AI am having a really difficult time with pricing. I had a lady contact me for a wedding cake for her daughter. She wants a 3 tier (one layer each tier) chocolate cake with white buttercream frosting, red roses with vines cascading down the side of the cake, and a long quote which I'll need to somehow fit onto the side of the tiers. She asked me about this last Tuesday but said she'd get back to me on when she needs it. This morning she messaged me to say she needs it on Tuesday (today is Friday). I work Saturday and Sunday nights, have a special needs child at home and school is out for the Summer. She knows this, as she is my husband's cousin. This doesn't leave me much time to get the cake done. I can do it, though, and had planned to go ahead and make the roses today so they can be drying. I could see that she was online when I told her $50 for the cake...she logged off about 5 minutes later and has yet to message me back.

I have created several cakes for this lady and she's always been pleased with the results. Since I run my cake business from home and an still learning, I always price low - usually about $10-$20 above supply costs (including packing supplies). I decided to go up a little this time, as I feel that the short notice and time/ effort involved with this cake is well worth it. But now it looks like I won't get to make this one....

I don't think she will get anyone else to make it for that. The price is cheap and you are making the roses. WOW! I say let her find someone else. If she calls you back to let you know to make the cake and you are going to be pushed on time, I would tell her "sorry you should have let me know sooner. . . don't have time to get everything done as the roses have to dry. Good Luck!

AYou are better off letting this one go, you probably underpriced this cake by at least a factor of 3x-5x. Check out the pricing formula link in my signature for an overview of how to price cakes.

A

That's true, but even in AR if you subtract out cost of ingredients and allocated overhead (insurance, license fees, etc.) from the $50 price and look at how many hours this order will take you, you will probably end up paying yourself much lower than minimum wage with a profit margin of zero.

Don't get bummed for losing this order. It is bound to happen because there will always be people who don't want to pay you for the time you put into a cake. Jason is right you need to, you need to add up the cost of supplies and everything else that goes into making a cake and I believe you will be surprised. You may not be making any money at all. If you want to do it for free that's great, but if not you are certainly cutting yourself short. You need to figure out how much you think your time it worth. Let us know if she contacts you with this order, I am curious

A

Hi! Thanks for your reply. She did finally reply (8 hrs later). By that time I had already decided that she probably wouldn't reply and was prepared to let this one go, but decided to go ahead and do it. In her reply, she stated that she needs me to deliver it also. I asked her for delivery info: location and time, and let her know that I have to be at work at 3 on Tues so we'll need to work around that. I asked that she let me know asap so that I could make plans. She still hadn't replied. SMH. I feel that she is being very rude in the way that she is handling things and at this point I'm really not even excited about making this cake for her.

A

At this point I would contact the customer ASAP and let her know that unfortunately you will not be able to make her cake, and wish her the best of luck with her event.

Stand you ground if she tries to get you to make the cake anyway. If you were close to the mark price-wise I might recommend adding a rush fee if she is desperate, but in this case your rush fee would need to be $100+ so that's really a non-starter.

AThank you :) Well, turns out I won't need to worry with this after all - she messaged me around 2:30 today, saying simply "We are not doing the cake. We do not have the funds at this time." No 'thank you anyway', or 'I apologize for the inconvenience' or anything of the sort. Oh well. I guess it's for the best in the end.

A

Thanks for taking the time to reply, and I agree. The cake she ordered was to be 3 tiers (10", 8" and 6") - one layer each tier - so I guess you could say both?

I think that she was so used to getting cakes for little to nothing from you that she thought she could take advantage of that. It's sad really. I agree with Jason, you definitely really should rework your pricing!