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Aug 4 (edited) • 🎨 Art and Business 💻
Pricing Your Work: A Framework, Not a Formula
Lets talk about something some people might find uncomfortable.
Every artist we've ever talked to has asked some version of the same question: what do I actually charge for this?
It's one of the hardest conversations in this field, and one of the most avoided. Most of us were never taught how to price our own work. We were taught technique, composition, color theory, how to stretch a canvas or fire a kiln, and then left to guess at the number that goes on the tag. So we guess low, because charging what a piece is actually worth can feel like an argument we don't want to have. Or we guess by copying whatever a similar-looking piece sold for somewhere else, without knowing what actually went into making it.
We want to offer something better than a guess. Not a formula you can plug numbers into and get a "correct" price out the other end. Pricing isn't math like that, and anyone who tells you it is hasn't made very much art. What we can offer is a framework: the real variables that belong in the conversation, so the number you land on is one you can actually stand behind.
What a Price Is Actually Made Of
Size is usually the first thing people look at, and it's the least reliable variable in the room. A small piece can take longer than a large one. A large piece can be simpler than it looks. If size were the whole story, pricing would be easy, and it isn't, so it clearly isn't the whole story.
Here's what actually belongs in the number:
Time. Not just the hours spent with a brush or a tool in hand, but the thinking time before that, and the fixing time after. A piece that took three sittings to plan and one to execute took four sittings, not one.
Skill. Years of practice are part of what someone is paying for, even when they can't see the years directly. A confident line took confidence to make, and confidence isn't free just because it looks effortless.
Materials, including the ones that didn't survive. Every artist has ruined something learning a technique or working with an unfamiliar material. That cost is real, even on pieces that came out fine, because it's part of what it took to be able to make this piece at all.
Risk. Some mediums forgive mistakes. Others don't. A piece made in a medium with no room for correction carries a different kind of cost than one that can be reworked, even if the finished pieces look similarly complex.
Uniqueness. A one-of-one original and a print or reproduction of that same image are not the same product, even when they're the same size. One can be made again. The other can't.
None of these show up on a ruler. All of them show up in the price, whether we name them out loud or not.
Common Traps
Pricing by comparison instead of by cost. Looking at what someone else charges for something that looks similar tells you almost nothing about what your piece actually took. Different hands, different materials, different years of practice behind it.
Pricing against mass production. A hand-thrown piece and a factory piece will never cost the same to make, so they shouldn't be priced as if they're competing on the same shelf. Comparing your price to something manufactured at scale is comparing two different economies, not two similar products.
Underpricing out of guilt. A lot of artists round down because asking for the real number feels uncomfortable. That discomfort is worth noticing, and worth pushing back against gently, because a piece that takes real hours to make should cost what it actually took to make it. Fair pricing protects the whole ecosystem this community depends on, not just one sale~!
Treating a discount as generosity. Undercharging doesn't make art more accessible in any way that lasts. It just makes the work unsustainable to keep making, which helps no one for very long, including the people who loved getting it cheap.
A Simple Way to Start
Before landing on a number, we'd suggest actually writing the variables down instead of estimating in your head. Time spent, start to finish, including the parts nobody sees. Materials used, and a rough sense of what you've spent overall learning to use them well. What a comparable piece, made with comparable care, would reasonably take someone with your experience. And what you'd need to walk away feeling like the trade was fair, not just tolerable.
That last one matters more than it sounds like it should. A price you resent the moment someone pays it isn't a fair price, even if it technically covers your costs. Pricing is a two-way trade, and your side of it counts too.
Why This Matters Beyond Your Own Work
Pricing isn't just a personal decision. Every artist who prices honestly makes it a little easier for the next one to do the same. Every artist who underprices out of guilt or comparison makes that conversation harder for everyone around them. Fair pricing is one of the quiet ways this community holds itself together: paying artists for actual time, not a markup on something that could have been made anywhere.
We're not interested in telling anyone the "right" number. That number is different for every hand, every medium, every year of practice behind it. What we do want is for that number to come from an honest look at what a piece actually cost to make, not from guilt, not from guesswork, and not from what the piece next to it happened to sell for.
If you're working through a pricing decision and want to talk it through, our Art and Business space is exactly what it's there for. Bring the piece, bring the numbers, and we'll think it through with you.
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Pricing Your Work: A Framework, Not a Formula
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