I know pricing is always an issue for most of us decorators, and the topic comes up frequently. I've been reading through some previous topics on pricing gumpaste flowers, and I've noticed that most people charge per flower. That makes sense to me, but what I'm having trouble with is how you decide how many flowers to charge for.

It'd be different if you could charge for the flowers after the cake was done, but that's a big no-no for wedding cakes. So, you're just outta luck if you underestimate? Do you give the bride the extra flowers if you overestimate? (after all, she did pay for them--even though I don't know of any bride that would count the flowers on the cake to be sure she got them all)

I'm sure over time you get pretty good at determining how many flowers you will need for certain cake designs and sizes, but how did you figure it out when you first started working with gumpaste? Any general rules of thumb, guidelines, or hints for making accurate estimates?

Maybe I'm making this too difficult? Any advice to offer??

I'm glad that you asked this question - I have often wondered myself. I have never made a wedding cake, and don't anticipate making one anytime soon, but would be interested in how you go about determining prices. I'm really bad at that anyway and tend to give a pretty low price and then add more than what I should to the cake for that price!

I estimate the amount of labor that the extra sugar work will take, then multiply that by $20.

In the past I have underestimated, and it cost me dearly.

I haven't done much gumpaste work for cakes outside of family, but I have a bunch of different sized plastic/fabric flowers I bought at the dollar store ... I just lay some of these out on top of my pans for a way to estimate quantity (they don't need to be the right colour, or even the right kind of flower as long as they are close to the right size ...)

I made my first gumpaste bow and put it on a fondant cake to be sold in a local bakery. When the proprietor asked how much extra I wanted to charge for the bow, I had no idea what she was talking about. That is until I looked at some wedding cake sites and they charge upwards of $40 for a fluffy bow! The bow was easy to make for me and flowers are so much harder. I would look on the sugarcraft site and see how much they charge for their gumpaste flowers and go from there.

Ther only time I really do gumpaste work is on wedding cakes and I don't charge extra for the flowers..in my opinion, it's aleady included in the price of a "wedding cake" price!

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

MelC--that's a great idea! I've usually got some fake flowers hanging around from where I buy too many. (I'm just not good at estimating anything I guess! ).

MrsMissey--I had thought about that, but I have a hard time justifying to myself charging the same price for a cake without gumpaste as I charge for one with it. Maybe I should establish a different starting price for cakes with gumpaste work and not worry about pricing out each individual gumpaste flower?