Price This Cake! 2/14/2013 - Page 2

You have taught them to expect inexpensive. You will need to find clients who are willing to pay reasonable prices or re-train your current clients. Retraining is tough!!

I agree with the others, your cake is beautiful and you are charging far too little.  However.....and this is a BIG "however", unless you have a customer base in your geographic area that WILL pay premium prices, you may not have an appropriate location to make high-end cake designs at a profit.  

 

Your customer base is NOT family, friends, or friends-of-friends.  Your target customer base for high-end, custom cakes are people who are willing to pay $225 for a 1st birthday party for their kid and 20-30 friends; people who are willing to pay $350 for a custom anniversary cake that looks like a golf course, etc. 

 

If you try and raise your prices and "hardly get any orders", those are NOT your target customers.  The answer is that you must do some serious business thinking AND do a time-consuming, rigorous breakdown of all your costs for ingredients/supplies/overhead and time. 

 

Many people recommend the software recommended in this article:  "How Much Should I Charge for This Cake?"

 

http://www.cakeboss.com/PricingGuideline.aspx

 

I wish you well.

Your cake is great! I would have charged $175 plus the cost of the Tinkerbell toy.

 

It's hard to put a value on your work, but remember it's your time that's the main commodity (not the flour, eggs, etc). I have a spreadsheet for every cake I quote that has the actual costs (ingredients, boards, boxes, etc) and has a mock schedule so I can see how much time it will take. I make sure I'm getting at least a set amount per hour. If I can't get at least that, I'd rather spend my time with my kids (or relaxing and watching bad TV when they're in bed!).

Suuuuuper cute cake!  Good job!  I would have charged about $3/serving for it, plus more for the topper.

I have to say that I am SO GLAD we are doing this! In the past, so many acted like their prices were well guarded secrets. If they told you, they would have to kill you 

 

I think the openness and honesty in pricing will seriously help change the mentality that "people won't pay for a beautifully done cake" Heck, yes, they will! My prices are low, compared to some on here, and others charge HALF (or less ) than what I do.  But these "high priced" businesses have customers, so obviously, people WILL PAY GOOD MONEY FOR A WELL DONE CAKE! 

$421

Pricing cakes and baked goods in general can be a though task. At restaurants it's a lot easier because it's a written menu and there is no way for me change the price (I am a professional chef). It has happen to me before that people tried to pull the "but at Sam's club it's only $20..." card. To be honest, it drives me crazy. The grocery store doesn't give me deals on ingredients either and I think a lot of times people forget (or ignore) about that. My "favorite" right now are the beggars on Facebook "oh I want this, I want that.. send me some!"

Okay, I am done ranting.