I am trying to get everything I need together to sell cakes from my home and my biggest glitch in getting ready to launch is to understand pricing. I get how to estimate the per serving quantity of a cake (I am using the Wilton chart) but it is the up selling extras that I am having trouble comprehending. So my pricing questions are a little more specific.
Do you add a price per flower (gum paste or fondant) Do you give people so many free flowers eg first 10 flowers included any extras $2.00 sm or $2.50 lg per stem .
How do you decide which fillings should be standard and which would get a higher price, and by how much more?
Lastly if using a foam piece instead of cake, how would you charge for that?
Do you have any other tips to make pricing more readily comprehended ?

thanks everyone for helping with this!
brenda

1. We don't give any "freebies" for gumpaste flowers. We charge for each flower because they are so labor intensive. Some more than others. You may just have to figure out how long they take you to make to determine their price.

2. Our fillings are pretty much all the same price. We have tiers of cake flavors, but not tiers of filling flavors.

3. If using a foam piece or cake dummy, charge the same because the dummies are not cheap and it takes you the same amount of time to decorate a dummy as it does to decorate cake.

The best way to figure up a price for a cake is to figure your ingredient cost and labor (How much do you want to get paid an hour?) and how long you estimate it will take you from start to finish. Add those together and make sure to add overhead and profit.