How to Confidently Price Your Artwork Without Overwhelm

Hey, it's Antrese, and welcome to another episode of the Savvy Painter Podcast. I'm your host, Antrese Wood, and I started this podcast back in 2014 because I knew I could help inspire, connect, and give you practical tactical ways of thinking so that you can create a meaningful art practice that fulfills and supports you.

It kind of feels like a million years ago, but I had just moved to Argentina when I started this podcast so I did this huge painting project called The Portrait of Argentina, where I went to all 23 provinces of Argentina and painted my way across.

Then after I wrapped up that project, I started feeling really, really antsy because I knew I had to start something else. It's just how my brain works. Pretty sure that came from all the years that I worked at Disney art directing video games because I was just so used to having these massive year-long or multi-year projects. So I was just itching.

Anyway, that's how the podcast started. What happened was I was really used to being part of a big artist community. I had lived in Los Angeles and I had always been around other artists. This was the first time when I moved to Argentina that I was on my own and didn't have a community of artists to support me so I decided to create my own.

Genuinely, I had no idea what I was getting myself into or where it would lead me, but here I am. The podcast is still going strong and I cannot imagine my life without this community.

During all this time, I have spoken with hundreds and hundreds, probably thousands of artists. The question that I get asked over and over and over again is, “How should I price my work? How do I know if my pricing is right?” Well, in this episode, we are going to go through the most common ways that artists price their artwork.

In this episode, I break them all down for you. I give you some pros and cons and then help you decide how to pick the one that works for you. Now, also, for this episode because I know this is such a big topic for so many of you, I created a download for you so if you want that, you can find it in the show notes and I also created a spreadsheet for one of the pricing methods that you will learn here and you can get both of those for free. They're in the show notes, or you can go to savvypainter.com/price-your-work. Okay, so let's dive in.

In this episode, we're going to talk about all the ways that you can price your work, or most of them, or the most popular. There are probably endless variations of this, but because this is the most common question I have, I thought I would give you some options.

You've probably already recognized that artists use a variety of methods to decide how to price their paintings. I'm going to go through, I think about 10 key approaches that you could use, and then we'll talk a little bit about how to narrow it down, and then hopefully this gives you something to go off of.

Number one is cost-based pricing, which means that you figure out what are the materials and supplies that you use to create your artwork. Then you add up the cost of materials, like the canvas, the paint, the brushes, et cetera. Then you figure out the time and the labor.

You calculate the number of hours spent and assign yourself an hourly wage, and then you factor in your overhead costs like your studio rent, your marketing, your shipping, and other business expenses.

There's a lot of logic attached to it, and for some people, it's a really great way to price your artwork, but for other people, for other artists, the idea of calculating the number of hours spent and assigning an hourly wage to their work is problematic.

It puts them in maybe a frozen state where they just stare at a blank screen for hours on end and just like, “How do I even figure that out?” Or they go into a fight mode.

Those are the two that I see most often when that conversation comes up about assigning an hourly wage to yourself as an artist because the obvious things come up. Like, “What if I work on multiple paintings at the same time? What about the fact that I've been painting for decades and decades?”

People get into that headspace and they tend not to come out of it. But for other people, it's very logical. For that reason, a lot of artists like it. They like knowing what their expenses are. It helps them see what their potential profit margin is so it helps them understand how to budget for a studio or for that home office for your write-offs or whatever.

There's one, cost-based pricing. Number two is size-based pricing. This one I see a lot. Many people in Growth Studio use this method and what this is, it's pricing per square inch or square foot, super common as well. For example, an artist might set a rate of $2 per square inch and then a 20 x 30 painting would be priced at something that would be, 20 x 30 would be 600 square inches, multiply that by two, and then that painting would be $1,200.

Again, for some people, it's a really great way to do it because it takes all the emotion out of it. You have a spreadsheet, you drop in the numbers, boom, boom, boom, and that's just what it is. The problem sometimes with this is if you do larger paintings, then sometimes you need to adjust your price per square inch a little bit because either you're paying yourself way too little for small paintings or your large paintings just become exceedingly expensive.

The quick fix for that is to play around with the spreadsheet and then come up with a couple of different prices per square inch that you can just set and forget. Okay, so size-based pricing, that's what I usually call that, it’s just using a worksheet, a spreadsheet.

Then there's also market-based pricing. What this looks like is you might look for artists whose work is similar to yours in terms of they've got a similar style, they're at a similar experience level. They use similar mediums and see what they charge.

I would also say seeing with the experience, what you're looking at is not just how long they've been painting because it's almost impossible to calculate if you're comparing yourself to similar artists, especially if you don't know them, because some people will be like, "Well, I've been painting since I was six." That's not really helpful for this idea of market-based pricing where you're comparing yourself to similar artists.

The way that I like to not get around that but gauge that is to look at artists who have a similar style. If you're a watercolor artist, they're also using watercolor. If you're oil painting, they're also oil painting, and even if you can get it down to they are abstract and you're abstract or they paint portraits and you paint portraits or plein air or whatever it is.

Then I would take a look at where are you at with showing your work. Are you in a gallery? What level of the gallery? If you're not in a gallery, are you showing your work anywhere else?

You just look for somebody that's in that similar place. If you're not showing your work at all, then you might try to find that. You're just looking through or asking what they've set their prices at and looking maybe on their website, at their About page for their CVs, or whatever it is.

But if you are in a gallery, the market-based pricing would look like checking pricing trends in galleries or online platforms that show very similar quality work to yours, where the artists, again, are similar style, similar genre, similar experience rate and mediums and basing your price off of that.

That's number three. Number four would be another format to price your artwork would be through experience and reputation. Artists with more experience who have had a lot of sales, and who have a large following, maybe they can charge higher prices, whereas emerging artists might charge lower than that.

