I am starting my Cottage Food bakery soon (custom cakes) and none of the local home bakers in my area reveal any of their price points on social media/websites...

I want to know what others are roughly charging so I can make sure I'm not charging too much, or too little! I want to respect the other bakers in every way.  

All of this to ask- is it appropriate to just straight up email them and ask them what their base prices are for different size cakes? Do people do that? Or should I email them under my husbands email and conceal my identity as a prospective customer seeking a quote?

Hope this isn't a silly question- I'm just really struggling here! Any advice to how to approach this would be appreciated! :) 

I have to be honest here, when I was selling cakes, this 12 + years ago, no way, no how would a private in home cake decorator share that kind of knowledge. And I’m not sure many would be forthcoming with the information today. I actually created a email account on another platform and did as you are proposing. Today, I wouldn’t do that. A local decorator isn’t your competition, you support each other.  Brick & Mortar stores I would have no problems asking about their prices. There is a website cake boss for decorating software. You will find some good information on the site about pricing cakes for your business. https://cakeboss.com/   Hope this helps you.