Bake sale or cake stall
Also called: cake stall, baking stall
Families bake at home and your group sells the slices, biscuits and cakes at school pick-up, a sports morning or outside a shop. The baking is donated, so nearly everything you take is profit. It suits any school, kindy, club or church with a dozen or so families who’ll bake, and it’s a good first fundraiser. About $400 is typical ($150–1,000, an estimate). One organiser needs 4–8 hours over a week or two, plus 4–6 people on the stall. The catch: the money is small, so it works best as a regular thing or next to something bigger.
How big is your group?
Students at a school, or members and players at a club. Remembered in this browser only.
Pick a size to see the money for a group like yours. Until then, every figure here is the researched one.
Typically raises
$400
$150–1,000 per eventest.
About $67 per organiser hour
Based on one school bake stall for one day
Is it right for us?
- Money
- Under $500
- Work
- An afternoon
- Helpers
- 3–6 people
- Lead time
- 2–3 weeks
- Red tape
- Light
Everyone’s done it: everyone knows it, so it's an easy yes
- People
- 4-6 for a small bake sale (Pocketmoney NZ) plus home bakers
- Organiser time
- 4-8 hours (estimate)
- Lead time
- 1-2 weeks to recruit bakers (estimate)
- Up-front cost
- $20. Bags, labels, float; baking is donated (estimate)
- Risk
- Very low: stock is donated.
How it works
You’re selling home baking people want with a cup of tea or for the lunchbox. Your only real cost is bags, about $20. You also need a cash float for change, which comes back at the end.
About two weeks out, pick a time and place where lots of people pass at once: school pick-up, a Saturday sports morning, or outside a local shop. Ask the shop first. Some Bunnings stores take fundraising cake stalls as well as sausage sizzles: ask your local store how to book.
Then ask families to bake. Ask each family for one thing (“a tray of slice cut into 12, at the hall by 8.30 on Friday”) rather than “anything you can”. People say yes to a small, clear job, and you can see how much is coming.
Most bake sales don’t label ingredients, and with home baking nobody can promise what’s in anything, or what it has touched. Rather than labels you can’t stand behind, put up a sign: “Home baking: we can’t tell you what’s in it.” People with allergies will know to ask the baker or give it a miss. Don’t call anything nut-free or gluten-free.
On the day, two people price and bag the baking as it arrives, in round prices so change is easy. Cover the food, keep anything with cream or custard cold, and take card as well as cash. When it’s sold, two people count the money. Tell the bakers what they raised: that thank-you is what gets them baking next time.
The money, as an example sum
Take about $420, pay about $20 of costs, and you keep about $400 per event: the typical result for one school bake stall for one day.
From the typical figure on this page. Your result will differ.
| 250 pieces sold at $2 | $500 |
|---|---|
| Bags and a few labels | −$20 |
| Cake boxes, if you send one home with each child | Check with your wholesaler |
| Cash float, borrowed and paid back at the end | About $100 |
| Raised | $480 |
If it goes slowly. If only half sells: 125 at $2 = $250, less $20 = $230. Freeze what keeps, and drop prices in the last half hour.
When to shrink, switch or cancel. If fewer than about 10 families have said they’ll bake three days out, move the date or run it next to something else, such as a sausage sizzle or a school event.
What makes it work. It flops in a quiet spot, with too little baking, or with no way to pay by card. It works in a busy spot, with a clear one-item ask, in a regular slot people come to expect.
Where the money figure comes from
Garden to Table's 2023 nationwide school bake sale: 51 schools took part and 'some even managed to raise over $1,000'. Low and typical are estimates.
Last checked October 2026. Ran this? Tell us what you raised and we’ll use real results to improve the figures.
Ways to run it
- Pick-up stall
- At the school gate after school. Quickest to run; you mostly sell to your own families.
- Outside a shop
- Outside a supermarket or hardware store, with their permission. More strangers, so more money, but you need to book.
- Cake boxes sent home
- Buy flat cake boxes in bulk from a wholesaler (Gilmours is one) and send one home with each child with the baking ask. Families bake into the box and send it back full, so there are no plates or containers to return and nobody sorting out whose is whose. It costs more than bags, but it’s much easier to organise. Prices vary: check with your wholesaler.
- Whole cakes to order
- Take orders for whole cakes to collect. Nothing is wasted; our figures put it at about $100–300 extra (an estimate). If you’re using cake boxes, the cake goes home in one.
- With a sausage sizzle
- Sweet and savoury sell to the same people: about $300–600 more on the day (an estimate).
Step by step
Two weeks out
- Pick the date and spot. Ask permission if it’s not your own grounds.
