I have the Babycakes Cake Pop Maker. It was $24.99 and is the faster and easier way to make cake pops. However, I do not use mine to make cake pops, I use it to make delicious donut holes. With the cake pop maker it is very simple, it bakes balls of cake which you then cover with candy melts when you are done. You can buy candy melts at Michaels, Walmart, or order them online.
I prefer making my cake pops the harder more time consuming way because that's what makes them taste oh-so-addicting! For the method I learned you bake a cake as you normally would, it can be a box mix or from scratch it's up to you. After the cake is baked and cooled you crumble the cake up into a bowl and then mix in a tub of store bought frosting, or the equivalent amount of frosting from scratch. You mix them together until it is a paste and then put it into the fridge. This is what makes the cake pops with this method taste so much moister. They are not just balls of cake like the machines make; they are balls of a moist cake and frosting combination.