Which serving chart to go by to price and do most price per serving or ?
I have been going back and forth , for example I am making an 8 inch, 6 inch tiered cake with a 4 inch foam tier on top. Charged 118 it will be covered in ganache and fondant decorated fireman theme with a gumpaste fireman and dog . She had a hard time because didn,t want to spend that much. So I thought of the foam tier to make it look bigger and just charged 10$ more for that since the foam cost me 4$. I live in Sacramento area.
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Charging for your work is always the hardest thing to do… we, as cake designers, don’t always take into consideration the hours we spend creating the decorations that will make our cakes special. This is definitely part of the cost and what makes us different from Publix or Costco where plastic decorations are used and cakes are frozen for weeks on end.
To make things easier, I charge by the portion – if a client wants a cake that will feed 25 people, I multiply my “per portion rate” by that number. If the design is relatively simple – I don’t charge extra. However, if the client wants a 3-D cake that requires carving or they ask for all sorts of gumpaste figures, or sprays of sugar flowers, I will charge an additional fee. Make sure to discuss this up front and follow it up with a confirmation e-mail.
Adding a dummy cake to make the design look bigger (and justify your fee) takes almost as much time as doing the real thing and you should charge enough to cover the cost of the dummy cake, plus all the materials and your time.
If you are unsure what to charge per portion, call your local bakeries and cake designers to find out what their prices are per person – you can then use these prices as a guideline. Hope this helps!
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