After being bombarded with requests for my price grid, which I am extremely flattered and humbled in regard. I have decided to make a new page on my website with this grid. This grid takes into account all the embellishments and architecture of a cake. All 3D and topsy turvy cakes fall into the Level 3 category. The grid is in excel format so you can easily change the figures to fit your business needs.

Basic to me is a a few floral or basic embellishments, a top border, bottom border and takes very little time to create. Any easy side embellishments are incorporated into Level 1 and more intricate piping, mixed matched tier shapes or odd tier shapes fall into Level 2, and Level 3 being the most intricate piping, architecture, and/or use of other mediums such as pulled sugar, pastiage, chocolate molding, ornate sugar flowers, etc.

I don't charge extra for gel fruits or custard fillings. I only charge extra for fresh fruit or chocolate bar pie filling, and that total is included with the final bill 2 weeks prior to event. Fruit pricing fluctuates so much and depending on season that it is too difficult to determine that price until very close to the event.

Hoping the mods will make this a sticky. I am getting so many requests for this that I can no longer keep up with them!

Here is the link. This link can only be accessed from Cake Central, there is no link on my site to this grid.

www.cakes-divine.com/Pricegrid.html

Does anyone have any idea how to make this a sticky?

thank you so much. That makes pricing so easy.

Why do your prices go down for more servings?

I don't get that at all. That is the most complicated all over the place pricing system I have ever seen.

Because my overhead is less on large cakes. I rent a commercial kitchen. It costs me more to do a small cake than a large cake. I pay a flat rate per day, so unless I have several small cakes to do, my profit margin is lower than on a big cake. And generally I don't get many small cakes. Most of my cakes fall in the 151-200 servings. Also, the larger the cake the more ability I have to purchase in wholesale bulk, thus saving on ingredient costs as well.

Like I said you can adapt it to what your needs are, if you don't want to give a discount for a larger cake then don't.

The per-serving price is lower for more servings to encourage customers to buy more cake.

I don't agree with having fixed prices for a range of servings though...for example, a 140 serving BC level 1 cake would cost $630, but the same cake serving 20 more people would cost $600.

The cusp will always be an issue, and I factored that into my price point, knowing that on some larger cakes I wouldn't make as much, but I would make that up easily with the lower count cakes that hold a higher price. It all averages out.

The cusp doesn't have to be an issue if you replace the fixed tables with a variable pricing function. I did a quick model of your basic BC pricing and came up with an approximate function of: price per serving = (-.01 * number of servings) + 4.

With this function you would need to institute a price floor at 200 servings or create a more sophisticated model where the discount decays as the number of servings increase.

But *if* you can charge the same amount per serving for a 200+ cake that you can for a 100 serving then why not?

I bought a SS table for 15$, just because I paid less then retail doesn't mean I'm going to discount my cakes for a week just because I have extra money in my pocket.

Cakesdevine,
Thank you - that was very generous of you. I'm sure many will benefit from looking this over.

Thanks for the pricing grid!

Thanks Jason I will look at that. Sorry Kimmy if you are having a problem with it. It actually isn't "all over the place". It was devised quite methodically. I am a bit of an analytical person with a high apptitude for math, so figuring out how much a particular cake with certain bells & whistles is priced per serving was important to me rather than the typical base price of $X per serving and trying to add more to that base with each bell & whistle. This allows you to tell a customer a rate for their particular cake design without them getting that lowball base price stuck in their head and then feeling like you have nickled and dimed them to death. It is all in perspective.

Let's say a client comes to you, you tell them your base price is $300 for cake serving 100 but the bells and whistles adds more so you quote them a price of $400. That can many time bewilder a client and also gives that false impression that because it is a wedding/tiered cake you are charging more. I out and out quote them $400 from the get go, they have no problem understanding that and they don't think they are getting jipped or overpriced. Same cake, same money...just different delivery of how we arrived at the same price. KWIM?

Eh, I guess I get it, if it works for you. I'm more of a fondant is xxx amount per serving, flowers are priced accordingly, and generally any detailing is already covered in my pricing. If people choose not to get certain stuff, the cake isn't any less, but if they do, it's already basically in at the same price. Keeps it simple. Sorry, your chart is just not something that would work for me, but others find it helpful, so that's all that matters.

Can't people just say "Thank you" if they find it useful and move on quietly if they don't? Jeez!

I think the discussion of the rationale behind the pricing grid is interesting...that's what a forum is all about!

I'm not referring to a "discussion."

Thanks for posting, I think I had inquired about your grid awhile back. Trying to put one together myself right now so I like to get a few different examples

That's cool. I like to see what people charge and why. I think the bulk buying customer discount is interesting. I know with my own experience I don't have a chance to buy anything in bulk except cake boards and boxes, and that's only if space allows. Ingredients are pretty much always retail. But it's also one of the reasons Sam's and Wal-Mart can undercut most home bakeries, because of their ability to buy in bulk. I like the way you take advantage of that pricing option.

Thanks for posting.

this is helpful to me and thank you for sharing... I am usually "all over the place" with my pricing and I think this will give me a general idea of how to at least be consistent!!

Thanks so much for sharing!

You have to PM the mods and ask them to make it a sticky.

Thank you for sharing.

Why are half the posts to this thread missing? There were 2 pages worth yesterday evening and the last post I made isn't showing...Also, when I pull up any pages they all show the same thing each time not change in line-up. CC acting up again I suppose.

Oh goodness! once I posted again all the missing posts popped back up then the page crashed! Took me awhile to get CC to load again, but here are all the posts back. But my front forum page is still not cycling. It still shows all the threads in the same place with no movement. Odd.

Maybe this will help you.

http://www.cakes-divine.com/Pricegrid.html

Thanks Maryann!

aw, all these pricing matrix and grids and I can't access them because I don't have excell
Any other way to open it up?

Thank you for posting the link, and thank you for sharing it with all of us!
Jodi :0)