I don’t know about you, but $40 seems awfully small price for a painting by someone who commands $2,560 for a 32×32 canvas. Why? When you charge by the square inch, the price difference between a small painting and a larger one can become astronomical. If you create in a lot of different sizes, you may find linear inch pricing more sensible than square inch pricing. With size-based pricing, you simply need to determine your current multiplier (the number you multiply by the canvas size) in order to immediately know the price for any given piece (okay, possibly with the help of a calculator). This makes your pricing easy for potential clients to understand, and it prevents you from charging more for pieces you’re particularly fond of, which makes your pricing seem random and confusing (and remember, customers who are confused do not buy).
If you’re a painter, one way to ensure you’re clear and consistent is by using size-based pricing - either by the square inch (h x w) or by the linear inch (h + w). On the other hand, if my prices don’t make me feel at least a little uncomfortable that I’m charging too much, I’m probably undercharging!Ĭustomers who are confused do not buy, which is why I’m a believer in clarity and consistency.Įditor’s note: for more on why clarity is so important, check out our post What Artists Can Learn From a Door-to-Door Salesman. If I notice myself feeling resentment about a sale, it’s a good bet I need to raise my price! Not sure if you’re undercharging? As I wrote in this post on 5 Pricing Lessons Learned the Hard Way, I have a practically foolproof gauge: resentment.
#OIL PAINTING ON CANVAS FOR BEGINNERS HOW TO#
Your choice, then, is to grit your teeth and charge a lot more, and/or to figure out how to offer less-expensive work (smaller and/or looser originals, prints, etc.) However, if your style is very detail-oriented and meticulous, what another artist could sell happily for $500 might mean you’d be earning pennies per hour, which is not sustainable. If you’re lucky enough to work fast and loose, you can get away with charging less, because each piece just doesn’t take long to produce. Emerging artists may not be able to command high enough prices to pay themselves fantastically for their actual time spent, but that’s definitely the goal for the long term! You also want to take into consideration how much time you put into creating your work. Keep in mind, though, that it’s always a better business move to raise your prices than to lower them, so leave yourself some room for growth. In other words, whatever you charge this one client is not set in stone, so don’t stress too much about it. You may even raise your prices+ on your very next sale.
If, like my story above, you’ve got a client waiting to hear back about a price, know that as you become more established, you’ll be able to command higher prices. Pricing Ground Rules for Paintersġ) Remember: your pricing gets to change. Here are some of the “ground rules” I followed, and some tips that I hope will help you confidently set pricing for your own art. Ultimately, this spontaneous Facebook commission made me determined to set an entire pricing structure for my work, rather than just grabbing a number out of the air every time I create a new piece. How the heck do we decide what to charge? Pricing just feels like a big, black void, and one with a lot of pressure: charge too much, and they’ll run away charge too little, and you’re shooting yourself in the foot. I am convinced that pricing is always the hardest thing I do as an artist.
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