How much should you charge for cake delivery? Our new free delivery fee calculator works it out

You have spent hours on the cake, and then comes the question every baker dreads: what do I charge to deliver it? Charge too little, or nothing, and the fuel, the parking and the hour you spent in the car come straight out of your profit. Charge too much and the customer looks elsewhere.

Open the free Delivery Fee Calculator

What goes into a delivery fee?

A fair delivery fee covers four things, and most bakers forget at least one of them:

• The miles: fuel, wear, servicing and insurance for every mile you drive, and the way back counts too
• Your time: loading the car, driving, finding the door and handing over the cake, paid at your own hourly rate
• Extras: parking, tolls, or a cool bag and extra boxes for a long summer drive
• A minimum fee: so a delivery round the corner is still worth leaving the kitchen for

A worked example

Say your customer lives 8 miles away and you drive back afterwards, so you cover 16 miles. At 45p a mile, the figure HMRC allows for business driving, the travel costs £7.20. The delivery takes 40 minutes in all, and at £12 an hour your time is worth £8.00. Add the two together and the delivery fee is £15.20.

Now try a customer one mile away with a quick 10-minute drop-off. The journey and your time come to under £3, so a minimum fee of £5 takes over. That is the point of a minimum: short trips never become a favour you pay for.

Ways to charge for delivery

• A fee per mile or kilometre: fair and simple to explain, but awkward to quote before you know the address
• Zones with a flat fee: for example one price within 5 miles and another up to 10, which customers find easy to understand
• Free delivery above an order value: a good way to encourage bigger orders, as long as the fee is already covered in the price

Whichever you choose, work out the real cost first. Our calculator shows you the floor, and you decide how much margin to add on top.

Try the free calculator

Enter the one-way distance, tick whether you drive back, and set your running cost per mile or kilometre, how long the delivery takes, your hourly rate, any extra costs and your minimum fee. You see the fee to charge and exactly where it comes from. It works in miles or kilometres and in pounds, euros or dollars. It is free and needs no sign-up.

Open the free Delivery Fee Calculator

Built into your cost calculations

You do not have to leave your calculation to price a delivery. When an order is for delivery, the cost calculation in your Glowing Constellation account on the web has a Calculate button next to Delivery Cost. It opens the delivery fee calculator with your running cost per mile, your hourly rate and your minimum delivery charge already filled in from your business pricing.

How to use it

• Start a new calculation, or edit one, and choose Delivery
• Press Calculate next to Delivery Cost
• Enter the distance and how long the delivery takes: your running cost, hourly rate and minimum come from your business pricing
• Press Use this fee: the amount goes into the delivery cost and your total updates

Your hourly rate is filled in for you too: a new calculation starts with the hourly rate from your business pricing. In the calculation, distances are in miles, with the cost per mile you save there. Choose Collection instead and the delivery cost disappears from the total.

Also in the Glowing Constellation App

Open the menu in the Glowing Constellation App and choose Delivery fee. The calculator opens with your running cost per mile, hourly rate and minimum delivery charge from your pricing settings, so you can quote a delivery in seconds, even standing at the customer’s door.