How to Price Your Cakes — The Real Method
It's the most asked question in every cake design Facebook group. And it gets the most useless answers.
"It depends on the design." "Look at what others charge." "I charge X€ per slice."
None of these answers help you. Because none of them are based on your reality.
Why Copying Other People's Prices Is a Mistake
When you look at what another cake designer charges, you see one number. You don't see their fixed costs, their studio rent, their amortised equipment, their client base, their location.
You don't know if they're profitable. You don't even know if they know themselves.
Copying their prices means adopting their financial situation — without knowing what it is.
And the answer isn't in Facebook groups either. When someone posts a photo and asks "how much would you charge for this cake?", the answers are useless by definition — because the right price depends on your location, your costs, your time, your target clients. Not anyone else's.
What You Must Know Before Setting Any Price
There are several categories of costs every cake designer must understand before putting a number on a cake. Some are visible and immediate. Others are invisible — and that's precisely why they're systematically forgotten or underestimated.
The most overlooked item? Your time. Not just the hours spent decorating — also client exchanges, inspiration research, sourcing materials. All of that has a cost. And until you calculate it seriously, your prices are undervalued — even if you think they're not.
Per Slice or Per Project: They're Not the Same Thing
A round cake is priced per slice. A sculpted cake or one with complex elements — modellings, elaborate sugar flowers — is priced per project.
Because a sugar orchid takes the same amount of time to make whether it goes on a cake for 10 people or 20. The number of servings doesn't change the working time.
Confusing the two means systematically undercharging your most demanding orders.
Go Further
The complete method — the 7 key factors for pricing your cakes, with concrete calculations by order type — is in the guide I created specifically for cake designers.
→ Download the free guide — How to Price Your Cakes
Want to go even further? The Cake Business training covers pricing in full — with integrated calculation spreadsheets, directly applicable to your situation.
→ [Discover the workshop]
Self-taught cake decorator: do you really know what you don't know?
