3 Ways to Price Your Artwork

Relax…It’s Not Rocket Science!

How to price your artwork. As discussed in my last post, Selling Your Art, it’s a topic that makes a lot of artists uncomfortable. But let’s face it, if you want to make money from your artwork, you’d better figure out how to put a price on it.

You wanna get paid, don’t you? (Photo Credit: 123RF.com Image ID: 54890277 Copyright: peshkova)

But first, I wanted to point out that there are two camps for artists when it comes to pricing their own work. In the first camp, you have the vast majority…those of us who sell ourselves short by pricing way too low. We do this for a couple of reasons. The business side is yucky and we feel that putting a price on our work is sleazy or somehow selling out. Or we may think that no one besides close family and friends will buy our work if it has a higher price tag on it.

The people in the second camp think their work is priceless from the get-go (highly unusual). These people charge way too much. The main reason for this is that the artist is very cocky and thinks that their beginner level work is as good as another artist who’s been at it for decades. (I say beginner here assuming that a seasoned professional artist would not have questions about pricing.)

Even if the artist’s work is better than decent, he/she doesn’t have a name in the industry yet. In other words, nobody’s heard of you! Why would I plunk down thousands on an unknown artist? Trust me. Collectors are very particular about the artwork they purchase, and they love boasting about which piece was done by this artist or that artist. If you are still an unknown artist, don’t worry. Your time will come with persistence and hard work. It’s called paying your dues.

The first two ways to price your artwork is by size.

Yes, there are two options so I’m grouping them here. One is to price by square inch (length x width) and the other way is to price by linear inch (length + width). An 8”x10” would be 80 square inches or 18 linear inches. Hypothetically, if you charge $1.50/square inch, an 8”x10” would be priced at $120 and a 24”x36” would be $1296. Now if you charge by linear inch, you’d have to adjust the dollar amount because at $1.50, you’d only be making $27 for the 8”x10”. Let’s say as a beginner, you charge $10/linear inch. That 8”x10” is now $180. A 24”x36 however, only comes up to $600, so you may want to limit how big you go in the beginning with this option.

But you can see how as you become more seasoned and able to raise your rates to $20/linear inch, the prices are more evenly stacked as opposed to the square inch method, which ranges from $120 to $1296. You can use either one and of course, the price per unit would be up to you. Both are accepted ways of pricing artwork.

The third way to price artwork is to see what other artists who are doing similar work are charging.

You’ll want to make sure that they’re using similar materials and have a similar skill level as yours. If you find someone who’s a bit more advanced than you are currently, use their prices as a guide and knock the price down a bit. Don’t worry…as you continue to improve, you’ll be able to raise your prices soon enough. This method is a good way to stay competitive without over charging or selling yourself seriously short. Similar to how businesses match competitor rates, by using this method, you’re basically sticking to industry standards on pricing.

Those are the three simplest (and accepted) methods you can use when pricing your artwork. Try them out, do some research with other artists’ prices, and see what works for you. Pricing artwork is still a yucky business, but it isn’t rocket science either. There are however some things you need to watch out for in order to protect your reputation. I’ll discuss those in next week’s post, including why you should avoid charging by how long it took you to complete your artwork.

Did you find this helpful? Do you have another method for pricing your work? Let me know in the comments below. And if you like what you’re reading, please Subscribe and share with others who might find this helpful.

.

.

.