Help!!! Wedding Cupcakes & Cake?

Business By jessiedarlin Updated 18 Apr 2014 , 9:37pm by costumeczar

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jessiedarlin Posted 18 Apr 2014 , 12:29am
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Hey everyone!

 

I'm making a cupcake tower, 140 cupcakes and a cutting cake, probably a 6" cake. Would $310 be a good price? I'm new to wedding cakes!

 

Thanks a bunch! :)

9 replies
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deb4cakes2 Posted 18 Apr 2014 , 12:53am
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I would usually charge $3.00 or $3.50 a cupcake but then it depends on how elaborate they want them.  For the cutting cake I charge a starting price of $50 but then again it depends on the decoration (that would be for a fondant cake).  I live in Australia and my prices would be different to yours.  Just cost out your ingredients and your time and oven time and you should come to the right price.  Don't undersell yourself!!

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jessiedarlin Posted 18 Apr 2014 , 1:54am
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Thank you! I am using fondant.. Maybe I'll bump it up a little, with delivery and all..
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howsweet Posted 18 Apr 2014 , 2:17am
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If all you do is "cost out your ingredients and your time and oven time" all you'll come up with the lowest possible price that anyone could charge for this cake order. You have to find out what the market value of your cake would be by checking into pricing of bakeries. It can be a bad idea to use home baker's prices because so often they don't know how to price. It's safer to find brick and mortar bakeries and see what they're charging.

 

You can't just go to their website and check out their base prices as this is often going to be much lower than what the price will be after all is said and done. Then you adjust prices according to how your product compares. Are you using higher quality ingredients? That would add to the price. Are your cakes not up to professional standards in terms of appearance? Then that would lower the price.

 

Costing out your cake is important so that you know whether you can make a profit selling cake. Costs are more than ingredients, time spent baking, shopping and cleaning up. There is time spent waiting for the customer, talking to the customer, talking to customers who never order, updating your website and facebook, paying bills, keeping records, etc.  These would generally be spread out among all your cake orders.

 

But if you only take into account costs and baking, decorating and clean up time -- you know you aren't charging enough because you didn't include those all those other things. And you didn't take into account market prices

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howsweet Posted 18 Apr 2014 , 2:20am
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AAnd look at it this way - if all you did was price the cake based on cost and time, but cakes go for $50 more than that, then you threw away $50.

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Apti Posted 18 Apr 2014 , 4:09am
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jessiedarlin~~welcome to the forum. 

 

How Much Should I Charge for my Cakes?

http://www.cakeboss.com/Cake-Stuff/Articles/How-Much-Should-I-Charge

 

"The simple but frustrating answer is that no one can tell you how much you should charge.  Setting a price structure is one of the most difficult parts of any business.  As with real estate, the price of cakes varies widely by location and is largely determined by your local market.  Finding the right price point requires research of your competitors' prices, and a solid understanding of your own costs."

 

 

 

 

 

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mermaidcakery Posted 18 Apr 2014 , 3:15pm
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AThat article is a perfect summation of all the answers emotional pricing questions. It gets straight to the point. Thank you for posting it

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howsweet Posted 18 Apr 2014 , 5:31pm
post #8 of 10

AYes, it's a great write up and she's finally saying to base price on market value. She's still not addressing the issue of time spent working that isn't directly spent on a particular cake. But that is a cost and technically doesn't affect price, anyway.

I also don't think she literally means that no one can ever tell you what to charge for a cake. There very well may be people in your area who can do that. I don't know that it's helpful thing to emphasize that statement. For one thing, It implies that somehow your cake price is intangible and that no one can ever tell you you're doing it wrong.

And the other thing is that usually it's just a disclaimer because the person doesn't want to take responsibility for any mistakes you make in pricing. So stressing that is almost missing the point.

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howsweet Posted 18 Apr 2014 , 5:38pm
post #9 of 10

AYes, it's a great write up and she's finally saying to base price on market value. She's still not addressing the issue of time spent working that isn't directly spent on a particular cake.

I also don't think she literally means that no one can ever tell you what to charge for a cake. There very well may be people in your area who can do that. I don't know that it's helpful to emphasize that statement. For one thing, It implies that somehow your cake price is intangible and that no one can ever tell you you're doing it wrong.

And the other thing is that usually it's just a disclaimer because the person doesn't want to take responsibility for any mistakes you make in pricing. So stressing that is almost missing the point.

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costumeczar Posted 18 Apr 2014 , 9:37pm
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Of course someone could tell you how  to price your cakes, it would just take some research. Go to my blog and do a search for "pricing" and I have a bunch of articles. This one, though, should be required reading for anyone who thinks you just take the cost of ingredients into account when you price things. Only if you want to work for less than minimum wage...

 

http://acaketorememberva.blogspot.com/2012/04/whats-your-real-profit.html

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