A[IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3206920/width/200/height/400[/IMG]

This cake is 2 layers of 8x2 on the bottom tier and 2 layers of 6x2 on top with buttercream filing and marshmallow fondant...

So I'm new to this and have a full time job, I like to make cakes as a hobby and just make a small amount of $ from them...in would like opinions on this cake on how it looks... It is my very first fondant cake and cost me a little less than $10 to make I sold it to a friend for her daughters bday for $25... I know that is about half the price of what stores charge... And it did take me probably 5 hours to make :/

So basically... What do you think? How many does this serve usually? And what would you personally charge?

(Also I went to the wilton website to look at servings and such, it's all new to me so I'm a little confused)

Actually $25 is at less than a quarter of what I would charge for a 6 and 8 inch covered in fondant. Our fondant cakes start at $4 per serving.

According to the Wilton chart a 6 inch and 8 inch serves about 32.

The cake looks good! The fondant is smooth, I don't see any bumps or tears in it. You probably want to work on getting your tiers a little taller, the shorter tiers like that don't tend to look as professional. But overall great job on your first fondant cake!

As far as exactly how much you should charge, no one can tell you that. You have to sit down and figure it out for yourself. It's good that you figured up how much it cost you to make, but is $10 really accurate? Did you account for ALL of your materials, including cake boards, paper towels, soap to wash dishes, electricity to run your oven, etc. in addition to the ingredients to make the cake itself? What about labor? You need to figure out how much you want to pay yourself per hour. So if you decided to charge $10 an hour for labor, that's $50 before you even add ingredients cost and profit.

You also need to look at your local market. Not that you should just copy your competition's prices, but you need to be aware of what they are charging.

It takes some time to figure out your pricing, but once you do it will be much easier to quote a cake.

AYou know what actually my materials might me a little off... Forgot about the cake board and cake box! :/ glad this one was for a fried though so I can adjust prices better!

Market value is the one thing that you should base your price on. After finding out what cakes sell for, you must learn your costs in order to know if it's a worthwhile endeavor. With constant new cake start ups, many of your competitors will not know how to price, so you have to carefully discern which businesses to use for examples.

There's a ton of info on CC about how to figure your costs which most people focus on, but a lot less about determining market price.

Yep, the more cakes you do the more you will realize what all goes into it! It helps if you just sit down and really think and list out everything you think you will need for a cake before you quote it, and then figure out at least an approximate cost for each item. That way even if you decide to discount it for a friend or family member, you know how much it should really cost.

There is tons of good info on CC about pricing. It can be a touchy subject, but you can learn a lot from all of the amazing pros here! If you do a search on google with "pricing cake central" it should pull up a lot of threads.

AThank you!!!

Another thing I would consider is, if your cakes are only 2 inches high you'll get less serves. I use the Wilton chart, but then my cakes are 4 inches high. A 2 inch high cake isn't going to give a very big serve (unless it's fruit cake).

If you're selling cakes, it's a business and Indiana is very restrictive about selling homemade goods--they can only be sold from farmer's markets or roadside stands.

http://cottagefoods.org/laws/usa/indiana/