What To Charge For My First Official Cake
Decorating By ZoesMum Updated 28 Nov 2009 , 3:43pm by cabecakes
My price COULD BE well over $1,000 (not sayig it WOULD be 
)..... NOW before you all start madly typing a response ...... this is WHY you need to LEARN the way to price.
It is NOT posting a picture and asking how much 1,500 other people would charge for this cake.
It is NOT ringing around your local bakeries and asking how much they would charge
It is NOT a guess at how much your ingredients cost (and NOT calculating in the ingredients ...that you ALREADY had in your pantry) and then multipying it by 2, 3 or even 5
Everybody uses different recipes - some of those recipes contain expensive ingredients - some don't!
Depending on WHERE you source your ingredients from - the price can vary dramatically!!! A box of DH might cost you guys $1 but a packet mix here in Australia is well over $5 - a box of flour is $5, eggs are $4 a dozen - butter is $14 a pound
MY electricity bill is $1,200 every 3 months
I use ganache on all my cakes and use Callebaut Chocolate - $25 for 1.5kg
A board for cake here may cost $6
Over the years I have probably spent $1,000's on equipment and classes/courses/books/journals
There are SO MANY threads on here that discuss pricing and it seems the same people come on every time (me included) and TRY and get people to understand the thought process behing PRICING but I see it time and time again - they get dumped on for being too honest or too harsh.
Not wanting to inflame or belittle people for asking pricing advice but I would like to see MORE people show HOW they have come to their price for the cake that they want advice on. Like instead of posting a pic and saying HOW MUCH?
Show your working out figues - my flour, eggs, sugar, butter etc cost me this much, my fondant cost me this much, my utilities cost me this much- the cake took me xyz hours to complete
Then it shows that you have at least put in the effort to TRY and work it out for yourself - you WILL learn then - and others may be able to say ... Oh it looks like you forgot to add delivery etc etc
Just my thoughts
when i first started taking cake orders i was sooooo meek when it came to pricing. now............they ask how much and i tell them what i want. they can either pay it or have someone else do it. sometimes it amazes me at how far ive come. i think its just believing in yourself and your work! (and indy is always encouraging!)
My price COULD BE well over $1,000 (not sayig it WOULD be
)..... NOW before you all start madly typing a response ...... this is WHY you need to LEARN the way to price.It is NOT posting a picture and asking how much 1,500 other people would charge for this cake.
It is NOT ringing around your local bakeries and asking how much they would charge
It is NOT a guess at how much your ingredients cost (and NOT calculating in the ingredients ...that you ALREADY had in your pantry) and then multipying it by 2, 3 or even 5
Everybody uses different recipes - some of those recipes contain expensive ingredients - some don't!
Depending on WHERE you source your ingredients from - the price can vary dramatically!!! A box of DH might cost you guys $1 but a packet mix here in Australia is well over $5 - a box of flour is $5, eggs are $4 a dozen - butter is $14 a pound
MY electricity bill is $1,200 every 3 months
I use ganache on all my cakes and use Callebaut Chocolate - $25 for 1.5kg
A board for cake here may cost $6
Over the years I have probably spent $1,000's on equipment and classes/courses/books/journals
There are SO MANY threads on here that discuss pricing and it seems the same people come on every time (me included) and TRY and get people to understand the thought process behing PRICING but I see it time and time again - they get dumped on for being too honest or too harsh.
Not wanting to inflame or belittle people for asking pricing advice but I would like to see MORE people show HOW they have come to their price for the cake that they want advice on. Like instead of posting a pic and saying HOW MUCH?
Show your working out figues - my flour, eggs, sugar, butter etc cost me this much, my fondant cost me this much, my utilities cost me this much- the cake took me xyz hours to complete
Then it shows that you have at least put in the effort to TRY and work it out for yourself - you WILL learn then - and others may be able to say ... Oh it looks like you forgot to add delivery etc etc
Just my thoughts
Bravo (insert clapping emoticon here)
Soooooo...not that I want to open all this again, but a couple people expressed that they would like to see how it turned out. The cake changed quite a bit from what my friend originally sent me (at her approval), and I think it turned out really well. I charged her $100, with the discussion that this was because I was not liscensed yet, was still learning, and that if she came back for another cake it would cost a lot more. I know...we will see how that goes! I'm feeling much more confident, and am in the process of finding out how to get liscenced...then hopefully I will be off to the races!
Here is the cake: http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1526670
Thanks for all the great advice on such a contentious subject!
Wow, you did a really, really great job! Nice clean work, and I love the monkeys. Congrats!
Wow--beautiful work!
First of all I really appreciate the way you educated your client about your pricing. It's this much now but...blablabla--great well done.
Idea for you--perhaps use a 'percentage off' formula. For example, I would price your cake at $4.50 per serving and I'd maybe toss in the two monkeys in lieu of flowers I'm coming from a buttercream mentality and maybe ten to fifteen bucks for the bow depending on what mood I'm in.
To me base price per serving is where the rubber meets the road. I took a jewelry making class once and we were admonished and had to agree to never underpice the retailer--huge huge deal.
So lets just say that's $500 just 'cause it's an easy number to do math on. So at your current level of attracting a client who would be willing to fork over cash for that cake I'd say maybe discount 10-20 percent max becaue you are new. So $400 to $450 for a cake like that depending on the amount of servings.
Instead of thinking from the ground up maybe think from the top down--but down just a bit. It's an exclusive club to be able to make a cake like that and market it wisely.
Pricing thought for you.
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