The chart can’t see the work.
Same 50 servings, same chart price. One cake takes 3 hours, the other takes 12.
Stop pricing by vibes.
Try it free for 7 days. If it doesn’t change how you price, cancel before you pay a cent.
Start your free trialUpload the cake photo. Get a real price in seconds.
Drop in the customer’s inspiration photo. Cakulate prices every tier, flower and swirl from real measured times, at your pay and your margin. Your customer says yes from their phone.
For solo cake artists and full shops. 7 days free, cancel any time.
The price
You didn’t start baking to do math in a parking lot.
Upload the photo. Cakulate counts every detail, times it with real measured data, and prices it at your pay and your margin. Seconds, not an evening.
Photo to price in seconds
Price it from the carpool line.
Baking solo
The photo lands in your DMs in the carpool line. You have a real price before the kids are in the car.
Running a shop
Five inquiries before lunch, each priced the same careful way, whoever on your team opens it.
Four real quotes, line by line.
Every number came out of Cakulate in a sample shop. Tap a pin to see what that detail costs.
- 1Sugar flowers, 14 stems Lead artist, 4 h 40 m$102
- 2Pearl overpiping, middle tier Lead artist, 40 m$14
- 3Fondant, 3 tiers Lead artist, 2 h$44
- +Bake, fill and stack 3 tiers Baker and decorator$93
- +Ingredients, packaging, box, overhead Materials$72
Your cost $324.78Wedding minimum applies$775 to $865
Why the price holds up
Cakulate uses Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing, the method manufacturers and hospitals use to find what each job really costs. Instead of a price per serving, it adds up the work each cake actually takes and what that work costs you.
Task time × pay rate+Ingredients and materials+Overhead+Your margin=Your price
1Break the cake into tasks.Every cake is a list of measurable work, not a size.
- Baking, filling, stacking and supports for each tier
- The finish, piping, flowers, toppers and painting
- Tiers, sizes, colors and piping lines counted from the photo or your choices
2Time each task with real data.Starting times measured on real orders by college-trained bakers and decorators.
- Timed with a stopwatch, not estimated from memory
- Adjusted for skill: newer decorators get more time for the same task
- Your own logged times replace the starting ones as you go
3Cost the time at your actual pay.Each minute is priced at the wage of the person who does it.
- Baking, decorating and lead artist work at separate rates
- Ingredients and materials by tier size, from your own costs
- Overhead spread across orders so rent and admin get paid too
4Add your margin and check the floor.Profit is set on top of real cost, never guessed.
- Your margin and order minimums on every quote
- Each added tier priced at no less than selling it alone
- A warning before any quote goes out below cost
Where the money goes
Custom orders are where cake artists and shops lose money.
Whether you bake alone or run a kitchen, it leaks out the same three ways.
Skilled hours get given away.
Detail work runs long and the price doesn’t move. It comes out of your pay, or your decorator’s.
Every quote starts from scratch.
Messages, photos, a calculator, a guess. By the time the price goes out, they’ve booked elsewhere.
Examples for illustration.
Then the rest of the business
Your whole order book, out of your head.
DMs, sticky notes, a paper calendar, three apps and a spreadsheet. Cakulate replaces the pile, from the first inquiry to the review request.
QuotesQuotes that close themselves.A clean link your customer accepts from their phone.
- Price, tax and deposit on one page
- Change requests come back to you, not lost in DMs
- A friendly follow-up goes out when they go quiet
OrdersFrom yes to pickup, nothing slips.Every accepted quote becomes a numbered order with a stage.
- Booked, confirmed, in production, ready, picked up
- Changes after booking go back to the customer for approval
- Filter every order by stage and payment
PaymentsGet paid without the awkward text.Deposits hold the date. Invoices and receipts are already done.
- Deposit asked for on the quote
- Invoices with sales tax and tax-exempt customers
- Balance and pickup reminders sent for you
CustomersEvery customer, one tap away.Their orders, notes and contact details in one place.
- Past orders and prices at a glance for repeat customers
- Phone, email and how they like to be reached
- Complaints noted, so no review request goes to an unhappy customer
CalendarYour order calendar, on every phone.Syncs to Google, Apple or Outlook. Drag to reschedule.
- Booked and pending orders, color coded
- Blocked dates and days that are getting full
- Download any range as a calendar file
KitchenThe kitchen plan writes itself.Bake list, decor punch list and delivery route for the week.
- Work scheduled back from each pickup
- Bake totals by flavor and filling
- Print one clean page for the whiteboard
CapacitySay yes without wrecking your week.See hours fill up before you book one cake too many.
- Weekly hours for baking, decorating and lead artist work
- Warnings when a date or week is full
- Notice and rush rules you set
Order formInquiries arrive ready to price.A link in your bio that collects the details and photos.
- Date, servings, flavors and inspiration photos
- A thank-you email goes out on its own
- Lands as a draft quote with a customer record
One artist or a full kitchen. Same Cakulate.
Baking solo
It grows with you.
- Get paid for your own hours, not just the ingredients
- Look like a real business from your first quote
- Add your first helper and their pay and pace are priced in
Running a shop
The tools you need, and some you didn’t know you did.
- Every quote at the pay of whoever does the work
- Capacity by baking, decorating and lead artist hours
- Times that learn how fast your team really is
Built in our own kitchen
It took our shop from $15k to over $25k a month.
