How do you determine how much to charge for sugar flowers? Do you charge per flower?

I have a bride who wants to do some kind of bright, tropical flower on her cake. She mentioned Stargazer lilies, Hibiscus, or Frangipani (Plumeria). Do you charge more for more complicated sugar flowers, like Stargazers?

Also, she is trying to decide between doing cupcakes or a cake. For weddings, do you charge the same amount per serving on cupcakes as you do for a wedding cake? So basically, I am asking is it the same price per serving regardless of whether it is cupcakes or pieces of cake?

Bump

I'd like to know the answer, too. In her DVD "Fabulous Floral Arranging" Jennifer Dontz talks several times about not putting flowers in the back of an arrangement, leaving calyxes off of roses, and not doing so many leaves when a bride wants to save money, so it sounds like you charge by the number of items.

How much for roses vs. filler flowers vs. leaves is another questions I'd like to get an answer to, too. Maybe if you don't get an answer here, we should PM Jennifer and ask her.

Personally, I charge per flower. The cost depends on how complicated the flower is. The more work, the higher the charge. Roses are fairly quick compared to other flowers for me, so they are cheaper usually.

Thanks everyone! I looked at some different websites last night that sell pre-made sugar flowers to try to get some idea of how much to charge, and I saw similar to what you are saying. I did see that flowers like stargazers and hibiscus were around $15 a piece, while roses and frangipani were more like $2 or $3. It's hard to know where to start on how much to charge, other than knowing how much materials cost and that some flowers are more complicated than others.

P.S. I actually originally posted this in the business forum, not sure why it got moved because it makes more sense to me for it to be there, but oh well!