how do you charge for party cake servings vs. wedding cake servings?

That's why a lot of us don't charge any differently. I treat every order the same, and don't use any other serving chart but one that is slightly more generous than Wilton. Cake for 50 for a wedding is priced the same as cake for 50 for a birthday. Now of course, each cake no matter what is priced according to the work involved, but the occasion the cake is for is *not* the determining factor for price.

yes what AZ said plus if they want to serve a larger serving slice they order more of my pre-determined size servings

 

and you want to inform them on these sizing choices as a matter of fact part of the ordering process

 

some people have a dummy cake serving size portion so clients can get an idea visually at the consult

 

1x2x5 or 1x2x4 sounds small but looks plenty big enough on a plate

AZCouture- Would you mind sharing the serving chart you use? Thanks:-)

This is a serving chart created by Earlene Moore which gives slightly larger portions than Wilton: http://www.earlenescakes.com/ckserchart.htm

Most people use either Wilton's or Earlene's (I use Earlene's). She has a whole bunch of useful info on her website, it's worth a browse.
 

It pretty much splits the difference between Earlene and Wiltons. Earlene's on it's own is too much cake for me.

I can't direct you it cause it's something I created myself from one my friend gave me. I took it and tweaked it out to show every possible serving combination there is. It's a full page long, double columns. When someone asks for cake for 100, I can look at my chart and make several suggestions of tier amounts/sizes, etc.

Cake is cake , I don't care how many pieces it gets cut into , my serving size that I charge for is a one inch by two inch piece.  They can cut the cake into quarters if they like but it is still going to be charged by how many one inch by two inch pieces the cake yields. 

Cake is cake. We have one serving size and all our cakes start at the same per serving price.

 

Every single cake that leaves the shop has instructions on how to cut and store the cake, and a cuttting chart. Every single cake. Even those 8" round one layer cheapies with icing and sprinkles. We COA in every way imaginable - and a cutting chart helps. if they return an complain that the cake only served eight people then we can ask why they didn't cut according to the chart.

Great idea Godot!

If you have determined that $3 per serving per the W chart meets your income needs, then you MUST charge more per serving if you use Earlene's chart, or you'll be giving away free cake. Earlene has done many, many fine and outstanding things for the cake community, but that serving chart is a big disservice.

Servings of 1"x2"x4 or 1"x2"x5" are a good piece for any occasion cake. The price always depend on the decoration you do on it. Make a sample of a cake serving in styrofoam cover with fondant, very nice and attractive to the sight and show it to your customers, so they can get an idea of the serving size. 

I've have used Earlene's chart from the start and yes, I tend to agree, that is a bit on the generous side, especially if the venue follows the wilton cutting guide to a "T".  However, I find the upside to that is that it always works great for party servings, no reconfiguring needed.  Plus, I use it as a selling point so when people are wavering on how much cake to order I tell them the chart I choose tends to be on the more generous side so they shouldn't worry about being short.  Yeah, I may be giving away a little extra cake but I'm fine with that and is what works best for me.

 

As far as serving price for occasional cakes vs. wedding cakes -- KEEP THEM THE SAME - you'll save yourself a lot of headaches.  When I first did up my website, I had them priced differently and you wouldn't believe how people tried to weasel around things -- had people actually book a wedding cake consult and then show up and say we're just going to order an occasional cake for their wedding because it was cheaper!  I also had several people that wanted me to explain the difference between a wedding cake and an occasional cake and why they're less expensive, blah, blah, blah.  So it didn't take me long to change the pricing on my website.  Ultimately, the final price is up to you as far as your custom occasional cakes but at least by listing a base per serving price, it'll keep the riff-raff from calling to order a custom cake for a Walmart price.   Make sense?  Here's how I have my occasional cake pricing listed on my website (you're welcome to use it if you'd like)

 

"Because occasional cakes are so individualized, it's almost impossible to have a set pricing structure. Basically, the per serving price is same as wedding cake prices (above) , however, additional charges for complex designs or design elements may be involved so it's best to call for an estimate".

I uses Earlene's for years, but switched a couple weeks ago. I wanted to try the "tiered caker" app from "calculated cakes" for my iPhone, but you can't use a custom chart, you have to do Wilton's. So I used a cylinder volume calculator and figured up the cubic inches of about 10 Cake sizes, divided by 8 (standard serving size of a cake 1x2x4=8 ) and low and behold, the Wilton chart was pretty much correct, while Earlene's went way over!