Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi paul, I have just gave a price of £350, for a four tier round wedding cake the bottom a 12″fruit then a 10″, 8″and 6″ vanilla sponge , basic decoration of a ribbon round the bottom of each tier, with a diamonte spray and metal letters on top tier, I will be making the friut cake from scrach, but I buy in the sponge from sweet sucess as I live in nottingham, the price includes delivery and set up which is in sheffield, which is aroung 80miles round trip, the customer hasnt got back to me which makes me feel im charging too much, do you think I am, I do my cakes from home mainly for friends and family, thanks nicky b

Hi Nickyb

Personally I would have thought you have under charged since you will be delivering and setting up.
There are a couple of questions on the site which may help you. If you put in the search box ‘Too expensive or unlucky’ and ‘what would you make for 200 people’, you will see the questions and the answers received.
If you google ‘Four tier wedding prices uk’ you’l be able to compare prices other people charge. I’m sure other members will join in with advice. Hope this helps a little. x

I agree – £350 is too cheap, especially as it is not a “shop bought supermarket job”. I know most people would expect to pay around £500 for a wedding cake, not as extravagant as you seem to be doing. I know people are on a budget at the moment, but as the saying goes, “you pays your money and you takes your choice”. I personally would rather have quality over quantity, after all, a Wedding is a special occassion.

Thankyou all for your advice, I feel better now I know im under charging rather than over charging, and will be looking more into my pricing of cakes.

Ask them for feedback ?

Hi Nickyb

I know you’ve said you mainly make cakes for family and friends, but if you decide to start making as a
business, the Pro course is a most comprehensive business tool. There isn’t an aspect of setting up that it doesn’t cover and I would recommend it to you strongly. Have a little look at this video blog http://www.cakeflix.com/blog/making-profit-from-cake-decorating. It’s an eye opener and a fantastic learning aid! If the customer hasn’t contacted you back, it would be wise to give them a call and just say you are following up their enquiry. Don’t drop your price, I think the customer may be shopping around for best prices and won’t find better than your quote. Good luck Nicky, wishing you the best.

Hi Nicky, that’s roughly what I would charge but excluding delivery and set up. Have a look at M&S wedding cakes and see what they would charge for a similar design. Their cakes are not custom made, not personal and have to be collected from a shop, so you should be charging more than them!!

hi Nicky,
Price is only one of the factors when brides decide who will make their wedding cake. Others are quality, customer service, taste and the key one – do they trust you! Where price is the only factor or the highest by a long way then they probably aren’t your customers anyway. We nearly went out of business 5 years ago because we were undercharging. We had 7 outlets and over 100 cakes going out every week and with a good reliable brand from the outside looking in we were doing exceptionally well, but from the inside we were losing money simply because we were not charging enough. As soon as we did the sums we realised that we needed to put the prices up which brought us back into profit. It’s best to have a pricing matrix to guide you, but I would certainly say that £350 is far too cheap for a custom made designer 4 tier wedding cake. If you are selling cakes I promise that the Pro membership will pay for itself many times over with help on pricing, VAT, tax, marketing, systems and many more real life experiences.
Hope this helps.
Kind regards
David