Here's How Much You Overspend Buying Cheesecake Factory Cheesecake By The Slice

The Cheesecake Factory is not a place you go to unless you're ready to go big on your meal, but that doesn't mean you want to throw money away either. Founded in the swanky city of Beverly Hills, The Cheesecake Factory has built its reputation on massive portions and a famously huge menu with over 250 options. Yet even when you are going big, you want to make sure you get the best deal, and with a slice of cheesecake at the restaurant creeping up to $10 or more depending on your location, you may be looking for a way to save some money. Well it turns out you save quite a lot by opting to buy its flagship desserts whole instead of by the slice.

The Cheesecake Factory complicates things by offering three different sizes of whole cheesecakes, a 10-inch, 7-inch, and 6-inch, but no matter how you slice it, you are paying almost double for the single serving order. While the cost per slice can vary based on flavor, the ratio of slice to full cake stays roughly the same no matter where you live or what you are ordering. Cheesecake Factory says its 10-inch cakes have 12-15 servings, and each one we checked was a little more than six times the cost of a single slice. Being generous and assuming the larger cut of 12 slices, you would be paying half as much per slice than when buying the single serving.

The math on a Cheesecake Factory cheesecake order is complicated by the fact that the chain doesn't reveal how big the individually sold slices are compared to the whole dessert. They may be larger than the recommended slice for its cheesecakes, but even if the single slice order is larger, it's still a big upcharge. If you want the best bang for your buck from the Cheesecake Factory menu, go for the full size.

While the 10-inch cake offers the best deal, the 6- and 7-inch options aren't far behind. The 6-inch is said to make four to six slices, and the 7-inch option makes six to eight. Using the original flavor slice at $9.95 as a baseline (this was the price listed online across multiple states) and the larger serving size suggestion, both options were still much cheaper than the slice. The 6-inch cheesecake came in at $6.74 per serving, and the 7-inch one came in at $5.99, making both more than 30% cheaper than the individually sold slice. And compared to the massive 10-inch option, it's actually more realistic that you could find people to split the smaller sizes with. Although of course you would have to agree on which Cheesecake Factory cheesecake flavors to choose from, and there are dozens of those. So maybe a few extra bucks is worth it to avoid a possible conflict.