I think I am ready to accept a cake deal. Big Problem!! I don't even have a clue what to charge. I had a suggestion to call and get prices from local bakeries, but do they readily give quotes or do I need to sit through a consultation with them. Any help appreciated!!

I have an excel spreadsheet that I made if you want it. Email me at [email protected] if you would like it.

What I do when someone wants me to make their cake is I have them come over and look at pictures of cakes (wilton books mostly, I have some pictures on my computer I saved too) and get an idea for what elements they like. We talk about how big. Then I put the size into my excel spreadsheet and it gives me a price. I prefer to give the price AFTER they have left. This gives me a lot less pressure. I want to make sure I account for everything. I will typically throw in 1 - 2 extra batches of frosting if I think I might need some extra and I need to account for all of the cake circles and everything. I will then muddle with it a little so that it seems right for the effort... I don't want the customer looking over my shoulder and seeing how I come up with the price...

So I will email them with a description of what they wanted and a price. They will email me back (now I have it in writing sorta) and I put their cake on my calendar!

I have done several wedding cakes and I ususally charge between $3.25-$4.25 per serving depending upon the difficulty, not including the top tier. The Wilton yearly cake decorating books have a great guide that tells you how many servings you get out of various sized pans.

I's start by getting information on the going rate in your area. Most places will give you a starting point. My per serving prices are based on basic cake to feed 100. Figure out costs (food costs, boards, etc.) and multiply x3. This is just a basic, easy way to figure. 100 servings is a good starting place, it is a 3 tiered cake. You will make less margin on any cake smaller than that and a tiny bit more margin on any cake bigger than that because of fixed costs.

I don't understand that times by 3 thing.

I made a cake last weekend and the supplies cost me $35.35 according to my matrix. (doesn't include electricity, water, soap to wash, etc..)

So multiply that by 3 and I get $106.05

That is $.88 a serving (not including the top layer)!!! or $.79 a serving if you do include the top layer.

Cakes took me 3+ hours to bake
and 5 hours to frost and decorate and set up
So that would be $70 in profit and thus $8.84 an hour....

We are SKILLED laborers, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm a college grad, that is NOT ENOUGH MONEY for our talents!

I didn't include in the hours the amount of time I spent meeting with the bride to decide what cake she wants, the time emailing and talking with her on the phone, delivery, gas for delivery..., we all spend time thinking about the cake, time to buy the supplies, the stress of making sure you plan out your time correctly, the stress of wanting it to look perfect and agonizing over that buldge, the stress of worrying if it is going to smash in transport.... I could easily throw in an extra hour or two of extra time.

So if I put my total time in at 10 hours then I made $7 an hour which is LESS THAN CALIFORNIA MINIMUM WAGE!!!!!!!!!

We need to value ourselves above that!