I hope I don't confuse anyone with this question. I'm working on my basic price list. Let's use the ship cake in my photos for the question. Let's say that I start out a $3 per serving for sculpted/3D. The abse of my ship cake was a 12' double layer. The ship was made from a 9' square. Would I charge the base as my regular 12' double layer price, and charge the ship as the sculpted price, or is the entire cake charged at the sculpted price? If I charged the entire cake at $3 per serving, that would be 70 servings and cost $210 for the entire thing. It would be much cheaper if I charged the ship at the sculpted price and the base at regular 12' price. I'm afraid if I price the entire cake at the sculpted price, I would never sell on because of the high price. Any opinions? What do the rest of you do?

I think for the cake in question that $210 is appropiate. I start my sculpted/ 3D cakes at $75 because I just wont take less than that. It's very time consuming. Granted, I dont sell too many of them because not too many people around here want to pay that price.

Do you think that it is appropriate for every sculpted cake though? I really enjoy doing them, but people don't want to pay the high prices. Do you think on most sculpted, you should price the entire cake as sculpted, or just the sculpted portion? This pricing is so hard!

I personally would charge the basic price for the bottom cakes since you're not "sculpting" them, then charge the $3 per serving for the actual "sculpted portion" of the cake......the bottom part should be charged like normal in the fact that if it's covered in fondant, it will be more....if it has hand molded figures...even more and so on. Because if someone wants JUST the boat and it's a third of what it costs with the cake under it...they'll just order the boat and a wal-mart cake for xtra servings.

I agree with you jen, you should only really charge sculpted cake prices for the sculpted cake part - at least that's what I do! So that cake (for me & my area) would be - 12in fondant round - $95 + Sculpted Pirate ship (based on 9in square) - $100. Hope that helps!

Jen-you have to do what you think is best and fair. If the bottom portion is simply sitting there, you don't have to do extra work, then only charge your "regular" price plus the price of the sculpted. I have read on several websites that 3-D cakes START at $7.50/serving. I don't think you are out of line.

You just have to price what YOU decide. When you do that cake a few times, the price goes up! If it takes you ten hours to complete and is a pain in the rump, is it worth $210??? ABSOLUTELY!! Pricing stinks. You can't charge what "you would pay" because you wouldn't pay it, you'd do it yourself! If you charge too low, you have tons of orders for really hard time consuming cake and it just isn't worth it!

Good luck! I don't think that price is out of line for that enormous beautiful ship!

Thanks everyone. Pricing is hard for me on any cake, but the sculpted ones are even harder. I really can't charge what I think they are worth here, because people wouldn't pay it. I know I can quote the price, and they say yes or go on their merry way, but I'd actually like to make some money doing it too! If people think my prices are too high, they don't order. If I price them lower and people order, I hate doing it! Thanks again. I guess I'll have to decide which is more important...getting the orders for the sculpted, and lowering the price, or keeping the price, and not sell near as many. Thanks!