Pricing your home baking can be (and should be) simple.
But how do you know if you’re doing it right?
How do you know if you’re undercharging or overcharging?
What if you charge too much and no one orders?
What if you charge too little and do yourself in?
I understand completely how you feel right now…. When I started my home bakery, I also struggled with pricing and customers took advantage of that all the time! I don’t want that for you.
So, this post is here to make pricing quick & simple for you.
When you price the RIGHT way, you’ll earn more income from your baking and you’ll be able to make home baking your career.
This post will clear up home bakery pricing for you once and for all!
And the biggest help I can offer you is my Baked Goods Pricing Calculator that does all the complicated math FOR you.
Yup, I’m serious.
This is no joke – you can get my Baked Goods Pricing Calculator for FREE. You can download it in the Home Bakery Resource Library >> Join the Library HERE.
But before we dive into the practical side of pricing, let’s quickly talk about the emotional side of pricing.
Because if you don’t understand the emotional side of home bakery pricing, you’ll always feel too guilty or awkward to charge your customers full price.
Let’s lay the foundation right so that you NEVER have to struggle or feel awkward when you’re pricing your baked goods, sound good??
1. Understand WHY Home Bakers Feel Awkward & Guilty with Pricing
If you consider the typical prices of baked goods, they’re not exactly “expensive” compared to all the other things people buy for enjoyment…
Every day people spend thousands of dollars around the world on restaurant meals, watching movies, weekend getaways, etc.!
People easily and willingly PAY GOOD MONEY for products that make their lives better. Why should it be any different with homemade products – like home baking?
Home Baking is SUPER labour intensive, yet we feel too awkward & guilty to charge what our bakes are TRULY WORTH.
I am convinced that the reason why cake pricing remains an issue, is because we’re faced with adding a VALUE TAB to what we do… AND a value tab on what we feel WE are worth.
A lack of confidence is the REAL reason why we overwork ourselves, STRUGGLE WITH PRICING, end up jumping through hoops for demanding clients and get stuck baking things we don’t even enjoy making – for cheaper prices!
We keep thinking: “If only I had 1000 likes on my Facebook page, THEN I would know that I’m good enough to charge full price for my bakes!”
And on Reality TV Shows about baking, it’s the EXACT same story. How many times have you heard contestants say:
“If I win this competition, I will finally know that I’m good enough.” “If I win this competition, it will prove to my father that I’m talented enough to make a living from dessert making.”
Here’s the secret: “If you are not enough WITHOUT that validation, you’ll never be enough WITH it.”
The hard truth is that the “stamp of approval” you feel you need from customers to make you believe you’re a LEGIT Baker, won’t be enough to convince you that you’re valuable.
What YOU believe about your value is what matters here.
So, who do you truly BELIEVE you are?
And is that person valuable?
What makes that person valuable?
The price tabs you put on your work will always reflect how valuable you believe you are.
I had to get to a point where I stopped looking to my clients for validation that I’m okay.
I had to fully embrace that MY value comes from the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m valuable because He loves me. REALLY think about where your value comes from.
RELATED: How to Overcome Self-Doubt in Your Home Bakery
In the past I undercharged for my baking because I felt a need to OVER-please my customers so that the odds of them liking me are higher… I was deceived in thinking that the more customers liked & praised me, the more valuable I’d feel.
But if you’re not enough without that praise from people, you’ll never be enough with it.
“The reason we ‘people please’ is not because we care about other people. It’s because we want to control what other people think of us.” – Courtney Chaal
When YOU stop looking to people for your validation and settle it in your heart that YOU ARE VALUABLE (no matter what people think of you),it becomes so much easier to acknowledge that your baked goods are valuable too!
Now let’s Cover the Home Baking Pricing ESSENTIALS…
2. The VALUE of Home Baked Goods
You may have believed until now that Home Baking is in some way “inferior” to the baking of storefront bakeries.
But you actually have it backwards!
It’s important to realize that you’re offering a VERY UNIQUE and VALUABLE service here. You are baking SPECIALLY for ONE client with all the LOVE and QUALITY they would get from their OWN MOTHER’S baking.
They’ll also get their baked goods FRESH – not 1 week old as in the grocery store and large, mainstream bakeries.
So, on every level, small batch home baking is of HIGHER VALUE than mass-produced commercial baking.
You offer them the sentimental, high quality benefits of homemade, HAND MADE baked goods without them needing to spend ANY time or effort on it.
