anyone know what the going salary is for a (intermediate) cake decorator or class instructors?

I think that will depend on where your located. Someone in new York city is going to get paid a lot more than someone in the middle of iowa.

in Mass.
Does anyone know if the Wilton instructors are paid by Wilton or by the store the are working in (like Michaels)?

It depends on which account you teach out. At Hobby Lobby you are paid by Wilton as contract labor and have to pay your taxes back at the the end of the year. At Michaels you are an employee, paid by Michaels (though some of the money comes from Wilton) and taxes are taken out when you are paid.

We are paid based off the number of students we have, so what we makes varies.

I don't think you can compare what WMIs are paid to what other people's teaching is worth. You have to take into consideration what is being taught, what is being provided and how long the class is.

Believe me what I get paid a night teaching at Micheals isn't anywhere what I would charge if I was doing it on my own somewhere else. I'm okay with my pay because there isn't many part time jobs I could get paid what I do for doing something I love. And the bonus is I don't have to deal with all the extra stuff. I don't have to deal with taking money, keeping up with money, issueing refunds and so on. I show up, I teach and then I go home. The lesson plans are already made up for me, and I just follow along.

At the ICES convention, they charged $75 a person for a 2 hour demo. From all my understanding, all of the money went to the person giving the demo, but they were also respondsible for supplying all of the materials, and that depending on the demo/class can get expensive. You did have an option to buy the 'kit' when you were done, but in the cases where the students didn't then the instructor ate that money.

So if you are giving classes where you plan to provide everything, then you would have to charge more to make more after that expense. Plus them you have to deal with having 10 or 24 or what ever number of items you plan to have them use that you have to store.

Another thing to consider is coming up with the classes, and if you are having them bring items, figuring out the list, the amounts of items they need and so on. I've done this with cupcake classes where my students wanted something different than the basics. If you consider that time is money, then this also plays into a factor of what you charge.

And even if you have them bring items you still have some expense yourself, if you have all those same items to use and demo with.

Bottom line, I would figure out what you are going to teach, what you are supplying vs what they are supplying, figure out how long the class is, and figure out how much it is all worth to you, how much profit you want to make and so on.

Texas Sugar- thanks, you certainly gave a lot of info, I appreciate it.

Glad I could give you some things to think about.