How much would you charge for this cake

I would suggest you purchase Cake Boss software (not connected to the Cake Boss show). The program really helped me calculate the real cost of cake which allowed me to price my cakes accurately.

You don't have any sizes listed for the tiers so I am guessing they are 10" and 8". According to Wilton that will feed 60 people. I charge $4.50/serving for fondant covered cakes. 60 x $4.50=$270 + $30 for the extra decorations for a grand total of $300.
Depending on where you are located there would be tax on top of that total. And if you are delivering the cake, some charge a delivery fee too.

I would think price per serving is a universal thing...but I don't really know. it makes it a lot easier that's for sure

Price per serving is partly based on your local ingredients. And partly on local minimum wage. And partly on profit margin.  And partly on rent, utilities, taxes, and all the other places that $$$ has to be spent. 

 

There is NO way that it can possibly be a universal thing. 

 

Call around to five local bakeries and  ask them for prices for this cake--pretending that you are another potential customer.  Even locally there will be significant variatiion in the total prices for the same size of cakes.

I think bittersweetly meant that she (or he) thought that charging a client by serving was the universal way bakeries charged. The OP mentioned she is in England and prices may not be on a per serving basis. I don't think she meant the actual dollar amount was universal.

When I got my wedding cake in England the charge was by the size of the tier. They told us how many servings each size would get, but we paid by the tier.

Paying by the slice (serving) or tier is really the same thing. If I sell a 6" round I could say "at $4/serving x 12 servings the total is $48" or I could tell a client all 6" cakes are $48. Either way the total is the same.

I'm only now- after a few years- pricing by serving (I'm in Northern Ireland and here it's 50:50 price for design or price per serving with 'detail level increments'), what helped me be confident in pricing my first few cakes was to price by hour- you've made this cake before so you know how long it took, give yourself a wage you would be happy with (per hour) and then add on the ingredients cost.

 

Don't see the final price and tell yourself "but they won't pay that" I fell into that trap a lot to begin with- you end up being annoyed that you're spending hours away from your family for not enough compensation. Plus you become known as the go-to for cheap cakes as word-of-mouth is likely to be your only 'marketing' in the beginning.

 

You are legally obliged however to register with environmental health before you charge for a cake though, contact your local council, mine were very helpful and accommodating, but that's why I did practice cakes for free for a long time- you don't want to get on the wrong side of environmental health!!

I think it's fine to look at websites of other cake makers in your area, but I don't think it's fair to call them, pretending to be a potential client.

 

When someone calls me for a cake, I will ask them how many portions they need.  I then look at my chart to see what size tiers they need, then work out the cost from that, adding on any extras for complicated decoration. 

 

I have very few one-size-only-therefore-standard-price-cake cakes!  So for 99.9% of my cake enquiries, I spend time working out sizes/prices.

Yeah, I didn't mean a universal price...I meant that I thought that pricing cake by the serving was a universal practice...obviously I didn't think every bakery in the world or even in a given area, has the same price per serving...

but it is interesting to hear that in the UK they price by tier...very interesting

Yes, I don't think I've come across a UK cake site that has cakes priced by the portion.

 

In saying that, as has been pointed it, it's really not all that different....  an 8" round will do around 20 portions.  So depending on the decoration, it would start at £50, so that's £2.50 per portion - which is around $4 according to xe.com    I suppose it gets around the problem of the customer saying "but I only want 18 portions".  Tough!  It eliminates that problem, as we can say "so, for 18 portions, you'll need an 8" round" if you see what I mean?

 

What is also unusual in the UK is to have different prices for buttercream or sugarpaste (fondant).  MOST cake makers use sugarpaste.

 

 

Something else is 'sheet cakes'.  Never heard or seen of a UK cake maker doing a sheet cake.  What size is a sheet cake??? (I've seen people quote half sheet cakes or quarter sheet cakes, so I presume they're a standard size????) 

a few decades ago there were more firmly established standard sizes for sheet cakes

 

a full sheet pan 18x26, half of that 18x13 and quarter 9x13 of a full sheet--easy enough

 

then cake pan makers marketed more variations

 

a three fourths sheet 15x21 cake pan size that is often confused for other sizes like for a full sheet or whatever

 

and i think there's a one third size probably--so that could be called a quarter or a half

 

they did this especially for home cakers because a true sheet pan would not fit in the standard size home ovens

 

so

 

it's not always as clear as it once was but the standard is still there...

somewhere