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Free cake price calculator
A cake pricing calculator for home bakers. Enter what you paid and how long the bake takes. It shows the least you should charge, and every step of the sum.
The page opens with an example: a pound cake priced with US average ingredient prices. Change any number and the price changes. Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere.
How the price is worked out
How to price a cake, in four steps.
There is no one price for a cake. A small vanilla cake and a three-tier wedding cake cost different amounts. What you can always work out is the least that pays for everything.
Add up what it costs
Ingredients (only what this bake uses), packaging, and any running costs for the order. For the recipe cost, price what you paid per pound, dozen or litre, then take the part you used.
Pay yourself for the time
Multiply your hours by your hourly pay. Count shopping, baking, cooling, decorating, packing, cleaning up and messages with the customer.
Add the fees and the profit
Card fees and profit are shares of the price you charge, so divide by one minus both shares. At 20% profit and no fees, divide by 0.80.
Round up, then check
Round up to a price you like, then look at what it pays you per hour. If you charge less than the price shown, the page tells you what you earn instead.
Price = (ingredients + packaging + your time + running costs + any fixed fee) ÷ (1 − fee share − profit share)
- Ingredient prices: US city average retail prices for August 2026, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, read on FRED and rounded to the cent: flour $0.548 a lb, sugar $1.024 a lb, eggs $2.272 a dozen, butter $4.021 a lb, whole milk $4.229 a gallon.
- Hourly pay: median pay for bakers in the US, $17.86 an hour (May 2025), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- Cup and spoon weights: King Arthur Baking, Ingredient Weight Chart. Unit sizes: NIST Special Publication 811, Appendix B.9.
- Pound cake: traditionally a pound each of flour, butter, eggs and sugar.
If you price more than one cake
What the paid file adds.
This page is free. If you price a cake now and then, it is enough. If you price every order, typing your prices again each time gets old. Fair Slice does the same arithmetic in a file that remembers them.
| This free page | Fair Slice, $14 once | |
|---|---|---|
| Prices a bake from costs, time and profit | Yes | Yes |
| Turns cups and spoons into what you paid | 12 common ingredients | 22 common ingredients, and you can add your own |
| Keeps your pantry, recipes and bakes | No. Nothing is saved: close the page and it is gone | Yes, in your browser, with a backup file you can save |
| Pay per hour at the price you charge now | Yes | Yes |
| Shows the price | As a bar | As a cake slice, with a knife line at your price |
| Prints a cost sheet for a bake | No | Yes |
| US, metric or Australian cups; any money symbol | Yes | Yes |
| Works on a phone or tablet | Yes | No. Computer or laptop only |
| Needs the internet | To open this page | No. One file that works offline |
$14, one time. For a computer or laptop. Every download has a 30-day money-back guarantee. Opens in a new tab, so your numbers stay here.
Questions
Pricing a cake: common questions
How much should I charge for a cake?
Enough to pay for the ingredients and packaging, your time at a fair hourly rate, your running costs and card fees, and a profit on top. There is no one number for every cake, so this page works it out from your own numbers and shows each step.
How much should I charge for a cake for 40 or 50 people?
Enter that cake’s own ingredients and the time it takes, and put 40 or 50 in Servings. A bigger cake uses more ingredients and more of your time, so scaling a small cake’s price up by the number of slices can mislead you. The price per serving shows what each slice has to bring in.
What hourly rate should I use?
The pay you want for the hours you put in. The example uses $17.86, the US median pay for bakers in May 2025 from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is what bakers who work for someone else are paid, so treat it as a starting point.
What profit should I pick?
It is your choice. Profit here is the part of the price left after costs, your pay and fees, so it is on top of your wage. The example uses 20% only so the page has a number to start from. It is not a market figure.
Does it work with metric or Australian cups?
Yes. Under “From my recipe” you can choose US cups (237 ml), metric cups (250 ml) or Australian measures (250 ml cup, 20 ml tablespoon). You can also change the money symbol under “Fees, running costs and rounding”.
Is anything saved or sent?
No. What you type stays in this browser tab and is gone when you close or reload the page. Nothing is sent to us.
Does the price include sales tax?
No. Sales tax, where it applies, is added to the price you charge, not worked into it. Add delivery as a running cost for the order.
Can I use this on my phone?
Yes, this page is built for a phone as well as a computer. Fair Slice, the paid file, is for computers and laptops only.