I have a photographer friend that does smash cake photo shoots. I was only charging her $20 for a 6" buttercream smash cake, some design. But recently she has been wanting more elaborate designs and 3D cakes. I understand "smash cake photoshoots" are the new trend now. I just figured out my cost, and I am profiting $9/ea which to me, isnt worth my time to turn on the oven and clean up a huge mess. Thinking about increasing the price.
Just curious, what do you guys charge for a smash cake ONLY (with no birthday cake order) or do you have a minimum order amount?
Thanks! :)
Do you have a contract with your friend? How close a friend is she? If you can't discuss price with her comfortably then put on your professional girl pants and insist on a contract that spells out what you will and won't do for her. Make sure your price makes it worth your time and effort.
IMO, $20 is extremely low. My 6" cakes start at $75, with or without any additional order.
@jgifford is right, you should charge way more than $20. And you're right that the time involved in making a cake, regardless of the size, should be a main factor in pricing it. The ingredient cost and time to decorate between a 6" and an 8" cake is negligible, but people will charge a lot more for the 8" for no logical reason other than the 6" "looks smaller" so people think it should be a lot cheaper. It doesn't take that much monger to decorate an 8" cake than a 6", so you should price them pretty much the same.
I have a $150 minimum because I'd rather not do one little cake at a time, it's too much of a pain in the butt. If someone wants a 6" cake, it's $150. If someone wants an 8" cake it's $150. If someone wants a 3-D cake of something those start at $200. If they don't want it that's fine, I don't want to earn $2 an hour.
If your friend doesn't seem to "get it", explain it to her like this...It takes the same amount of time for her to edit a photo regardless of whether she's printing out the final size in a 4x6 or a 12x18. If someone offered to pay her a lot less for the 4x6 because it's smaller that doesn't make sense from a workload standpoint. The photo paper might cost a little more for the larger print, but the work to get to the final edit was the same for both.
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Thank you! I thought it was pretty good too 
I got my first order for a smash cake a few months ago - my husband was wondering why I just didnt go to the supermarket, buy a cheap plain sponge cake and decorate it. I was horrified that he thought that was OK.
Fair Enough- the baby is just going to smash it, but hey, I'm sure after all the fun the mum and photographer are going to scoop up a finger-ful or two and eat some. And which baker wants their name attached to a baby photo with the baby's face going "yuk".
Anyway, I charged $100 for a 6" buttercream if not the same flavour as the birthday cake, and $50 if it was exactly the same as the feature birthday cake. It's easier to make more batter and icing than to start a new batch from the very beginning. I used leftover decorations from the feature cake for the smash cake - and it look totally gorgeous. Mum was blown away.
But, if it was ONLY the smash cake - yeah, I'm with @costumeczar - dont like getting out of bed for less than $150.
AShe is a photographer and presumably schedules her weeks so that she has Busy days and off days. I am assuming she has some studio space at her place or in a commercial space. She should be fine with you having a minimum order, I see no reason why she can't schedule a day of cake smash photos with babies. That photo shoot does not have to be the day of the little ones party. And if it is, refer the parents to you and you can do both cakes, for party and baby and then it is worth your time. My photographer for our wedding does mini shoots with a set up back drop and people come by all day for short 30 minute shoots. Se did a lovely mini shoot with my husband and I by a pine tree and old rustic door along side her house. It is affordable for folks, and it makes for a full day for the photographer. She should consider something similar with smash cakes and she can order 10 of them from you for a full day of shooting.
AOK, slightly off topic, but what is it with smash cakes? I really don't get them, so hoping someone can explain a bit?
I'm in the UK and we don't really have them here as a big thing (yet). To me it just seems like a complete waste of food. I don't know what it's like in the States, but here we (as a nation) throw away something like £700 of food annually per family which is awful. To actually buy something with the sole intent of ruining it and chucking it seems so off to me :/
Is there anything more to it than giving it to a kiddie to whack it to bits (which also doesn't seem like a super lesson for them to learn)? Am I just missing something? Or maybe I'm just a big ole stick in the mud :-)
Oh no, don't be an ole stick in the mud - that will age you before your time
. Lizzybug78 if you have enough sense of humour to call Worthing sunny, surely you can learn to smile at the concept of "authorised food fight for one" (or more).!!!
So many parents take of photo of their baby covered in spaghetti bol, cake just became the more upmarket version of this. Its another snapshot in time of cuteness.
The one I did recently, the mother actually let ALL the kids at the birthday party smash the cake (I think they were aged 1 up to 9 years). Permission to be silly, to be messy and to eat with all polite manners out the door. What kid wouldn't want that - and that mum earns total cool cred amoungst the kids for the letting them do it.
Yes, just a bit of fun. Quite a bit does end up getting eaten. And the baker gets paid. Joy all around.
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Original message sent by Lizzybug78
OK, slightly off topic, but what is it with smash cakes? I really don't get them, so hoping someone can explain a bit?
