How much for a slice of cake for school funds?

I feel uncomfortable when the pricing on these events excludes lower earners.

I went to get cake and a drink at our recent sports day. I had £3 on me and thought that was more than enough. Turns out a small slice of cake was £3 alone. I thought that was an absolute rip off.

I think the price for cake is ok, a bit on the high side but not outlandish; anything over £1 for tea in those scenarios is crazy and it should be about £0.20p for a cup of squash.

Agreed. £2 for tea seems a rip off.

That's ridiculous!

Yeah I think that's too much for everything but the cake (but would need to see the cake to know). I just paid £1.50 for a tea in a nice cafe. I'd say £1 for tea, 50p per squash / small cookie.

Edit: whoops, meant to clear the quote sorry

Depends on the family. 2 parents 2 dc? 2 parents 7dc?

I think it’s OK, but if you are worried, I’d reduce the tea to £1.50, not the cake.

Cake fine but £2 for a tea seems a lot!

I run a bake sale during a music event twice a year. Full price up to and including the interval at similar prices to you, then half price at the end. People love taking home a slice for later and it still raises funds. For a sports day I'd do half price or 'donate what you can' during the final hour.

The squash and tea is way too much. I’m assuming the tea isn’t fancy.

Our primary charge 50p for a cupcake/fairy bun/cookie. It used to be 25p until I said to them that they were selling them too cheaply!

This was the reasoning our PTA chair gave for putting up the prices of (Nescafé instant) coffee and tea towards the end of my time at my kid’s primary school. I was frankly embarrassed on the tea stall telling people that it was £2 a cup.
Yes of course people pay £3.50 for a flat white and £3 for a nice cupcake at a coffee shop. But the PTA tea and cake stand is a very different beast!
£1 for instant coffee and tea. Cakes etc between 50p-£1.50 depending on how nice they actually are. Squash should be no more than 50p.

The tea is way overpriced! Even our way overpriced local cafe sell a pot of tea for £1.85!

Cake price is ok. But some of them like the rice crispie cake things should be 50p

We do £1.50 for hot drinks and 50p for squash.
As the chair of my daughters school pta I can tell you they can never get it right.

charge a quid for a cuppa and people will chew your ear off that you don’t charge enough and you’ll never make decent money for the school, charge more and someone will have a moan that not everyone can afford it.

we’ve had people complain to other pta members that we shouldn’t be allowed to take the payments as we clearly undercharged (when we hadn’t it was just cheap) and then others call us elitist because we charged £30 for an adults only totally optional wreath making event.
it’s a balance between making decent money for minimal input when everyone is doing it as a volunteer on top of lots of other commitments and keeping it affordable and accessible for everyone.

I would drop the prices if your getting left overs, maybe 50p off of the prices you mentioned.
That's still a tenner for two adults and two children to have a drink and a cake.

Oh and defo sell whole cakes during day and reduce in last 30mins.

£1 for a hot drink. Squash - 50p per adult, free (or 20p) for kids.
Biscuits/buns: 50p. Cakes: £1 for plain ones, £1.50 for fancy ones.
Or you will get left with loads!

Also make it clear in advance if it's cash only or you will have loads of people who would have bought if they'd known.

Anything over 50p seems expensive given that the cake was donated so it's all profit. They know though that people will feel obliged to buy something.

I was at a charity coffee morning recently. Hot drinks were £1. Squash 20p. Cakes from 50p for buns to £1.50 for a big slice of homemade chocolate cake (for example). We've found that a higher volume of lower priced sales always raises more than having it too expensive so people are put off.

This is so interesting because we have attended 2 school things like this in the last few weeks.

School number 1 was all cakes/cookies/scones brought in donated by parents, no fancy ones really just all what you’d expect to see home made. They were I think 50p a cake, 50p a cookie, 80p scone, tea & coffee were free, squash was 20p or they were selling a small plastic glass of fizzy pop for £1 poured out of a big 2L bottle.

School number 2 was some cakes/cookies/scones & sandwiches, some were from parents but mostly they were donated from local businesses like cafes/bakery etc so they looked really lovely, like what you would get in a coffee shop. Cakes were £2, cookies were £1, scones £1.50, the sandwiches I think were also £1.50 but were like Costa style sandwiches (posh ones, rather than your basic tuna mayo if you know what I mean, but cut in half), tea & coffee were both £2, squash was either £1 or £1.50.

There was nothing left on school 1’s table by the time we left, a handful of broken biscuits maybe. School 2 still looked pretty much untouched. Both schools have since put out a post about how much they managed to raise, school 1 beat school 2 by a mile.

I do think for these kind of things you’re better off pricing low and selling more.

I think it’s ok. It will be for a good cause. And presumably you only buy one thing per child

£2 for tea is too much. £1.50 at the most or £1. Tea costs hardly anything to make. £1.50 for cake and 50p for squash.