- Send the baking ask: one item per family, with a drop-off time and place.
- Using cake boxes? Order them now, so they can go home with the baking ask.
- Line up 4–6 people for the stall.
The week before
- Remind the bakers.
- Sort a cash float (see Taking the money), bags, a card reader, a table and covers.
- Make the sign: “Home baking: we can’t tell you what’s in it.”
On the day
- Price and bag the baking as it arrives.
- Keep cream and custard items cold.
- Sell, and cut prices in the last half hour.
- Count the money with two people.
After
- Bank it.
- Thank the bakers and tell them the total.
- Pick the next date while people are keen.
Getting the word out
Even a well-run plan fails if nobody hears about it. There are two asks, and the first one goes out first.
- Ask for help
- Families to bake one thing each. Ask about two weeks out in the newsletter and class or team group chats, with the drop-off time.
- Ask people to buy
- People to come and buy: parents at pick-up, families at sport, shoppers passing.
- When to start
- Send the baking ask two weeks out. The day before, remind everyone: “Bake sale tomorrow at pick-up. Bring cash or card.”
Where to put it
- School, club and church newslettersYour own newsletter is free and read by the families most likely to say yes. Check when it closes.
- Email lists and group chatsYour members’ email list and the class, team or church group chats. Short, with one date or one link.
- PostersPosters at the school gate, the clubrooms and shop windows, with the date, place, price and how to pay.
- Asking people yourselfMost yeses come from someone asking directly. Give every member a short message they can send to family and workmates.
On the day, a sign at the gate or the car-park entrance catches the people who didn’t read anything.
The full guide to getting the word out: every channel from flyers to the evening news, with lead times and costs.
Taking the money
- Cash float
- About $100 for a small stall (bake sale, sausage sizzle, car wash): a $50 roll of $2 coins, two $25 rolls of $1 coins and a couple of $5 notes, if your prices are whole dollars. Add a $10 roll of 50c coins only if a price ends in 50c. It comes back at the end, so count it in and out with two people. A suggestion, not a rule.
Ways to pay that suit this
- Cash and a floatPlenty of people still pay cash at a stall. You need change from the first sale, and getting coins takes planning now that there are fewer bank branches.
- Tap to pay on a phoneAn app turns a phone into a card reader for contactless Visa, Mastercard and phone wallets. In NZ these apps don’t take EFTPOS cards.
- Bank transfer and pay-by-bank QR codesPut the group’s account name and number on a sign with a reference to use. No card terminal needed, but slower at a busy table.
- The school’s payment system or officeSchools already take money from families through an app or the office. Ask whether your fundraiser can use it.
Round prices ($1, $2, $5) mean you only need $1 and $2 coins. At school pick-up, a bank-transfer sign or tokens from the school office help parents who don’t carry cash.
The full guide to taking the money: floats, card readers and their fees, bank transfers, school systems and counting up.
What you’ll need
- Place
- NeededYour own grounds or hall
- Landowner’s permission
- Not needed
- Council permit
- Not needed
- Food rules
- CheckNo registration if you sell food to fundraise for a good cause up to 20 times a calendar year. It must still be safe and suitable, and your council may need a stall permit
- Alcohol
- Not neededNo alcohol sold
- Gambling rules
- Not neededNot gambling
Covered by the Food Act fundraising exemption if run fewer than 20 times a year; keep cream items cold and put up a sign that it’s home baking and you can’t say what’s in it. Outside a store needs the store's permission; on a public footpath check the council.
Make more from it
$300-600 more on the day (estimate)
savoury and sweet sell to the same passers-by
$30-100 (estimate)
costs nothing extra on the table
Take pre-orders for whole cakes
$100-300 (estimate)
regulars buy for later and nothing is wasted
Stack it: on its own, about $400. With the 3 priced add-ons above, roughly
$1,100est.
What you can get donated
Home baking from families; butter or flour from suppliers (Westgold supplied 10 blocks of butter to each Garden to Table bake-sale school).
Tips
- Kids love pricing and selling: Garden to Table framed it as a learning project with students planning, pricing and promoting.
- Ask families for one item each rather than 'anything you can'.
Watch out for
- Promising anything is nut-free or gluten-free: with home baking you can’t know.
- Cream and custard items left warm.
Bake sale or cake stall: checklist
0 of 12 done
Before
On the day
After
Covered by the Food Act fundraising exemption if run fewer than 20 times a year; keep cream items cold and put up a sign that it’s home baking and you can’t say what’s in it. Outside a store needs the store's permission; on a public footpath check the council.
* General fundraising information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Money figures are examples and estimates, not promises. Check current official requirements before you commit. About this guide