I'm in the UK and we don't really have them here as a big thing (yet). To me it just seems like a complete waste of food. I don't know what it's like in the States, but here we (as a nation) throw away something like £700 of food annually per family which is awful. To actually buy something with the sole intent of ruining it and chucking it seems so off to me :/
Is there anything more to it than giving it to a kiddie to whack it to bits (which also doesn't seem like a super lesson for them to learn)? Am I just missing something? Or maybe I'm just a big ole stick in the mud :-)
No, you're just showing common sense, which a lot of people seem to lack. It's basically something that started maybe 10 years ago at the most, but with the level of competitive parenting that goes on it gives parents something to do to try do outdo each other. Instead of giving the kid a birthday cake to look at and stick their hand in, they give them a stupid little runt cake that they can smash for themselves, then the adults all eat the regular cake. Of course, the runt cake has to be highly dcorated or it isn't worthy of little Johnny's first birthday, which he won't remember anyway. I obviously think it's a dumb thing to do since my kids were too old and missed this particular piece of babyhood. They seem to have survived anyway...
It's really something for the parents to do to make themselves fancier than their friends. There's a certain population that likes to be unnecessarily complicated, which is the category that I put smash cakes in. I'm the mom whose children's parties were basically letting them run around in the backyard and hit things with sticks.
It's really something for the parents to do to make themselves fancier than their friends.
@Lizzybug78, be prepared for this trend - we like to export our excesses. It's the American way.
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Original message sent by MimiFix
@Lizzybug78 , be prepared for this trend - we like to export our excesses. It's the American way.
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Original message sent by MimiFix
@Lizzybug78 , be prepared for this trend - we like to export our excesses. It's the American way.
Lol :lol: Generally I love that, but I can't get my head around this one!
I think I'm still in the bah humbug camp - maybe if my kids were 10 years younger I'd see it more :-)
ACake smashing pics have been around for more than 10 years, but when I was a baby (30 years ago) my parents gave me a cupcake to myself, my niece who is 18 now (my sister is much older than I) had photos with her messing up the cake. We just ate from the other side of the cake haha. It has been around for a long time, but it is new that the baby gets a whole cake to themselves and not just a big piece or a cupcake.
Did this for first grandbaby. Let mommy and daddy handle the clean-up all by themselves. Oddly enough, their second child wasn't given the option.....:)
Thank you all so much for the replies. :) Since she is a friend, I told her I am going to have to increase the price, she understood. The cost of butter and all the ingredients has went up every year and i have stuck to the same price for her for 5 years, kind of as a favor. But told her it isnt worth it anymore for me, and future ones are going to be double priced. One customer of hers has already declined the cake with new pricing. Oh well, if they dont want to pay a little extra, no biggie. They can get a grocery store cake that isnt all fancy/custom. Not a huge loss for me. LOL.
ASame price for FIVE years!?!
You're kidding, right?
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It's really something for the parents to do to make themselves fancier than their friends. There's a certain population that likes to be unnecessarily complicated, which is the category that I put smash cakes in. I'm the mom whose children's parties were basically letting them run around in the backyard and hit things with sticks.
And I thought my kids were super strange because they liked to break rocks with hammers. Found some neat fossils, though. 
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Pinatas? Remember the days when pinata parties were the way our kids had fun?
Oh yeah, piñatas...No, this was my son's birthday when he was about 7. I filled a pup tent with balloons and one of them had something in it. They had to go into the tent to try to find it, but they ended up beating the balloons, then anything else they could find, with sticks, baseball bats, whatever they could find in the yard. We just sat there and watched them pound things and let them have at it. I think that the second part of their activity that day involved pelting my husband with soaking wet SpongeBob-shaped sponges.
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Original message sent by costumeczar
Oh yeah, piñatas...No, this was my son's birthday when he was about 7. I filled a pup tent with balloons and one of them had something in it. They had to go into the tent to try to find it, but they ended up beating the balloons, then anything else they could find, with sticks, baseball bats, whatever they could find in the yard. We just sat there and watched them pound things and let them have at it. I think that the second part of their activity that day involved pelting my husband with soaking wet SpongeBob-shaped sponges.
Can I come next time you have a party please? That sounds awesome.
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You can buy them in the party section of Asda now :-) I really want a party which involves one! Can it be done for grown ups?? I don't have any kids :-s
You mean the pinatas? They don't even make them the right way anymore, they're considered too violent, The ones they sell now have strings on them that each child daintily takes turns pulling, and one of them opens the trap door that lets the candy fall out. The first time we bought one of those I didn't know about it and the kids spent about ten minutes whacking the pinata without making a dent in it. We finally realized that you were supposed to pull the strings, not hit it. What a waste of a good pinata...
I say give each of them a good whacking stick and let them pound the thing into submission.
I've seen that type. What's the point?? Odds are the kids would find the right string first time. Woo. Fun.
No, I like the idea of the balloons, that's genius. Especially as they're tricky little blighters to pop just by whacking them, that must wear the kids out nicely!
Snowflakebunny - if you have a pinata and willing adults, then yes 
I have to go to the supermarket this lunchtime so will see if they have strings on them. Even if they did though, I would cut the string off and whack it to smithereens...sounds much more satisfying! My other half turns 29 in a few weeks...maybe then we can try it :-)
AWe had an oven-shaped piñata for my daughter's cooking-themed 8th birthday party....I gave the girls a broom handle and let them at it....unfortunately a friend from the gym had made it...a very tough friend....the kids beat the S*** out of that thing for half an hour...even the broom handle was broken so out came an old golf club....I finally ripped it open with some difficulty! It was very popular though, but no one else seems to have them, public liability I guess??
Hate the smash cakes myself, but if you pay me, I'll make them!
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