AI have begun picking up business by selling my cheesecakes. I use fresh fruit ingredients and make everything from scratch. I want to know how do you price cheesecakes when you have a premium product, but some people believe it is too high. I charge $25 for 7inch, $40, for 9inch, and $50 for 10inch. Am I charging properly?How do you charge? Please help. Thanks.

We don't know where you live or what you have to pay for ingredients.  We can't possibly give you fair advice.

What you can do is check your local markets for the comparable products--the gourmet cheesecakes that don't have any preservatives in the list of ingredients.  Or call around to local bakeries and ask for price quotes.  You   might well be surprised at the fairness of your price...as long as you are comparing the same kind of products.

AI live in Tennessee and buy everything wholesale from a restaurant supplier and local wholesale store available to the public. Depending on which cheesecake they order, I normally spend around 15-20. However, I am "guestimating" which I know will not be good in the long run. Is there a certain method/formula that bakers use in orderto calculate what they are spending on ingredients (i.e. how do you factor in tsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 c butter, 3 eggs, etc)? I want to be sure I am not breaking even and that I am getting compendated fairly and my clients are as well. I have called competitors' and they charge way higher (b/t 60-80). I am trying to get into local bakeries that don't sell them as well. Again, I am starting out so any advice will help. Thanks!

AI don't sell cakes, but I imagine there is a program or app that people use to calculate costs. However, for your purposes, why not just use straightforward math? 1/2 cup of butter is the price of a box of butter (4 sticks) divided by four; 3 eggs = price for a dozen / 4; etc.

Then figure in your time, which thankfully will be relatively low for cheesecakes.

AYou price cheesecakes the same way you price any other product: the ingredient cost plus the cost of your time plus allocated overhead plus a markup for your profit.

We used to offer dairy-free cheesecakes with fruit topping (9" for $68, 10" for $78, 11" for $88) but we discontinued them since they were a pain to make.

AThanks. Jason, I 've never heard of dairy free cheesecakes. How does that work? I would love to play around with that. What would you use besides cream cheese? Yeah cheesecakes can be really tedious, but people don 't understand.

AWe used a soy-based product called "Better Than Cream Cheese" from Tofutti. If your local supermarket doesn't carry it you should be able to find it at Whole Foods.

http://www.tofutti.com/btcc.shtml

Actually, four ounces of butter is one stick, not two.

I break everything down by cups or ozs for cost, then i take my recipe and add up what i am using.I come up with my cost with box included.I then add a percentage for my time, utilities used(gas, water etc..) than i multiply that by 2.4 and that is what I charge. I have 4 seperate menu categories so I will round up and add it to that category. I am very lucky however because I live in a town that does not have a cheesecake specialty shop. You can only get frozen supermarket cheesecakes around here.