How to make money from selling cakes and content monetisation

Making and earning a living from just selling cakes has become increasingly difficult, more so in recent years due to the cost of living, this makes your ingredients, packaging and tools more expensive and as a consequence it means as a business you need to charge more, but your regular customers are also experiencing increased costs so are more likely to either order less or a cake on a budget.

There really is no easy answer to this, all you can do is charge correctly in order to make a profit, you will most likely get less custom as everyone is in the same situation but there are things you can do to increase your income as a business which I will go through soon.

How much should I sell my cakes for ?

The first thing you need to do is work out exactly how much your cake is costing you to make. To do this making charts can be helpful, so for example lets say 1kg of Self-Raising flour costs you exactly £1, for the cake you are making you only need 400g of this flour, that means it will cost you exactly 40p in flour. You do this for every ingredient and constantly review your charts to make certain they are up to date with the constant price increases.

Packaging

Cake boxes, Extenders, Cake Drums, Cake Cards (if making a tiered cake) and Cake dowels all need to be taken into consideration and added on to the cost of ingredients.

Cake Tools & Equipment

This one is more of a choice on your part, I have never charged extra for any new equipment that I need to make a cake so for example a new mould as long as its something I am keeping as the cake artist and it will then be in my collection to use again at a future date. If its something like the `Wilton Castle` turrets then I would add that to the cost of the cake as its going with the customer and its something I cant use again.

Profit

Once you have a rough idea regarding the costs of the cake you then need to add a profit, you can add any amount you like but 50% is a good benchmark. So if the cake is going to cost you £20 in ingredients and packaging you then want to add another £10 profit so the cake at the moment is £30. (I am just using small figures here to give you an example on how to work out costing, to make a cake from scratch costs an awful lot more than this)

Wage

You have covered the costs of the cake and added a profit now you need to pay yourself a wage. Depending on what your minimum wage is where ever you are located in the world is a good idea of where to start at. Work out roughly how many hours the cake is going to take you to make and times this by the minimum wage (or more if your highly skilled) you then add this on to the £30 and that's what you need to charge to make a profit and earn a wage.

Hidden Costs to Consider

Gas and Electric is the main one, most people now have a smart meter so it is an awful lot easier to work out how much it costs when you have your oven on for a certain period of time.

Public liability Insurance if you are based in the England is also another factor to take into consideration.

Its not Easy is it

When you read all of the above you soon realise just how difficult it really is to earn money from selling cakes. So what else can you do to increase your income and earn more even in these difficult times, Content monetisation is the answer and for some depending on how it grows it can earn more than making and selling a cake simply because your cutting back on so many costs and time involved but if you reach a large enough audience, deliver high quality content and advertisers see this your RPM (the amount an advertiser will pay per 1000 views) can increase dramatically. Content monetisation is constantly changing and instead of being focused on the amount of views you get its more interested in your `Watch Time` and `Click through Rate`. Its not about making longer videos, its about creating high quality content that keeps your followers engaged for longer so they want to watch it for longer.

YouTube Content Monetisation Criteria

The current criteria to earn money from YouTube content is 4000 Hours of Watch Time from long form content in 12 months and 1000 Subscribers or 10 million shorts views and 1000 subscribers. It may sound like an awful lot but if your truly doing something you love, creating high quality content, engaging with your followers, it can be worth the time and effort. I started my channel for fun (not to make money), six years after starting my channel and taking on cake orders full time I had to stop making cakes due to the pandemic and the rules in England. This was when my business model changed and free content has now become my main focus however I still keep up to date with hygiene inspections so if I choose too I can take on a cake order at any point. The fact that I started it for fun is probably why I am still doing it now, too many people think its easy and want to earn a lot of money, it doesn’t work like that, but even if your earning modest amounts it can support your cake business during the more difficult times.

Facebook Content Monetisation

This is currently `invitation` only but in order to be invited in the first place you will need to post on a regular basis, if you use business suite you can create scheduled posts so you are not always sat on your phone or at a computer. Posting `Reels` is the new big thing, short videos that keep people engaged and again focusing on watch time and High Quality content. This can also grow your following.

This is another way you can now earn money from something you were already doing anyway, it does take work but you can now smile when you have a `troll` or a `nasty comment` on any post (not just a video) all posts are included in `Content Monetisation`. So you post a link to a YouTube video, blog or just an image of a recent cake order, with the content monetisation the more people it reaches the more who engage the more you get paid. So next time a person makes a nasty comment just thank them for there constructive criticism as you have earned more money due to there behaviour.

Overview

There are many more other platforms I haven’t mentioned in this blog that also offer monetisation and if you bundle all of these opportunities together whilst still taking on cake orders you can now understand how it all adds up. This way you are not putting all of your eggs into one basket so to speak. If you are poorly and need time off you still have revenue coming in. One thing I haven’t mentioned in this blog is being an `affiliate` and how this form of revenue can also help when combined with all of the above but we can save that one for another day.

All of this does take an awful lot of hard work and does not happen overnight, be certain you do not `Burn yourself out` its very easily done, take a break when you need too and if it gets too much then just focus on your cake orders instead. Remember what I said about loving what you do but also taking care of yourself is key to longevity.