The Best Way To Price Your Art
There are a lot of factors to consider when selling art. The term ‘art’ is a huge umbrella and there is no one-size fits all solution to selling. Do you make original Acrylic landscape paintings? Watercolor house portraits? Abstract geometric oil paintings? (That’s me!) Each one of those requires a different pricing system.
Today I’ve got 4 different pricing structures for you to consider plus details on why they are good and what types of art they serve best. We will cover sales, shipping, and what to do if you have multiple selling spaces (in person vs online).
Priced based on competition:
I was first drawn to Competition based pricing when I sold art on Etsy. At the time I was making handmade sketchbooks (read: a product more than fine art) and was selling a few original paintings with it in the store. The biggest challenge I had on the platform was getting people to even look at my sketchbooks. Because a sketchbook is more tool than art, people shopped based on price. Namely, what looked great and had the cheapest price tag.
I knew if I priced the sketchbooks based on the time I was spending making them, it would round out to $75 per 100 page book. My competitors were selling very similar things for under $40. The day I dropped my price to $34 per sketchbook was when I finally started making sales. Price based on competition was a necessity.
The paintings however, only sold once. To a family member. Selling original artwork on sites like etsy is extremely challenging. First you have to categorize what specifically you are painting. Is it botanical art? Is it portrait drawings? Is it abstract? Is it sad? Is it cheerful? Then you have to find similar art (which is a recipe for imposter syndrome if I've ever heard one) and figure out if the price would work.
With original art, Abstracts and Pet/house portraits are usually easiest to get comparative pricing done, but even then the quality can only be compared to what photos other artists have.
Pros:
Great for high demand art product types:
Sketchbooks, mugs, apparel, calendars, etc
Great for customizable things:
Pet portraits, house paintings, family portraits
Great for prints and anything you can sell more than one of.
Market Awareness: Keeps prices aligned with what buyers are willing to pay.
Quick Start: Easy for new artists who are unsure how to set their prices initially.
Benchmarking: Helps artists understand where their work stands in the market compared to others.
Buyer Appeal: Competitive pricing can attract more buyers, especially in highly competitive markets like online platforms.
If I was a pet portrait artist, I would 100% use this pricing model. The artists on Etsy have it down to the price per dog in a single image. Raise your prices based on the quality of materials you are using and get to work!
Cons:
Constantly comparing yourself to others Hello self esteem issues
Letting the market dictate your worth Some years are better than others
Not great for most kinds of fine art Really challenging for finding art that is even remotely similar to yours.
Loss of Individuality: Artists may undervalue their unique style or niche to match competitors.
Race to the Bottom: Risk of continually lowering prices to stay competitive, reducing profitability.
External Dependency: Prices are determined by others, not necessarily reflecting your personal or financial needs.
Quality vs. Price: Lowering prices to compete might lead collectors to question the quality or value of the artwork.
Price = time + Materials + 20%
I learned this one from an interior designer I was studying with right after college. She helped me enter the office art field and once I told her about my competitive pricing she said- that’s not going to work! This system is really great for giving estimates to potential clients and knowing exactly how much your materials are worth.
Here’s an example on how to use it:
One of my painting commissions was a 3x5 foot oil on canvas abstract piece. It took me 32 hours to paint. The canvas cost me $40, the oil paint was about $15, and the art studio cost me around $140 worth of use. (I had been renting a studio with a monthly cost at this point in time.)
Estimating the cost of your brushes, easels, and more permanent items in your studio is tricky. If you choose this way of working you need to think about some materials as consumables and some as one off buys.
To find the cost of your materials, think about price per weight. A 37 ml tube of titanium white oil paint costs $7.80 from Gamblin (As of September 2024). Thats .21 cents per ml. If I use half that tube in a 3x5 ft painting I’m spending about $4 in material there. Doint this calculation for every paint color can be annoying- I recommend making a spreadsheet. Keep track of it for a few months and then make an average for yourself.
3x5 foot canvas cost me $220 to make in materials. Now I had to figure out how much money I wanted to make per hour.
In Seattle the $15 min wage didn’t quite exist at the time I made this painting. I had thought, “oh my part time job teaching horse riding lessons paid me 12 an hour. Let’s do 11 for this.” That’s $352 for 32 hours at 11/hour. Plus material equals $572. Plus 20% = $686.40
When I look at that hourly rate I actually think that is too little for the kind of artwork I make now. But when I got that advice I wasn’t doing art full time and was only a few years out of art school. The work I was making was more towards beginner than intermediate. This number felt WILDLY overpriced for what I was making.
