Free template
Cake pricing chart
A cake pricing chart lists each cake size you sell with its servings, full cost and price, so you can quote in seconds instead of guessing. Every price on this chart comes from one rule: full cost (ingredients, packaging, your hours and a share of overhead) divided by one minus your margin. At a 30% margin, an 8-inch two-layer cake that costs $88.00 to make sells for about $126, or $5.25 a serving. Download the sheet as a CSV, replace the example numbers with your own, and print it or keep it on your phone.
| Cake | Servings | Ingredients and packaging | Hours | Full cost | Price (30% margin) | Price per serving |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6-inch round, 2 layers | 12 | $14.00 | 2.5 | $62.00 | $89 | $7.42 |
| 8-inch round, 2 layers | 24 | $22.00 | 3.5 | $88.00 | $126 | $5.25 |
| 10-inch round, 2 layers | 38 | $34.00 | 4.5 | $118.00 | $169 | $4.45 |
| 9x13 sheet cake, 1 layer | 24 | $18.00 | 2.5 | $66.00 | $94 | $3.92 |
| Two tiers (6 + 8 inch) | 36 | $40.00 | 7 | $169.00 | $241 | $6.69 |
| Three tiers (6 + 8 + 10 inch) | 74 | $75.00 | 11 | $276.00 | $394 | $5.32 |
| Dozen cupcakes | 12 | $12.00 | 2 | $51.00 | $73 | $6.08 |
| 4-inch bento cake | 2 | $6.00 | 1.5 | $36.00 | $51 | $25.50 |
How to read this cake pricing chart
Each row is one product. The columns build from left to right: what goes into the cake, how long it takes you, what it really costs, and what you charge. The last column, price per serving, is the number customers compare when they ask why a tiered cake costs more than a sheet cake.
All the numbers are an example for a home baker in the US. They assume $18 an hour for your time, $3 of overhead per cake (gas, electricity, a share of your equipment and fees) and a 30% target margin. Your ingredient prices, speed and local market will be different, so treat the chart as a starting layout, not a price list to copy.
Servings for the round and tiered cakes are wedding servings: slices 1 x 2 inches across a cake about 4 inches tall, the size most decorators quote by. Cut party servings (1.5 x 2 inches) and an 8-inch round gives about 20 instead of 24, so its price per serving rises from $5.25 to $6.30. The sheet cake is cut into 2 x 2 inch squares.
Read next: Cake serving chart by pan size
The formula behind every price
The chart uses the same sum for every row, so you can check or rebuild any line by hand.
- Ingredients and packaging: what you paid for the flour, butter, sugar, eggs, filling, frosting, board and box that go into this cake.
- Labour: hours from mixing to boxing, times your hourly rate. At $18 an hour, 3.5 hours is $63.
- Overhead: a fixed share for oven time, utilities and fees. The example uses $3 per cake.
- Full cost: the three added together. For the 8-inch cake, $22 + $63 + $3 = $88.
- Price: full cost divided by (1 minus margin). $88 divided by 0.70 is $125.71, rounded to $126.
- Price per serving: price divided by servings. $126 divided by 24 is $5.25.
How to adapt the template to your bakery
Open the CSV in Google Sheets, Excel or Numbers. Rename the rows to the cakes you actually sell, put in what your ingredients and packaging cost per cake, and time yourself on your next bake rather than estimating. Then change the hourly rate and margin to your own and recalculate the last three columns.
Keep the margin honest. A margin is the share of the price you keep, not a markup on cost: a 30% margin means $30 of every $100 you charge is left after costs. Adding 30% on top of cost gives you only about a 23% margin.
Round to prices that look deliberate, like $126 or $125, and review the chart every time butter, eggs or boxes go up. A chart that was right last spring can be quietly losing money today.
A printable chart for your stall, menu or Pinterest board
Customers like a clear chart: it answers the first question before they ask it and makes your prices feel fair. For a printable version or a pin for Pinterest, keep only the customer-facing columns (cake, servings, price) and hide the cost columns. Your costs are for you, not your customers.
When a static chart stops being enough
A spreadsheet chart is only as current as the last time you updated it. Farinu keeps the same idea live: you enter your recipes with their ingredients, packaging, sub-recipes like buttercream, labour, machines and overhead, and it costs each cake. Set a target markup and Farinu suggests a price for each cake: unit cost times one plus the markup. It works in markup, not margin, so for the 30% margin in this chart, enter a 42.9% markup (1 ÷ 0.70 − 1).
You can keep separate price lists, for example retail and wholesale, and when an ingredient price rise pushes a recipe below your target markup, Farinu raises a margin alert with a suggested price, so you can update it before it eats your profit. The free plan covers costing for up to 10 recipes. On Team, the AI assistant can also import recipes from a photo or a spreadsheet, including this one.
Questions
- How much should I charge per serving of cake?
- Work it out from your own costs rather than a going rate. In this example chart, plain round and sheet cakes land between about $4 and $7.50 a serving at a 30% margin, while small cakes like a bento cake cost far more per serving because the time barely shrinks with the size.
- Why do tiered cakes cost more per serving?
- Stacking, doweling, extra boards and careful finishing add hours that a single cake does not need. In the example, a two-tier cake takes 7 hours against 3.5 for an 8-inch round, which pushes its price per serving up.
- Can I print this cake pricing chart?
- Yes. Download the CSV, open it in any spreadsheet app, delete the cost columns, and print or export it as an image for your stall, menu or Pinterest.
- How often should I update my pricing chart?
- Whenever an ingredient or packaging price changes noticeably, and at least every few months. Farinu does part of this check for you: when an ingredient price rise pushes a recipe below your target markup, it raises a margin alert.
Related pages
Keep your cake prices right without redoing the sheet
Cost your cakes in Farinu, set a target markup, and get an alert when a rising ingredient price pushes a recipe below it. Free for up to 10 recipes.