Are cake tastings free?

Mine was...

Ours was free and we got to pick 4 flavors. However, my caterer that owns the venue is making my cake and their food tasting was free as well. I think many independent bakeries will charge for a tasting, but then use that towards a deposit if you book with them.

It really just depends. Majority of the places I have contacted were complimentary, though there was one who charged $8 per person for the tasting.

Ours was $25 but that gets applied towards the cake price if we order from them. I think that's reasonable so the bakery isn't handing out free cake for people testing multiple places.

See, thats what I was thinking--why would they give you cake for free? But then again, I've seen some really backwards logic when it comes to customer service, so I didn't want to mess it up. Thank you everyone for your tips!

Ours was free. They brought out a plate of six combinations, and because they were currently making the mousse, they gave us a real pastry that had the mousse for no charge.

I am a baker myself and I charge for cake tasting. Also I work at a bakery in Hollywood and they definitely charge for cake tasting. I've never heard of it being free anywhere. That's very interesting to hear.

I paid $40 for one of my tastings, but it came with a ton of mini desserts, french macarons, cookies, brownies, cake pops and cupcakes. We got to take home whatever we didn't finish. The rest of the tastings were free.

Wow, I had no idea some places charged a fee. My bakery gave me a free sample of every single cake, frosting, and mousse flavor.

Ours is $50, but it turns into your deposit when you book.

Mine was no charge but my cake was also included in the cost of the venue if i used the bakery they have a contract with, which we did.

My tasting fee was $25 which then turned into a credit for our final order when we booked with the bakery.

Ours was 20 for four different flavors. We ended up taking a lot of it home because it was so much cake, we planned on leaving it but the baker insisted she even packed it up for us.

Mine was free! I tried 3 different places and they were all free unless you wanted specialty flavors or more cake than what they brought you.

I was surprised because the one that we ended up choosing gave us 4 regular sized cupcakes each (one for each standard flavor) and then we both got our own tray of fillings. They also gave us the top layer of cake free since a lot of people save it.

The cake tasting FH and I went to charged 5$ pp.

Ours was free once we booked/signed the contract. If we decided not to go with them it would have cost us money. So essentially we paid a refundable deposit/paid towards the final cost of the cake.

Mine was free for up to 4 people if we wanted more people it was $25 fee. We had 16 different cakes to choose from and 16 different fillings! It was amazing!

I think most of these cake businesses are ripoffs. Full stop. Yes, it's an art form that takes talent, but they exploit people who are already spending way too much on their weddings and don't even offer free samples to people who are clearly qualified leads who will possibly spend hundreds to $1200+ dollars for -- I'm sorry -- a freaking cake. I run a small business and often give a sample of free services or products, and it almost always pays off. To charge for a sample or two of cake is stupid because the short-term gain of asking for $25 or $30 (sometimes $50) will leave a bad taste in people's mouths.