At the time, I struggled to get any art sold for more than $250.
I ended up selling that 3x5 painting for $275 - a win for where I was in my career. That equated to about $1.75 an hour.
Pros:
Knowing exactly what each material is worth
Knowing how much you get paid per hour
Objectivity: Offers a straightforward, logical approach to pricing, making it easy to justify prices to clients.
Reflects Effort and Cost: Ensures that the artist covers their time and expenses, leading to more sustainable income.
Professionalism: Seen as a structured, professional way to price artwork.
Useful for Beginners: Provides a clear starting point for those new to selling art.
Cons:
Realizing that your average pay might be $2 an hour
Takes a lot of spreadsheets
Takes a lot of initial time to set up
The formula might not capture the actual market demand or emotional value of the piece.
Time-Based Limitations: If you become faster at your craft, this method might result in lower prices despite increased skill.
Overhead Exclusions: Doesn't always account for additional costs like marketing, studio rent, or ongoing business expenses if you forget them.
Artistic Variability: Highly detailed or smaller works may not be appropriately valued if only time and materials are considered.
Random pick/Intuition based pricing:
For many years I did a system I learned in art school from a painting professor. This is the easiest way to price your work and is entirely intuition based.
Basically you look at your painting, let’s use an 18x24 standard size for example, and you say a number out loud. I might start at $200. Then you look at the work and think “does this feel right?”
Then you go higher or lower based on what your gut is telling you.
$350
$800
$455 Yeah that feels right.
I'm not kidding, I used this method for 5 years. It’s wildly inconsistent and giving an estimate to say, a client who wants 4 paintings but isn’t sure about the size, is a nightmare.
Does the price feel right is a great way to be underpaid. It’s a great way to never raise your prices and lose more money year after year to the rising cost of rent and materials.
But I used it. I used it until my rent went from $340-$550 each month. I used it while I shaved off part time jobs and when I didn't get to the studio for months at a time. It works until it doesn't.
Ultimately this system feels unprofessional because it is. In hindsight it’s actually better to use the materials +time + 20% rule.
Pros:
You feel good about the price
Flexibility: Allows artists to adjust prices based on their gut feelings or specific customer interest.
No Strict Rules: Frees artists from the constraints of formulaic pricing methods, allowing for creativity in setting prices.
Adaptability: Can quickly change prices to match demand or changes in the artist's reputation.
Personal Connection: Pricing based on intuition can help artists feel more connected to their work's value.
Cons:
A great way to get underpaid
If you don’t write it down it’s hard to remember
In a collection some paintings might feel weirdly high/low compared to others
Inconsistency: Prices can vary greatly for similar works, confusing buyers and undermining trust.
Unprofessional Appearance: Might come off as unprofessional if clients learn that pricing isn't based on specific criteria.
Emotional Influence: Personal feelings, self-doubt, or external opinions can heavily influence pricing, leading to undervaluation. Your self-esteem dictates how much you get paid.
Difficult to Scale: Hard to maintain as the artist's business grows or when selling through galleries and third parties.
Sliding Scale, Price per square inch (Current)
Finally we get to the pricing that I currently use. This is a system I had to make out of necessity when I started selling prints on my website.
At the time when I came up with this I was selling prints on both Etsy and my website, they both had differences in fees and taxes.
I made the worlds greatest spreadsheet for my prints. I went around to websites other artists had that I admired and looked at their pricing for prints, with the same materials. (Comparative Pricing) Then I looked at how the price changed based on the standard sizes they were selling. (8x10, 18x24, etc) Some had a clear pattern, others didn’t.
I made a category for each item I was selling on my website.
Matte Giclee prints
Tote bags
Canvas wrapped prints
I noted the Base price from Printful (who is my third party printer), the shipping cost for the item to its farthest distance, the cut that printful takes with each sale, and made those into their own columns. Then on the x access, I wrote down every variation there was for the item. Every size of print, every depth of canvas wrap, every combination possible.
