Prices with costs behind them, and five columns that promised more than they held #13

2026-07-27T12:58:53-05:00

austin commented

2026-07-27 12:58:53 -05:00

Draft — the numbers are settled with the bakery but nothing here has been seen on a live page yet.

Why

The catering tables were priced before anyone put a cost against them. Working back from the bakery's own goods-plus-labour figures gives a model that reproduces every one of them to the cent — $15.00/hr labour, mini pastry $0.4167, cupcake $0.6667, a 12×17 pan $18.00, cakes $7.00 / $10.50 / $12.50. The check that made it trustworthy: the 8-inch cake solves to $10.50 from the parties table and independently to $10.50 as the weddings' bride & groom cake.

Two facts from the bakery did most of the damage:

A pan cuts 48. Portions had been judged on the cupcakes alone — barely a third of the food.
The bride & groom cake is ceremonial, so it feeds nobody.

Against a planning rate of 1.25 servings a guest, five of the nine live columns promised more than they held — all three weddings (the 200-person one by 37 servings) and the two smaller parties.

What changes

table	change
Office boxes	No price or serving change — at 1.25 a head they feed 9.6/14.4/19.2 and are already conservative. Adds the note that the ladder is $24 for a dozen, then $8 per extra six.
Parties	15–20 gains half a dozen (was labelled for 20, held 18) and goes $54 → $57. 20–30 relabelled "20–27 people", price unchanged. 30–40 untouched.
Gatherings	New table at $110 / $170 for about 55 and about 95 people.
Weddings	2 pans+5dz / 4pans+5dz / 5pans+6dz, and $236/$310/$386 → $298/$372/$463. Head counts unchanged. Adds a $50 deposit.
Page	Delivery stated for the first time: $10 Princeville, $30 elsewhere in Peoria County, $40 minimum, none outside the county.

The fix is deliberately asymmetric. Weddings get more food so the familiar 125/200/250 can stand — that is the number a customer says out loud. Parties get a corrected label, because feeding the middle one properly would have taken its cupcakes to two dozen, the same as the tier above, leaving the two $2 apart in cost with only cake size between them.

On the prices

Weddings assumed four hours of labour; six is honest, and reconciles with the three a Gatherings order takes. At six hours the old prices returned $11.92/labour-hour on the 125 — less than a Large office box. A flat 20% restores 40.8 / 42.9 / 48.5% margin and still asks only $1.48–$1.91 a serving.

The entry party at $57 is not an attempt to make it pay — it holds it at $4.00/labour-hour, the same deliberate floor as the Small office box (40% would have been $81.67). The middle party stays at $76: at $88 it was a column nobody could rationally buy, since the $98 beside it feeds fourteen more people.

Verification

Applied to a copy of the live database: every statement matched exactly one row — no guard silently missing.
Re-run is a complete no-op (13 inserts, 11 updates, all zero), so an admin edit made before this lands always wins, same as V5–V7.
Full suite green: 64 tests, 0 failures. Flyway runs V1→V8 on a fresh Testcontainers Postgres, so it applies to an empty database too.

