I honestly have no idea how to price these. Here is my best one far. It's a medium I guess. Once I get the hang of it, what should I charge for full, med. and bud? I'm in a fairly high priced market and this rose was 2.5 in from base to top.

Whatever you local florist would charge for it might be a good rule of thumb--looks real--excellent work!

I have no idea about prices but just wanted to say I think you did an amazing job! At first I thought they were photos of real roses that you were taking inspiration from, and was expecting to find the photos of the sugar roses below them. It was a huge shock when I realised they were the sugar roses!

Thanks for the compliment! I still need lots of practice and some better tools. But as for the price - are you saying charge the same as the florist charges for real roses? I can get roses for $1 each -- there's no way I can do it for that price. I assumed sugar roses would be way more. (?)

From a froo froo florist that's gonna put them in an arrangement--I can get very reasonable roses around here too but not from a full out florist that does arrangements & delivers them.

I mean that's part of the problem with grocery store floral shops & stuff--really dumbs down the prices huh.

yes sugar roses ARE a lot more. A florist spends ..... what ? ..... 8 seconds snipping a rose off of a stem? A sugar artists spends .... what? .... how long did it take you to do that rose?

I like to use the phrase "Pretend you are a real business.....!" (she said very tongue in cheek, so no flaming, plz!).

but let's say you run a shop where you have one employee who does nothing but make these roses. How long does it take to make one rose times the hourly rate you're paying the employee plus the payroll taxes the employer (you) have to pay plus any benefits, PLUS the cost of materials, PLUS the overhead factor. Add all of that up .... that's what the rose COST you to make. NOW you add a profit margin and that's what you charge PER ROSE.

If you pay someone $15 an hour to make roses, and it takes them one hour to make one rose, then I say your charge at least $25 to $35 per rose.

This is not a "run to the garden, snip off a rose and slap it on a cake" thing. This is artistry and time .... it's bells and whistles .... and those cost extra. They cost a premium extra!

Indy--what are you saying?
Y'all better be able to make more than one rose in an hour!
I've never heard of paying $35 for one rose--dude, if you can get it go for it.
My idea is like up to five bucks for one rose--$60 is about the cheapest you can get a dozen roses from a regular florist, one who delivers--but often I charge per arrangement starting at $15 to $25 per arrangment.

Thank you Debi - that was very helpful! I don't know how long it will take as I made that one in class, moreover I don't know how long it should take -- if you know what I mean. When I first started decorating I worked a LOT slower than I do now.

Oh k8, you keep us real!! I just use the one-per-hour to keep the math simple for an example.

I have read/heard of sugar artists who tell us that some flowers take an hour or more to make just ONE, though.

Although, k8, if I could charge $60 for a dozen real roses that didnt' take me any work ..... or charge $60 for a dozen sugar roses that took me a buttload of time .... I'm going with the real ones!

I guess I need to call companies in my area. But the more I think about it, the less relevant prices for real roses seems. If someone wants me to make a cake in the shape of their Shih Tzu, the last thing I'm going to do to work up a quote is to call a kennel.

I guess real roses are somewhat more relevant since the bride may make comparisons. But I have a feeling if she can afford sugar roses and wants sugar roses, the main comparison she'll make is what zxy bakery down the street is charging.

It takes more than an hour to complete one rose because of the drying time between base and petals depending. But you can still make lots of roses in the same length of time.

And it is very real work to snip those fricken thorns off roses.

If you pay someone $15 an hour to make one rose you are going out of business soon.

If you can find customers to pay $35 for a rose, I wanna come work for you.

I found this off a local website

Full Lg Rose $15.00
Full Med. Rose $12.50
Full Small Rose $10.00

Leaves are extra

beautiful rose....can't offer advice on the pricing though.

Most people, individual establishments...who work alone, will make these decorations in lots, and probably not really be thinking about time.

I don't time myself by rose...I mainly do it by the cost of my materials, and add some for profit. If I had all the bells and whistles that Debi had, I'd have to think about that. But let's face it, most of us don't.

I made all the roses for my sister's cake in about 6 hours, and had extra to use on atleast four other cakes. I think there are some things that just can't be charged per hour, especially if you are a home-based business.

And a florist pays for more than the scissors it takes to snip off the thorns. They pay for the rose, the coolers, the delivery van, the same employee taxes, etc....but most florists can't do out of their homes what most people on Cake Central do.

Unless you are Ron-Ben Israel or some such, I could not get someone to pay 15 bucks for a rose, no matter how much time I spent on it. And what difference does it make when you still can't eat the whole darn thing....

Debi, do you do gum paste roses?

For real, 3G. I mean you can purchase extra large full gum paste roses for $2.15 each--price probably goes down for quantity. Full sprays with leaves and all start around $5.50.

I'm not going to post the name of that bakery especially since I'm about to say their roses are very nice but far from the best I've seen. I assure you they do plenty of business and are not joking about the prices. Maybe the market just won't bear it where you live. There are brides around here that would consider it a bit less than classy to put anything but handmade custom roses on their cake. The mass produced ones just don't compare.

Had I known I was in a discussion with experts I would have saved my energy.

Mine never turn out that gorgeous...........however my mediocre roses take at least an hour if you add up all the time...making the bud then you have to let that dry....two days lol...can you count that ...just kidding....wow I don't know what you would charge but you don't want to charge so much you have no business either like k8 said

I think that is good common sense.

Wow, that is gorgeous - great work! As to pricing I think you really just have to go with a price that sits well with you. In my opinion people don't realise the amount of work that goes into something like this so are less likely to be able to stomach something with an hourly rate built in. I think selling the rose for $1ish would be daylight robbery and an insult to your time and on the other hand I'd also love a client that would pay $35 each for a medium rose.

We have a company here who mass produces sprays of sugar flowers and sells them packaged through a craft store, 1 full bloom, a medium plus 2-3buds with some leaves all wired together and that is $25.

When I talk to brides about flower options i always explain that my 'hand-crafted bespoke' sugar flowers will price out more expensive than real or silk flowers due to the time involved. It's up to them to decide what look they want.

you don't have to be a cobbler and know how to make shoes to understand that you have to factor employee time plus expenses plus materials plus overhead to figure your cost.

And again, let me point, out that I use the one-flower-per-hour for illustrative purposes only .... just to keep the math simple .... just to illustrate and explain the thinking and costing and pricing process ..... just to get people thinking in the right direction instead of the more common "ummmmmmmmmm....... I think a dollar each sounds good! Yeah, let's sell 'em for that!" without going thru the process to see what it's actually costing them to make them.

It really bothers me when people add up their grocery store receipts, tack on ten bucks for their time and think they've made a profit. That saddens me like you can't even know.

Illustrative purposes only.

I personally would find it much cheaper to buy them premade from a company that can mass produce them at a cheaper per-unit-cost than I could EVER make them.