Then I made another column: the percentage of profit from the retail base. After that, I picked a price per square inch starting at .50 cents until the percentage of profit was over 20%. I landed at $2 per square inch. This is what it looks like:
Price per square inch covers the cost of shipping, the cut that printful takes, the cost of a discount if I ever give 10% off (an occasional occurrence for me) and gives me a good range of profit.
When I sell an 8x10 inch print, I made 37% profit. When I sell a 24x36 inch print, I made an 86% profit.
There are miscellaneous costs to making prints like the obvious one of getting professional photos of the prints, and minor ones like website subscription fees. Those get absorbed by the profit margin.
I liked this system for prints so much that I moved it into my paintings. It gives me the flexibility to have sales and not lose money, like I was doing before.
For paintings I have two main categories, Commissions and paintings I make on my own.
I start all my paintings at $150, as this is a reliable number that will cover the cost of my materials, excluding gold leaf if a client wants that.
I then have a sliding scale for my price per square inch, because at a certain size the price for the painting seems like way too much.
Right now I price my paintings like this:
$2.35 - 8 in or smaller
$1.8- 12 in or smaller
$1.6 - 13 inches in any direction or bigger
10x10 standard painting will cost $180.00
18x24 will cost $691.00
3x4 feet will cost $2,764.00
If I were to have it all at $2.35 per square inch the 3x4 ft painting would be $4,060. Which feels way WAY too high.
---
For commissions I raise the prices a little.
Price per inch
$2.35 - 8 in or smaller
$2- 12 in or smaller
$1.7 - 13 inches in any direction or bigger
It starts the same for work under 8 inches and starts at $150
10x10 - $200.00
18x24- $734.00
36x48- $2,937.00
I raise the prices for commissions because I’m working with someone else’s ideas.
These prices include shipping, taking the work to be photographed, my years of experience, materials, and the bills to keep the lights on. Below is a screenshot of my price sheet as of September 2024. Feel free to use it as a reference!
I love this system. I’ve used it for the last four years. As a rule I usually raise my prices In January of each year. With this system it’s really easy to change the numbers for sizes in my artwork. I can raise the price by .10 cents and see big differences.
Pros:
Very easy to give estimates to commission collectors
Price always feels fair and makes sense to the consumer
Raising prices is simple
Scalability: Works well for various sizes, making it adaptable whether you're working on small or large pieces.
Flexibility: Allows for easy adjustments in price by changing the cost per square inch or base rates.
Transparency: Buyers can see a clear rationale behind the pricing, which can build trust.
Simplicity: Easy to calculate and implement, reducing the complexity of pricing decisions.
Cons:
The bigger pieces can feel too expensive, so you have to reduce the ppsi to a reasonable amount.
Doesn't Account for Complexity: A more intricate or detailed piece could take significantly more time but still be priced the same as a simpler work of the same size.
Limits Artistic Freedom: Artists might feel constrained to work within certain sizes to meet preferred price points.
Market Variability: It doesn't consider market trends, collector interest, or the perceived value of the artwork.
May Undervalue Smaller Works: Smaller pieces with high detail or emotional impact might be undervalued if priced strictly by size.
Sales:
I run a sale every once in a while and offer %10 off to my email subscription list almost always. Make sure when you are pricing your artwork that having a 10-20 off sale you won't lose money. Try to have at least a 30% profit ratio at min.
Shipping:
I like to put my shipping costs into the price of my painting. Except for very large pieces, this ensures there's no sticker shock when a collector gets to the checkout. If someone buys a painting in person, I don’t have to ship it to them. That margin that would have gone to shipping goes to other expenses.
Online vs In-person:
A mistake I often see is people changing their prices for in person events vs their online stores. Try to keep the price the same, no matter where you are selling it. Even if the coffee shop you have your art at has a 15% cut, keep the price the same. It makes your work feel reliable and like you aren’t ripping anyone off if they see a lower price online than at your market.
Choosing:
At this point you might have already chosen a style based on my descriptions. But if you are still struggling, try asking yourself these questions and maybe they will direct you to some answers:
Define Your Goals and Priorities
Start by clarifying what you want to achieve with your pricing strategy:
Sustainability: Are you looking to make a consistent income from your art?
Growth: Do you want to build a reputation and increase the value of your artwork over time?
Market Penetration: Are you more focused on getting your work out there, even if it means lower profits initially?
Flexibility: Do you need a method that allows quick adjustments based on feedback or market trends?
Simplicity: Are you looking for a straightforward system that’s easy to implement?
