How Many Servings Is Your Cake?
Cake serving counts come down to one thing: how big a slice you cut. The baking industry works from two standards — party servings, cut about 1½ × 2 inches, and wedding servings, cut slimmer at 1 × 2 inches. Because the slices are smaller, a cake's wedding count is always higher than its party count. This cake serving calculator uses the published Wilton chart for 4-inch-tall cakes, the same reference professional bakeries plan with.
Pick a single cake to feed a party, or stack up to four tiers to plan a wedding or celebration cake — the calculator adds the tiers together and draws them to scale so you can see the shape you're building. A classic three-tier of 10-inch, 8-inch and 6-inch rounds serves about 74 wedding portions; swap the bottom tier for a 12-inch and you clear 100.
Cake servings by size — the full Wilton chart
| Cake size | Party servings (1½×2") | Wedding servings (1×2") |
|---|---|---|
| 6" round | 12 | 12 |
| 8" round | 20 | 24 |
| 9" round | 24 | 32 |
| 10" round | 28 | 38 |
| 12" round | 40 | 56 |
| 14" round | 63 | 78 |
| 16" round | 77 | 100 |
| 6" square | 12 | 18 |
| 8" square | 20 | 32 |
| 10" square | 30 | 50 |
| 12" square | 48 | 72 |
| 14" square | 63 | 98 |
| 16" square | 80 | 128 |
| 7×11" sheet | 24 | 32 |
| 9×13" sheet | 36 | 50 |
| 11×15" sheet | 54 | 74 |
| 12×18" sheet | 72 | 98 |
Round vs. square vs. sheet
Square and sheet cakes serve more than rounds of the same width because they have no wasted corners — an 8-inch square yields about 32 wedding servings versus 24 for an 8-inch round. Sheet cakes are the most efficient of all for feeding a crowd from a single layer, which is why they're the go-to for office parties and large events. If you're deciding how much batter each tier needs, the pan volume calculator gives every pan's capacity at the standard two-thirds fill.
Plan with a little margin
These counts are a reliable planning guide, but real life is messier than a chart: end pieces, uneven cuts, and guests who come back for seconds all eat into the total. Round up rather than down — it's far better to have a few extra slices than to run short. If you're matching a cake to a recipe written for a different pan, our cake pan converter handles that side of the math.