How to price a cake – a simple costing method for bakers
“What should I charge for this?” is one of the most common questions in our community. Pricing by gut feel, or by matching the cheapest baker in town, is how many talented bakers end up working for nothing. Here is a simple method you can use for any order.
1. Add up your ingredients
Work out the cost per gram or per unit of everything in the cake: flour, butter, sugar, eggs, chocolate, fondant, colours and decorations. Weigh what you use and multiply by the cost per gram. Keep a costing sheet for your standard recipes, and update it when prices change.
2. Add packaging and consumables
Cake boards, boxes, dowels, ribbon, cupcake liners, piping bags, baking paper and toppers all cost money. They are easy to forget and add up quickly.
3. Add overheads
Electricity or gas for your oven, water, cleaning materials, wear and tear on equipment, and a share of insurance and data. Estimate a monthly figure and divide it by the number of orders in a typical month.
4. Pay yourself for your time
Count every hour: shopping, baking, cooling, filling, covering, decorating, packing, cleaning up and messaging the customer. Choose an hourly rate you would pay a skilled baker, and multiply. This is the step most bakers leave out.
5. Add a profit margin
Profit is not the same as your wages. It lets your business grow, replace equipment and survive quiet months. Many small bakeries add 20 to 30 percent on top of their total cost.
Putting it together
- Ingredients
- + packaging and consumables
- + share of overheads
- + your time (hours × hourly rate)
- = total cost
- + profit margin
- = your price
If the price feels high, that is useful information. It may mean the design needs simplifying for that budget, not that your work is worth less.
Free download: Cake Pricing Calculator
Our free Excel spreadsheet follows these five steps for you. Enter your ingredient prices, overheads, hourly rate and margin once, then cost each order in minutes.
Got a question this guide doesn’t answer? Ask more than 34,000 fellow bakers in the SA Bakers Facebook group.
