I always charge by the slice for wedding cakes, minimum $2.50.

I don't use the multiply-your-cost thing, just flat out by the serving.

My question is for those of you who price this way and do both wedding and party cakes. My party cakes are usually sculpted or detailed, so I don't think I'd charge less than $2.50/sv (possibly more), but here's the question:

Do you use Wilton's servings for party sizes (isn't there a chart somewhere?) when pricing party cakes, or use the wedding sizes? Seems like at a party they are more likely to cut big wedges rather than the little 1 x 2" wedding size.

I'm making one for practice this weekend, and I got to wondering how I'd price it. (I usually just do wedding cakes).

Thanks.

i give a range of servings and charge for the higher serving count

I use the wedding cake Wilton servings as a guide for all my cakes. I tell the customer what the size is,and if they want bigger than they get more cake. I use the same guide for weddings and party cakes. And i charge x 3 of the costs, plus any extra for fancy work, if it's a complicated cake i could add $50-$150 more to the price, because the x3 sometimes doesnt work out, considering the amount of work that may be involved.
Nati

I'm puzzled, too, on pricing for the sculpted party cakes.

For example -- if you made a turkey cake, or a car cake, where maybe you started with a quarter or half sheet, then sculpted from there ... would you charge based on the original-sized cake you baked? Even though maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of it ends up being scraps?

The topsy-turvy practice cake I made -- I started out with two 9x13's and carved from there. I ended up with a whole bowl full of scraps. And there's no way the end result would have fed the same number of people as the two original 9 x 13's.

It confuses me.....

It seems to me that the extra work involved in sculpting a cake more than makes up for the loss of servings in terms of cost. So for the 9x13s that were used for the topsy turvy cake, whatever you would have charged for the sheet cake by the serving would still seem like undercharging for the sculpted cake it became.

interesting.

So, does this mean if I use the wedding size servings, and I know someone is going to cut pieces not 1 x 2 but more like 2 x 4, they'd have to buy twice as many servings to cover that many people...? In other words, for a party of 25, they'd need to buy a 50-serving cake and pay 50 x $2.50 (or the going rate)...? That's $125 for a cake for 25 people, which probably won't fly around here.

Or do you mean still charge $2.50 a serving x 25, and just bake a bigger cake (1.5x to twice as big)? That would be $62.50 for the same party.

I'll have to think about this some more.

anyone else have anything to add here?

Nati

Thanks. I like the idea of catering to the same size no matter what, also. I'll just stick with my wedding sizes for everything and see how it goes...

My mom had a good point on cost per serving--she said, "If you go to a restaurant and order a piece of cake, you wouldn't be surprised to pay $5.00 for it, would you?"