i cant get my head around pricing! ive been asked to do a lady gaga cake feeding about 20 people! i said £40 and he snapped my arm off for it thinking he was going to pay more! my partner has a go and tells me to call him back with a price of £80. IM CONFUSED

It depends on the design you're planning, I think £40 for 20 servings is cheap no matter what though. I don't think you can go back on the price now you've quoted it, but chalk it up to learning experience - taking a little time to consider the price in the future. I never quote off the top of my head, I always get back to them when I've considered all the elements and come to a fair price for the amount of work & ingredients involved.

Hi,
what type of cake is it? is it a round cake with a figure of lady gaga on top? or is it like this one, just her head and shoulders?
http://sugarcelebrations.blogspot.com/2011/05/burts-lady-gaga-cake.html

I'm assuming its a one tier cake because you said its too feed 20 people.

Hi,
Thinking about it now, I think that £40 was a bit too little and asking for £80 would be too much.
I think that now you have told him the price, it would be a bit awkward to call him again and tell him a higher price and you could loose his order altogether, perhaps next time you should get back to people with the price, once you have calculated the cost of the ingredients, the energy (gas & electricity) and your labour.

I think its too late to alter the price now, but every cake and order is a learning experience isn't it?

Oh yeah, I def wasn't going to phone to ask for more money! No matter what my partner said! I thought 80 was too much! I was just going to do a round cake with lady gaga fig! I should of got back to him with price like you said! I haven't done many celebration cakes, mainly cupcakes! I just don't know where to start with pricing cakes! I need to sit down and work it all out!

Yeah, I've asked about the price of cupcakes, cake pops etc on here before and I've realised theres no basic answer, it depends on everything!
The cost of each ingredient, cost of any tools or cake boards you have to buy, costs of energy, costs of your own labour etc
So yeah just sit down and take a couple of hours to work out like a chart for your cake prices, wilton have a basic chart of servings, I don't know if it would be of use to you, but its interesting just to have a read of,
Heres the serving and baking time one,
http://www.wilton.com/cakes/making-cakes/baking-wedding-cake-2-inch-pans.cfm

Hope this helps! Good luck!