Evaluate the nature of your work and how you create:
Complexity and Detail: Does your art vary significantly in detail and effort required?
Production Time: Do you take a long time to complete pieces, or do you work relatively quickly?
Size Variability: Do you create pieces of varying sizes, or do you tend to stick to similar dimensions?
Consistency: Are you able to produce similar types of work regularly, or does each piece differ greatly?
Understand your target market and buyer behavior:
Buyer Expectations: What do your potential buyers value most (size, detail, uniqueness)?
Market Trends: Are similar artworks priced by size, complexity, or other factors?
Competitor Analysis: What pricing strategies are successful artists in your niche using?
Economic Factors: What is the spending power of your target audience?
Consider your standing as an artist:
Experience Level: Are you an emerging artist or well-established?
Artistic Recognition: Have you received awards, gallery representation, or significant press?
Collector Base: Do you have regular clients and collectors, or are you trying to attract new buyers?
Based on your answers consider which pricing methods works with your goals, art style, market, and experience:
Price Based on Competition
Best For: Emerging artists who need to break into the market or want to stay competitive.
Aligns With: appealing to price-sensitive buyers.
Not Ideal If: You want to set yourself apart from the competition or if you have unique, high-value work.
Price = Time + Materials + 20%
Best For: Artists who want a fair, objective way to ensure they cover their costs and time.
Aligns With: Goals of sustainability, professionalism, and transparency.
Not Ideal If: Your work is highly valued for reasons other than time and materials (e.g., emotional impact, style uniqueness).
Intuitive Pricing
Best For: Experienced artists who understand their market well and want flexibility in setting prices.
Aligns With: Goals of flexibility, uniqueness, and personal connection to the value of each piece.
Not Ideal If: You need consistency, predictability, and a clear structure for buyers. Not great if you often feel doubt about your work.
Sliding Scale Based on Size
Best For: Artists who produce a range of sizes and want a straightforward, scalable method.
Aligns With: Goals of simplicity, scalability, and market consistency.
Not Ideal If: Your artwork varies greatly in complexity or time investment regardless of size.
Sometimes, a single pricing method may not fit all your needs. You can mix methods, such as using a sliding scale for standard pieces and intuitive pricing for special commissions or highly detailed works. Adopting a hybrid approach can provide flexibility and adaptability.
Other pricing structures:
I haven't personally tested these out, but here are a few other pricing options you could consider when selling fine art:
Edition-Based Pricing
Description: Setting different prices for limited edition vs. open edition prints. Limited edition prints are numbered, signed, and only available in a specific quantity, which can drive up their value.
Pros: Creates exclusivity and urgency, can increase perceived value, allows for different price points (e.g., original vs. prints), and can appeal to both high-end and casual buyers.
Cons: Managing inventory and editions can be complex, risk of devaluing work if too many editions are released, and doesn’t work for art outside of multiples.
Subscription-Based Model
Description: Offering art through a subscription service where collectors pay a monthly or yearly fee to receive new artwork regularly (e.g., small original pieces, prints).
Pros: Provides a consistent income stream, builds a loyal customer base, and allows artists to connect directly with collectors. Works great for writers.
Cons: Requires a steady production of work, may limit the artist's creative freedom, and not all collectors are interested in a subscription model.
Portfolio Pricing
Description: Pricing based on the artist's entire body of work rather than individual pieces. This approach takes into account the overall value and consistency of the artist's career.
Pros: Provides a holistic approach to pricing, can justify higher prices based on the artist's overall reputation, and appeals to serious collectors looking at long-term value.
Cons: Difficult for emerging artists without a substantial portfolio, requires careful curation of work, and may not reflect the individual uniqueness of each piece.
Crowdsourced Pricing
Description: Using platforms where potential buyers can vote on or suggest prices, or setting up a 'pay-what-you-want' model with suggested minimums.
Pros: Engages the audience directly, can generate buzz and community involvement, and may attract a wide range of buyers.
Cons: Unpredictable income, risk of undervaluing work, and requires careful management to ensure profitability.
Choosing the right pricing structure is about balancing your personal goals, artistic style, and market demands. Pricing is not set in stone—it can evolve as your career progresses and you gain experience. Test things out, get feedback from your collectors and be prepared to adapt!
Good luck, let me know if you have any questions or have a pricing method I haven’t thought of yet!
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