Home Baking has an incredibly high QUALITY, NOVELTY and CONVENIENCE value. That’s worth A LOT my friend.
3. Cheap Prices Attract Cheap Clients
If you’ve been charging too little for your baked goods, you’ve probably run into some pretty darn demanding, unrealistic, bartering sort of clients. Am I right?
Chances are, that’s what drove you to start looking for cake pricing answers! The type of clients you have are just becoming unbearable and you’re constantly second guessing yourself as a baker and business owner.
So here’s the deal. Cheap prices will attract budget clients who enjoy nothing more than saving money wherever they can.
They unfortunately are the type of clients who take advantage of you. They’ll get you baking things you hate, on short notice for less money.
The way you get ideal, committed clients with better character is by CHARGING MORE. This separates the cheapskates from the true cake appreciators.
4. Cheap prices “for the love”?
When I started my Home Bakery I kept all my bakes SUPER cheap because I wanted them to be affordable for everyone.
I was buying the best ingredients, investing hours of my time and barely turning ANY profit.
There are so many bakers on Instagram that say: “You should do it for love, not for money.”
But this is FLAWED LOGIC. Let me explain why.
Let’s look at doctors for example. They fill an amazing role in society and bless so many people with their gifts and talents. Keeping people alive is their heart’s desire.
Medicine is a SUPER demanding career and there’s no doubt that doctors choose to STAY in this career for love and not money… The convenience & excitement of money wears off pretty fast when you need to work 36 hour shifts – repeatedly.
Yet we GLADLY pay them generous sums of money SO THAT THEY CAN KEEP ON HELPING US.
Charging DECENT prices for your bakes (charging what they are worth) will enable you TO KEEP ON BAKING DELICIOUS BAKES FOR PEOPLE.
If they don’t pay you WELL, you’ll need to end your Home Bakery and get a desk job somewhere… It’s pretty hard to “love people with your baking” then, isn’t it??
On this point we also need to talk about pricing your bakes for close friends & family.
Baking for family and friends is a tough one; because we love them and feel guilty to accept and ask for payment.
But, here’s another perspective: Your friends and family love you and want you to succeed – that is why they are ordering from you.
I decided a while ago to have a standard discount for all my close friends and family. The discount is 10% off my direct client prices. To offer them a discount will already seem very generous and courteous to them.
If your friend sells you a car (for example) you will be ELATED if they give you a 10% discount, right?
Set up a fixed discount rule for friends & family that you are comfortable with (I recommend a 10% discount MAX), and stick to it no matter what.
Making a rule like this for yourself and your family/friends eliminates the need to make an awkward decision every time a family member or friend orders something.
5. Transition From a Freelancer to a BOSS
I recently watched a video by online entrepreneurCourtney Chaalon this topic.All home bakers start out as freelancersmeaning that someone asks for a certain bake for a certain day and we proceed to make it for them.
They then start manipulating you by saying their budget is so tight this month because of this and that, so you end up giving them a discount…
The client calls the shots. They determine what we make, when we make it and they influence what they pay for it. This means that we base ourbusiness strategy and pricing by just REACTING to our customers.
You might still be running your Home Bakery this way and be thinking “well, what other way is there??”…
There is another way my friend and that is tobecome a BOSS and start running your business like a boss.
A boss decides what services and products they do and do not offer. They decide what the prices are. They call the shots and determine the course of their business.
A freelancer is just reacting to clientsandtheir business will end up going wherever their clients end up taking them– which could be in circles or downward, and not forward.
There is a COLOSSAL difference between a freelancer and a boss!!
RELATED: How to Create a Home Bakery Business Plan (Includes free workbook!)
ALL Home Bakers do start out at freelancers, but if you desire success for your Baking Business, you’ll need to make the mindset shift into the boss world– sooner rather than later.
Your customers will no longer be deciding what you bake and when you bake it for. They will no longer be influencing your prices.
YOU’LL now be the one deciding how your business is going to operate on every level – and I’m SO EXCITED FOR YOU!!
6. Download your FREE Pricing Calculator
You’ve successfully completed this training on Pricing your Home Baking and now I invite you to join my Home Bakery Library to get access to my FREE Pricing Calculator!
It’s the BEST tool for any Home Bakery Business! You simply type in:
>> Your rate per hour for your labour.
>> The time you spend on the bake from start to finish.
>> Your ingredient costs (including electricity/gas costs, decoration costs, packaging costs, etc. as well here).
>> Your profit percentage.
And then it calculates the recommended selling price FOR you! Tada!
