Price a cake to sell: ingredient and labour costs plus overhead and profit margin, with a per-serving price — a guide for home bakers, not tax or business advice.
Guide only, not tax or business advice. Include packaging and delivery in costs if you charge for them separately.
Selling price
How to use this tool
Add up everything in the cake, including decorations, boards and boxes you pay for.
Hours at a realistic hourly rate — unpaid time is still a cost if you want the business to last.
Overhead covers power, wear and sundries; margin is your profit share of the selling price.
Customers compare per serving, so that line is often the most useful check against local bakers.
Formula & worked example
Ingredients 20 plus 2 hours at 15 an hour is 50; with 10% overhead the cost is 55, and a 30% margin gives a selling price of about 78.57, or 6.55 per serving for 12 servings.
Limitations — read this before you rely on it
Overhead, market rates and local demand vary, and this tool does not cover taxes, delivery, packaging beyond what you include, or food-business licensing costs. Treat the result as a pricing guide.
Frequently asked questions
Margin is profit as a share of price; markup is profit as a share of cost. A 30% margin on a 55 cost gives 78.57, while a 30% markup gives only 71.50.
At least what skilled work pays locally, including time for shopping, washing up and messaging customers — not just decorating.
Electricity, gas, equipment wear, packaging, platform fees and a share of rent or insurance, as a percentage of direct costs here.
Usually separately, unless you build it into the price. This tool does not add delivery unless you include it in costs.
Because handmade cakes use more labour and smaller batches. Per-serving comparison with other custom bakers is fairer than with mass-produced cakes.