Was asked to do a cupcake tower with one giant cupcake on top for a 1st b-day party. She is my friend so I'm not sure how much to charge. The cupcakes are going to be basic choc/vanilla with buttercream and sprinkles to match her theme...how much would you charge per cupcake?

Also...where is a good spot to find a cupcake tower already made?

Ive seen many cupcake towers at places like hobby lobby, micheals and joanns. your cake store might also have one. (plus the first 3 mentioned ussually have 40% coupons every month!)

as for charging im not sure. i just did my first order here and did 25 for $30

I'm doing my first order too and I'm charging 2$ a piece ( 30 CC) and everybody tells me I should charge more. Hand made wrappers and a lot of fondant flowers and figures. But this is in Sweden and I guess we have higher prices here.
A piece of cake is from 2$-5$ here.

you should charge more, ive seen basic swirls going for 2.50 and up, if you have hand made wrappers and fondant accents.....id be charging 3-4 at least!!

Think about hiring a cupcake stand rather than buying one. Lots of places around me that hire out novelty pans also hire out cupcake stands/towers.
Just a thought!

Emma

Fondant covered - $12-$15 per cupcake plus $50 to hire the stand and a $250 bond on the stand. (aussie dollars)

IMBC - with fondant toppers or fondant flowers - upwards from $8

I don't sell anything, so I can't help you with pricing, but I have been wanting to make one of these cupcake towers. I think you could make it pretty inexpensively. Just buy scrapbook paper instead of printing out the lace clip-art provided on the site.

http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/article/lace-cupcake-towers?autonomy_kw=cupcake stand

p.s. When I pasted the link it did not include the word stand in the link but it is in there so you will have to cut & paste it.

http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/article/lace-cupcake-towers?autonomy_kw=cupcake stand

How many cupcakes are you making? There are some really great towers at www.coolcupcakes.com They have ones that hold 60 cupcakes and 100 cupcakes. Extremely resonable! The nice thing about these are they are very well made - sturdy! They also allow you to use all the tiers or only as many as you need. I used the 100 one for a wedding I just did that called for 110 cupcakes (put the extra 10 around the base). I charge $2.50 per cupcake for a basic cupcake with just BC icing and then I add from there for any special decorations or wrappers they want.

Great link BJ! I have never heard of it - but it looks pretty cool.

And Jenthecakelady - the do it yourself cupcake stand by Martha is really neat as well.

Now that cupcake stand is nice!! tall inbetween the layers for extra large cupcakes or tall decorations. And leave it to Martha, crafty Martha, gotta luv it!

DARN, i guess I strayed away from your pricing question? I have always had that problem when it came to friends and family, one of the reasons i kind of went into cake decorating hiding. Lost interest cuz i was doing it as a "favor". NOT ANYMORE!! you should now how good your stuff is check around locally, I was fortunate to find pricing on a local website to a bakery that advertises on TV and does a major business in the area. I had a cake from them within the last 30 days, and i was not impressed! Don't undersell yourself just because it is a friend. And don't forget to post a pic!!!

I use the tall tiers stand from Wilton. The rental places near me rent them out for about $25 or so. Here it is and it is adjustable from one tier all the way to 6 tiers:

http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=3E30BB93-475A-BAC0-52555DC793C1FEC1&fid=3E33109F-475A-BAC0-514197B5E889D67F

I bought my cupcake stand off ebay. its incredibly sturdy and was about £50 sterling. i hire it out and charge a deposit which i give back on return. pic in my profile.

price wise i started out charging £6.00 for 6 but went up to £7.00 for 6 due to the new cupcake boxes i got. now seeing as people want really intricate flowers or even little figures,etc on them i charge between £7-£10 for 6 depending on decoration. i also use muffin papers rather than fairy cake ones which give a bigger cupcake and allow me to charge more and make it worth my while but i still find that making say 6 or 12 cupcakes doesnt pay me at all well in the scheme of things when i have to clean piping bags, make different frostings and little figures, etc.

its hard though because people really do look at cupcakes and just think "there only buns, i can get them at a supermarket" so i just had a women there today who enquired about pricing and i told her £7 for 6 and she said oh thats too expensive since there are about 30 of us.".... a crap fresh cream bakery cake from one of the really crappy bakeries in town which has awful piped writing scrawled across it and absolutly no colour scheme costs about £25-£20 here but i guess they'd rather pay that - people really dont see the work that goes into decorated cupcakes....

now wedding cupcakes are a different matter, i love doing them and with there being so many you can realy get a production line going which really cuts time. i charge about £200 for 100 cupcakes and a 6 inch cutting cake with flowers, etc like in my pics which makes me about £150 profit

For basic cupcakes (swirl piped with tip 2D and sprinkles) I charge $20 per dozen. I prob could charge more, but cuppies are fast and easy, and my TIME is the major thing I charge for. I'm glad they're en vogue right now as I'd generally rather make them as they never give me problems while cakes are occasionally a headache. IYKWIM.