Before$15ka month, stuck
Under 6 months$25k+a month, growing
We were booked most weekends and going nowhere. We paid hundreds a month for an order form app, invoicing, a bakery suite and a scheduler, and none of them could tell us what a custom cake should cost. So we timed every task, priced the real work, and built one tool that does it all.
“Same kitchen, same team. We just stopped giving away the cakes that took the most skill.”
The Cakulate team, cake artists first
Plans from $19 a month, for you or your team. Try any plan free for 7 days.
Unlimited orders, customers and quotes you build yourself on every plan. Start with Starter, grow into Solo, bring your team on Business.
Questions bakers ask us
How does the free trial work?
You get 7 days with every tool and 3 AI photo quotes, so you can see what your cakes should really cost. Add a card to start; nothing is charged until the trial ends, and you can cancel any time before. Answer a 2 minute survey during the trial and we add another week. It becomes the plan you picked unless you cancel. Your quotes and settings always stay saved.
Is Cakulate for solo cake artists or for shops?
Both. A solo artist working from home and a shop with a full team use the same Cakulate. Solo mode treats you as the baker, decorator and lead artist, at your own rate. When you hire, add people and their pay, and every quote prices the person actually doing the work.
I bake alone from home. Is this overkill?
No. Most of what a solo artist needs is a fast, fair price and a quote the customer can say yes to, and that is where Cakulate starts. If it is just you, enter what you would pay someone to do the work, so your own time is in the price. The rest is there when you want it: deposits, reminders, an order form, a calendar.
Will it grow with me?
That is the idea. Start solo with your own rate. Add your first helper as a beginner and Cakulate gives them more time per task at their pay. Set weekly hours when the calendar fills up and it warns you before you overbook. The quotes you have already sent and the times you have logged come with you.
Where do the task times come from?
From real orders. Our own bakers and decorators, all graduates of an accredited college pastry program, timed each task on real cakes at beginner, intermediate and advanced skill levels. Every quote starts from those times. Make them yours three ways: set Your speed for each kind of work (faster or slower than standard), log how long your own cakes take so Time check can suggest better times, and set each person's skill level.
What if a customer sends an AI-made cake picture?
Send it to Cakulate like any inspiration photo. The assistant points out signs it was AI made (floating tiers, impossible flowers, garbled lettering), sorts the design into what can be made, what needs a change and what cannot be made, and prices the closest real cake from your times and rates. Your customer sees the changes in plain words on their quote and approves the real version. More in our guide to quoting AI cake pictures at cakulate.com/blog/ai-cake-inspiration-pictures.
Can I see my orders in Google Calendar or on my iPhone?
Yes. Calendar, Add to my calendar gives you a private link to subscribe to in Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook, on your computer and phone. Booked and sent orders update on their own, usually within a few hours. The step by step is in the user guide under Calendar sync.
Can I adjust the times for how fast my team works?
Yes. In Costs & Times, Your speed lets you say you are faster or slower than standard at each kind of work, from baking and finish to piping, Lambeth, sugar flowers and Cricut toppers, between 50% faster and 50% slower. Every new quote follows. For one task, log real times and accept the Time check suggestion.
Will it make my cakes more expensive?
It makes them accurately priced. Simple cakes often land right where you are. Detailed work usually comes out higher, because that is where the hours are. You always see the price before your customer does, and you can adjust it.
Do my customers see how the price is figured?
No. Customers see a clean quote with what is included and the total. Your rates, times and margin stay private to your shop.
What does the AI assistant do?
It reads the order or the inspiration photo, asks for anything missing, and lists the work involved. The math comes from your rates, times and settings. The reading is done by AI, which can miss or miscount a detail, so you or your team confirm its read before it prices. If it gets one wrong, report it and we credit that quote back.
We run a shop with a team. What does Cakulate add?
The tools you already need: quotes, deposits, invoices, sales tax, an order form and a calendar. Plus the ones most shops do not know they need: pay and pace for each person, weekly capacity by kind of work, a production schedule worked back from each event, a bake list and decoration punch list, and suggested task times from how long your team really takes.
Can my whole team use it?
Yes. Invite your staff to your shop workspace. Everyone quotes from the same rates, menu and task times, so the price does not depend on who answered the message.
Can I change plans or pay quarterly or yearly?
Yes, from Billing. Upgrades start right away; downgrades and billing period changes start on your next billing date. Quarterly saves 10% and yearly saves 20%. Every change asks you to confirm before anything is charged.
What if I run out of AI quotes?
Quotes you build yourself never run out. For more AI photo quotes, buy a pack in Billing: 25 for $10, 50 for $15 or 100 for $25. Packs are used after your monthly allowance and never expire.
Can I cancel any time?
Yes, from Billing. Your plan keeps working until the end of the period you paid for, and you can undo the cancellation any time before then. During a free trial, you can stop it from charging the same way.
What happens if a payment fails?
We email you and show a note in Cakulate. Everything keeps working for 10 days. Update your card in Billing and the payment goes through right away.
What changed recently?
Everything new is listed on our release notes page, in plain words.
Is my data safe?
Each shop's data is walled off from every other shop at the database level. You can export everything at any time from Settings.
More answers in the user guide and on pricing. See what is new in Cakulate for every recent change.
Talk to a baker
Questions, a walkthrough for you or your team, or a feature you need. A real cake artist answers.