Still open

The shop's overhead per production hour is unknown, so these figures are contribution, not profit. Four lines (both small office boxes, both smaller parties) sit under $12/labour-hour and would be underwater at a realistic overhead.
Office Medium at $9.50/labour-hour is the one nobody has actually decided on.
No competitor prices have ever been checked — the "we're cheap" read is inference, not research.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Draft — the numbers are settled with the bakery but nothing here has been seen on a live page yet. ## Why The catering tables were priced before anyone put a cost against them. Working back from the bakery's own goods-plus-labour figures gives a model that reproduces every one of them **to the cent** — $15.00/hr labour, mini pastry $0.4167, cupcake $0.6667, a 12×17 pan $18.00, cakes $7.00 / $10.50 / $12.50. The check that made it trustworthy: the 8-inch cake solves to $10.50 from the *parties* table and independently to $10.50 as the *weddings'* bride & groom cake. Two facts from the bakery did most of the damage: 1. **A pan cuts 48.** Portions had been judged on the cupcakes alone — barely a third of the food. 2. **The bride & groom cake is ceremonial**, so it feeds nobody. Against a planning rate of 1.25 servings a guest, **five of the nine live columns promised more than they held** — all three weddings (the 200-person one by 37 servings) and the two smaller parties. ## What changes | table | change | |---|---| | **Office boxes** | No price or serving change — at 1.25 a head they feed 9.6/14.4/19.2 and are already conservative. Adds the note that the ladder is $24 for a dozen, then $8 per extra six. | | **Parties** | 15–20 gains half a dozen (was labelled for 20, held 18) and goes **$54 → $57**. 20–30 relabelled **"20–27 people"**, price unchanged. 30–40 untouched. | | **Gatherings** | **New table** at $110 / $170 for about 55 and about 95 people. | | **Weddings** | 2 pans+**5**dz / **4**pans+5dz / **5**pans+6dz, and **$236/$310/$386 → $298/$372/$463**. Head counts unchanged. Adds a $50 deposit. | | **Page** | Delivery stated for the first time: $10 Princeville, $30 elsewhere in Peoria County, $40 minimum, none outside the county. | The fix is deliberately asymmetric. Weddings get **more food** so the familiar 125/200/250 can stand — that is the number a customer says out loud. Parties get a **corrected label**, because feeding the middle one properly would have taken its cupcakes to two dozen, the same as the tier above, leaving the two $2 apart in cost with only cake size between them. ## On the prices Weddings assumed four hours of labour; **six** is honest, and reconciles with the three a Gatherings order takes. At six hours the old prices returned **$11.92/labour-hour** on the 125 — less than a Large office box. A flat 20% restores 40.8 / 42.9 / 48.5% margin and still asks only **$1.48–$1.91 a serving**. The entry party at $57 is *not* an attempt to make it pay — it holds it at **$4.00/labour-hour**, the same deliberate floor as the Small office box (40% would have been $81.67). The middle party stays at **$76**: at $88 it was a column nobody could rationally buy, since the $98 beside it feeds fourteen more people. ## Verification - Applied to a **copy of the live database**: every statement matched exactly one row — no guard silently missing. - **Re-run is a complete no-op** (13 inserts, 11 updates, all zero), so an admin edit made before this lands always wins, same as V5–V7. - Full suite green: **64 tests, 0 failures**. Flyway runs V1→V8 on a fresh Testcontainers Postgres, so it applies to an empty database too. ## Still open - The shop's **overhead per production hour** is unknown, so these figures are contribution, not profit. Four lines (both small office boxes, both smaller parties) sit under $12/labour-hour and would be underwater at a realistic overhead. - **Office Medium at $9.50/labour-hour** is the one nobody has actually decided on. - No competitor prices have ever been checked — the "we're cheap" read is inference, not research. 🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)

austin added 1 commit 2026-07-27 12:58:53 -05:00

Prices with costs behind them, and five columns that promised more than they held

build-and-publish / build (pull_request) Successful in 2m4s

Details

1d07272aea

The catering tables were priced before anyone put a cost against them. Working back from the
bakery's own goods-plus-labour figures gives a model that reproduces every one of them to the
cent -- $15.00/hr, mini $0.4167, cupcake $0.6667, a 12x17 pan $18.00, cakes $7.00/$10.50/$12.50 --
and the 8-inch solves to $10.50 from the parties table and independently to $10.50 as the wedding
cake, which is the check that made the rest trustworthy.

Two facts from the bakery did most of the damage. A pan cuts 48, so portions had been judged on
the cupcakes alone -- barely a third of the food. And the bride & groom cake is ceremonial, so it
feeds nobody. Against 1.25 servings a guest, five of the nine live columns promised more than they
held: all three weddings (the 200 by 37 servings) and the two smaller parties.

The fix is deliberately asymmetric. The weddings get more food so the familiar 125/200/250 can
stand, because that is the number a customer says out loud. The parties get a corrected label,
because feeding the middle one properly would have taken its cupcakes to two dozen -- the same as
the tier above -- leaving the two $2 apart in cost with only cake size between them.

Prices follow the costs. Weddings were assuming four hours of labour; six is honest, and it
reconciles with the three a Gatherings order takes. At six the old prices returned $11.92 an hour
on the 125 -- less than a Large office box -- so all three go up 20%, which still asks only
$1.48-$1.91 a serving. The entry party goes to $57, not to make it pay but to hold it at $4.00 an
hour, the same deliberate floor as the Small office box. The middle party stays at $76: at $88 it
was a column nobody could rationally buy, since the $98 beside it feeds fourteen more people.
Office prices do not move at all -- at 1.25 a head those boxes are already conservative.

New Gatherings table, because the page went from "30-40 people" to "125" with nothing between, and
the bakery confirmed those enquiries come in. Sized from the pan rather than guessed, labels
rounded down.

Delivery and a wedding deposit were never stated anywhere; both are now.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>

austin marked the pull request as work in progress 2026-07-27 12:59:01 -05:00

austin marked the pull request as ready for review 2026-07-27 14:04:37 -05:00

austin merged commit 9026b96629 into main

2026-07-27 14:05:13 -05:00

austin deleted branch catering-pricing-v8

2026-07-27 14:05:13 -05:00

austin referenced this issue from a commit

2026-08-11 11:47:08 -05:00

Merge pull request 'Prices with costs behind them, and five columns that promised more than they held' (#13) from catering-pricing-v8 into main

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Reference: TheVine/itsthevine#13