CakeCentral.com Cake Decorating Forum

Zee4040 · Joined: Dec 31 1969 Posts: 6

I have been making 3D cakes for a while now but never charged for them
(family and friends's request). Since the birth of my baby 5 months ago I have been considering turning my cake business full time so I can become a SAHM. My question is; how/what do you charge for 3D cakes? I absolutely understand the labor (designing, carving, etc.) involved compared with regular cakes, but I still struggle with pricing them. What is the going or standard market price for these?

Your help will be greatly appreciated!

TexasSugar · Joined: Dec 31 1969 Posts: 6972 Location: East Texas

There are two pricing methods on this. One would be to charge for the number of servings baked. So if you baked 30 servings but only had about 20 left after the carving you charge for the full 30. So if you did $3 a serving, then that is $90. And it accounts for the 'lost' cake that you still had to bake. If it was something really intracate you can add a design fee on top of it.

The other method is to have a higher price per serving for the servings they get. So you can say that carved cakes start at $4.50 per serving and if the final cake serves 20, then they are paying $90.

I just plugged in some numbers to show the math, so it all depends on how much you charge and so forth. :) It just shows you in the end you get about the same, you just have to decide which method is easiest to use.

Alot of people have a min about number for a carved cake, that would elimante people want you to make a cake for 5 people. Or if you do do it for 5 people you are still making plenty of money off it.

KHalstead · Joined: Dec 31 1969 Posts: 7606 Location: Northeastern Ohio

I charge per serving that they actually recieve, which can be tricky since you often have to be able to visualize the end product and guess! I seem to do that pretty well so it's worked for me. I charge $3.00/serv. for carved w/ bc and $3.50/fondant..and tell them that some designs "require" fondant coverings to pull it off. I have a min. order of 20 servings for carved cakes (because I spent about 10 hrs. making a mini fishing creal that served 5 and charged $20.00 for it and it was soooooooooooooo not worth it to risk making that cake again for that money lol) so now I'm guaranteed at least $60.00 regardless of the servings UP to 20 servings.

I find it harder to charge for the amount of cake I started with (well it's easier to do the math this way, but harder to justify it to the customers)...and I'm always afraid they'll ask for the scraps that were carved away (saw THAT on a thread once) people are so crazy!

Zee4040 · Joined: Dec 31 1969 Posts: 6

Thank you so much TexasSugar and KHalstead for your prompt and helpful response. Your answers make so much sense now. I just finished carving and decorating a school bus (I will post it in my photos) that it is suppose to be for only 15 people but it took me about 12 hrs. It also makes a lot of sense having a minimun requirement for these types of cake.
I will use this information for now on and once again...thank you so much for sharing your expertise. I've been doing cakes for over 18 years, but only recently started charging for them.