Hi Everyone, A lot of people have been telling me to sell my cakes, but I am having a hard time figuring out the pricing of the cakes. For context, my cakes cost approximately $25 to make in total, including packaging, and I spend, on average, 5 hours per cake. I am also in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, which may provide additional context. Would love to get some honest feedback as to what these cakes are worth based on my time, my work, location, and costs. All these cakes cost about the same to make, except the red, white, and blue heart cake, which costs twice as much as the other cakes. Any feedback is appreciated. If you want to price each cake individually, you can do that too.
TLDR: Cake costs about $25 to make and takes about 5 hours to make, and I am in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. Help price the cake
by No_Oil_4226
21 Comments
I don’t know anything about pricing cakes but you do a wonderful job! The first one and the purple heart are my favorites. Hopefully someone can give you pricing advice.
Your writing needs a lot more practice but otherwise the cakes are stunning
If your $25 cake is a basic birthday cake ,sell at $60–$70.
If it’s custom/fondant/detailed work, sell at $80–$100+
Beautiful cakes!
Maybe you should only write in upper case ? The writing is very juvenile .
With more practice. You’ll get better! Maybe have a template of upper case letter styles that you will only use. Going forward.
That y? It’s gotta go sweetheart.
Charge for your time per hour, plus up charge for cost of ingredients. Any custom design work involved? add for that.
You need to practice your lettering and spelling. You really need to practice.
Your coloring is nice. Your design concept is nice. Your lettering needs work. In one of them I couldn’t tell what the letters were. In another, you misspelled birthday.
I’d spend at least a month practicing letters every day. You don’t have to bake a full cake, just clear a flat surface and practice your letters, your fonts, your spacing. Practice with thicker icing, thinner icing, give yourself spacing limits.
Keep practicing.
The decorating is really good, just as everyone said, letter work is needed. Cakes like this are about 50-60 where I live.
You misspelled birthday on the walking dead cake.
Some cakes look better than others, I would practice on the details, the consistency of quality, and the writing. Really try to focus on not messing up the details. The first and 2nd cakes are the better ones.
I wouldn’t charge more than 100 for these, instead try lowering cost of supplies
What happened to the front of the purple heart cake? I think you are better than most people off the street, but I’d honestly be disappointed if I got something misspelled or as messy as many of these for $60-$100. I understand that selling for less than that is not feasible for the amount of supplies, work, and time that goes in. I’d say get some instant mashed potatoes, or whatever you prefer, for practicing piping and keep practicing until it’s smooth and fast. Once you’re able to move much quicker, then I would consider selling because you don’t want to undercut your time. If it took ~6 hours to make a cake that cost $25 in supplies and you sold for $85, that’s only $10/hour. If you’re trying to be a business, that’s a good way to get burnt out because you can end up feeling like you’re constantly baking and decorating and not seeing the returns. I genuinely think you have a great eye and are well on your way with your skills, they just need a teeny bit more refining and that comes with more experience.
To be honest, if I ordered from you and received one of these cakes as the final product, I would be disappointed. I would consider perhaps switching to fondant letters to help the written messages look cleaner and more professional. As well, the uneven piping really draws the eye. there are some really beautiful components, and I’m sure with more practice you could easily charge in the $80-$100 dollae range depending on the exact cake size and type of fillings etc.
I made a little formula for my wife’s cakes she follows. 150% of ingredient cost. 20$ bake/ clean and she now charges 25$ per hour decorating time. She used to charge 15$ per hour decorating time but increased price as she got better. No offense but she is currently better than you. She was charging 15 when she was at your level. She considered it like a paid internship.
*
Pricing Example. Say the ingredients cost 30 and it took her 2 hours to decorate. 30*1.5=45+prep/ cleanup 20 + 2 hours decorating time 2×25=50. 45+20+50=115.
Hey Everyone the cake that I misspelled birthday was for a friend and it wasn’t an order and we joked about. I haven’t sold any cakes yet these are all free cakes for family and friends. Of course I would be more careful with spelling for a real order.
I want to try all of them 🤤
Charge according to your expenses + labor charge + goodwill.
Example: It costs around $25 to make a cake, and it takes you 3 hours to complete. You work about 10 hours a day. Assuming that a baker in your locality earns $2,000/month for working 10-hour shifts, 26 days a month (excluding Sundays), their hourly wage comes to about $8/hr (rounded from $7.6).
Now, if you also add goodwill equal to the labor charge ($8/hr), then the price of the product should be:
$25 (cost) + $24 (labor for 3 hrs) + $24 (goodwill for 3 hrs) = $73.
Rounded off, the selling price should be $75.
Your cakes are really beautiful! But I do think the lettering really brings the skill down right now. I would just not sell any cakes with lettering until you get like more practice in. As a home baker, it’s really not worth selling cakes for less than $60-$100 depending on your cost of living, but I think most people would be disappointed paying that much for a cake and seeing that lettering on it. Most customers don’t know good piping from great piping, so I think most people would be very happy with one of your cakes, minus lettering.
For starting out, definitely price at least $60, no more than $100 but feel free to go that high or close.
$40 -$60
2, 8 and 13 are the only ones that look professional to me (so I think $60 for those would be fair). I think with some more practice (letters, piping), you will be fabulous! I think you could easily sell them for $35 now while you’re practicing.
Oh, wow! Gorgeous! Do you she orders? As in – are they custom made? Are some more expensive? How much do your supplies cost?!
You may want to stop giving away the cakes for free to friends and family as they should be your first customers if you’re going to sell them. Sharpen up your writing. Think of a name and go on facebook and post some pics. Use similar facebook sellers as your price base. Suggest you offer to make a cake for a school or church raffle. Sell tickets. Give a card with your contact details and pricing with each ticket. Donate the whole cash for the tickets to the chosen venue. Don’t deduct the cost of supplies from the donation. Then see if you get customers.
I didn’t realize you had a full gallery! They are all great! My questions to help you with pricing are still the same!!! 🩷