anyone do what they don't want to. I'm not trying to push my prices on the country. I just hope that something I say can make a light go off in someone's head and they will start thinking that they too are worth getting paid well for their time.

People always say "this is not my business"... well I hate to say it, but the minute you start offering goods to the general public you are, by default, thought of as a business... regardless if you are legal or not. The people buying cakes from you see you as a business... and the state will see you as a business if they find out about you along with the federal government. You are a business if you want to be or not.

I wanted to clarify since I obviously ruffled a few feathers. It was not my intention (as stated multiple times through my original offending post).

Without any value judgment here. I'd like to propose a different perspective to this thread. First of all, notice that it is in the "Cake Decorating" forum and not the "business" forum. That makes a difference.

Those of us who pay insurance, business license fees, health department fees, etc. (whether or not we pay rent) HAVE to look at this as a business where we happen to make our profit by baking and decorating cakes. The cakes are the means to an end. If we charge the right amount, we can cover our expenses and pay ourselves for our time. If we do it well, we can hire more people and make more product and make more money. We get to do it by producing something we love, but the goal is to have a profitable business.

Others who are posting here are looking for a little extra cash to make ends meet. If they cover their expenses and have a little cash left over, they are happy. True, they ought to be sure they aren't costing themselves money, but it is more a hobby with benefits then a business. And if the overhead is being covered by household expenses and the people are happy, then that is fine, because the point is
more the fun of making cakes and "If I can have a little extra money, then that would be cool."

A problem seems to appear when the two groups, each with a different goal, get going at each other because they don't see how the goals are different.

I think we will solve the issue of bad feelings once we figure out that we have these two groups and don't try to give pricing advice across them.

edited to say that I started to type this before Indydebi posted and didn't read her post until after I hit submit. Yes. Indeed. I wish I had said what she did!