How much should I charge for my cakes?

Question

I've been making birthday and wedding cakes for friends and family for a few years (and either charging at cost or giving them away), but now I am getting orders from strangers and I have no idea what to charge! How much would you pay for a hand-made, personalised novelty cake? Or for a 3 tier wedding cake?

Answer 1

Be careful of the advice that you are receiving. A restaurant that operates with food costs of 33% usually has a hard time surviving. A food cost around 25% is much healthier. I have been a high end caterer for many years and we maintain a food cost of around 18%. Our dishes are very labor intensive so even though we use the most expensive ingredients, bought directly from small organic farms or from the fishing boats, food cost is not much of a factor in our pricing model. If your cakes are high quality and truly beautiful, then food cost should not be your determining factor in pricing your work. Be paid according to your talent, not according to the cost of your flour.

If you are making a truly novel product with high quality ingredients, a Belgian chocolate rather than Hershey's for example, then you can expect to be paid more, because you can market that point. On the other hand, if you are simply doing the same Crisco and confectioner's sugar frosted cake with royal icing decorations that they sell in the grocery store, then grocery store prices are the best that you'll likely be able to charge.

For my cakes I typically charge $7 - $9 per serving, and people willingly pay it. Again, my work is something most bakers don't even attempt, so a lot depends upon the quality of your work and who you want to attract as clients. You won't make much money competing against grocers paying minimum wage workers to bake up a cake from a commercial mix, plus using commercial frostings and decorations. It's like selling cheap pizza next door to a Pizza Hut, the big guy has all of the advantages of scale and marketing.

Answer 2

Well, restaurants usually charge triple for whatever something cost them to make. So, if you're spending £10 making the cake, then charge at least £30.

If I was buying a specially made birthday cake, say for my son, I'd happily pay that much, maybe a bit more.

Wedding cakes - people pay a fortune for those. I would say £50 upwards (probably quite a bit more).

But you should be aware that if you start selling foodstuffs you may have to register with environmental health or something. I'm not too sure, but you should look into it.

Answer 3

I've been in your shoes! I charged per serving for my wedding cakes. My servings were larger than the traditional servings. Depending on the time you put into a cake is also a factor in pricing. If I was doing rolled fondant with lots of string work, the price would double and sometimes triple. Start with $1.50 a serving. Birthday cakes and things, I charget $30 for a half sheet, split and filled. Rounds, 2 layer, $15 for 8 in, $20. for a 10 in. I hope this helps. Go check out a local bakery and see what they charge to get some ideas.

Answer 4

Well... you want to recoup cost for ingredients, energy and other consumables, plus your time.

A general rule for restaurants is they charge around basic cost times 3.

I say call around asking how much "professional" cake shops would charge and charge a lower price (50% less) to get started.

If you are getting orders from strangers, let them know ahead of time what you'll charge. If they don't put up a fuss, you know you're charging too low. For a novelty cake, $40 to $70 is a decent price depending upon size. For a 3 tiered wedding cake, I'd go much higher since it probably takes a lot of hours... $150 to $200. And that's inexpensive for a wedding cake.

Answer 5

I started doing novelty cakes a few years ago free for family and friends and absolutely love making them. I really wanted to make a business out of it but found that I put so much time into each cake and the money I would probably get wouldn't pay for labour costs and ingredients together. You look at the major supermarkets etc they charge only £5 for some of their good cakes. I think the wedding market is the best to get into, we paid around £175 for our cake 7 years ago and that was a 3 tier cake with 2 tiers being fruit and the smaller tier a sponge. Good luck!

Answer 6

Well, you can go about things two ways, you can either add up what they cost ingredients wise, then add on fuel and cost of wear and tear on utensils, then something for your time, OR get the local business phone book and phone round bakers/cake makers and pretend your after a quote for a certain cake, say a three tier, heavy fruit cake with marzipan and icing - and then work out from there - WARNING a hobby that turns into a job becomes less enjoyable - but saying that, go find yourself a website that does discount cake boards, and all the paraphinalia you need to decorate them - good luck

Answer 7

Start at $80 for a personalized birthday cake, but I'd have to see a portfolio of your work, and for a three-tiered wedding cake, I'd say start at $200 and up (for a small cake) and depending on what was put on it, and cost of labor, for larger cakes of course charge more.

Answer 8

Ask the tax man. Now he knows you are doing cakes on the side I am sure you will get a visit soon. Mind the local bakery doesn't go out of business. Just joking. Count your cost of materials, add 40% for profit, plus the hours it took to make at minimum wage say £5-50 an hour, the cost of cooking the cake, add them all up and add VAT. Oops almost forgot don't forget to charge for the box's.

Answer 9

For a two tier cake with basic decorations I would expect to pay between $80 and $100. If you put more elaborate decorations on it then I would expect to pay more. 3 tier - if you spent another 2-3 hours on it I'd say minimum of $150 5 tier - minimum of $250. Again this all depends on the amount of decorations and how many slices you get out of it.

Answer 10

Go to a couple of local bakerys and see what they charge for different cakes and fillings, sizes, etc. There's a girl at work who charges 27 to 29 dollars for a bundt cake. She get's it too because they're good. Don't sell yourself short.