It's a little bit similar to the market-based pricing, but it's just based off of just the experience level itself more often. That's number four, really similar to number three, I could make that argument as I'm reading my own notes that that's very, very similar, but there are some nuances to it, which I think apply more to people who have a lot more experience in showing their work and also who have received awards or who have been accepted into certain groups. Sometimes that impacts the pricing.

Then there is emotion-based/perceived value. I personally do not like this one at all, the emotion-based side of it. Let me explain what I mean by that now that I've tainted your idea of it. But some artists will assign a price based on the emotional connection that they have with a piece of its significance or the complexity or the concept behind it.

On a smaller scale, the complexity issue, that makes sense to me when we're talking about somebody who's a portrait artist, you definitely are going to charge differently for a single person versus a group, or a shoulder-up portrait versus full body in an environment.

I can see that for sure there are reasons to adjust the pricing based on that type of complexity. But if we are simply talking about work that you produce in your studio, I don't think it's helpful to get into the habit of looking at each piece and trying to figure out, “Well, how hard was this to paint?” Or like, “This one seems simpler.”

I don't think that is helpful at all. Nor do I really think that basing it off of your emotional connection with the painting is helpful. The reason why is that it's just even more arbitrary than pricing artwork really already is.

Okay, those are the most common ones. Then I wrote down a few outliers, I guess, which would be this one, number six, that I have in my notes is addition-based pricing. For those of you who do prints, a lot of times what artists will do for limited edition prints, for example, they may do a tiered pricing structure, whereas the addition becomes scarcer and scarcer, and the prices go up.

I'm going to make this ridiculously simple, but let's say you do a limited run of 100 prints, and just for numbers sake, I'm going to make it $100. I know, I don't think you're going to do this, but then maybe the first prints like 100 through 50 are $50, and then 49 through 10 maybe is $75, and then 10 through 1 is $100.

As the edition sells out, as the number on the print gets lower, the price gets a little bit, the price reflects that. Then another way that some artists price their work is by taking into consideration the target audience.

Pricing may be adjusted based on the audience. Higher prices for established collectors, lower for casual buyers or newcomers. I've seen some people do that location-based. To be 100% honest, I really do not like the idea of switching out your prices based on the collector's level.

I think it's too hard to figure out and also it makes the buying process uncertain for the collector. It makes the buying process uncertain for the collector and that's a problem because you want them to feel safe buying from you.

If they have any doubts about the sincerity of your pricing or if they feel kind of looking them up and down and checking what watch is on their wrist and then deciding the price or looking at what the car they're driving, that is going to leave an extremely bad taste in their mouth. I'm thinking about how I would want to be treated and I would definitely not like that. I'll just put it that way.

Now, here's where I can see it being useful. I have seen people implement this in a way that I think is fair and makes sense. That is when you have an international clientele.

For example, if you are from the US and you're selling your work and you're selling it internationally and you have somebody who is buying or who wants to buy from another country that has a different social economic situation going on, then I can absolutely see adjusting the prices.

As an example, as I'm sure you're aware, I live in Argentina. In order for someone to buy even, for an average person to buy a painting that's $300 to $500, sometimes that is more than their monthly wage. So I would adjust the price for that reason because I've made a decision that I want my artwork to be in the hands of the most people possible and this is one of the tools that I have to do that.

I would be explicit about it. I would be explicit and I would tell people what I'm doing and what's going on so that they understand. Some artists are going to worry about being taken advantage of. If that's you and that is something that would be preoccupying for you, then I definitely wouldn't take that option.

Also, if you're not selling internationally, then this doesn't apply so you don't even have to think about it. I would just knock it out of the options that I'm considering in terms of my pricing, if that's the case. Because I'm a big fan of not trying to solve problems that you don't have.

Then a couple other factors. These next two, I don't think these are actual pricing strategies. I think they're more like considerations. But if you are selling in a gallery, then you're going to want to take into consideration the markups of the gallery.

Most of the time, galleries are going to take between 30% to 50%. Usually, it's 50% of the final sales price so you might want to take that into consideration when you are setting your prices.

I like to think of the commission that a gallery gets is basically me paying them to do all of my marketing, I'm going to have to pay for my marketing one way or the other. It's going to either be the time that I commit to doing it myself or the commission that the gallery gets when they sell my painting.

When it's a reputable gallery and they are promoting the work and they do have a list and they are selling the work, I'm beyond happy to pay them that because it gets me more time in the studio painting. That's how I look at it. I am paying to get more time in the studio and also not to have to deal with marketing and promoting the work.

Then the last method that I see artists use to price their work is pretty straightforward. It's when either it's just using the gallery or the online platform to set your prices. Some galleries will want to do that. Some online platforms or marketplaces will set guidelines for pricing, and that's another way to get the pricing for your work.

I would say that the con with that way of pricing your work is you're leaving it up to somebody else. You are allowing somebody else to decide the value of your work. In some instances, if you have a really good relationship with a gallery and there is a lot of trust built up between you two, then I don't see any problem with it.

But beyond that, I prefer artists to be in control of their pricing. It would be a rare instance where I would say, “Oh, yeah, that's a great idea.” In general, I probably honestly would be very suspicious of that.

Even if you like the price, even if you feel like it's a good price and you're like, "Yeah, I would charge that," the reason why I personally wouldn't advocate for that for you is because I want you to always feel in control of your work and I want you to always feel empowered to say what your price is, and to be able to talk about your work and talk about your pricing with full integrity.

Many times when somebody else sets the price, it puts the artist in what I would call a helpless mode, which sounds something like, “Well, that's what they said I have to charge.” Right there, I see that as problematic.

So if I were coaching you, I would have a lot of questions. If you were in Growth Studio, Growth Studio members, I know you're listening to this, you know I would be asking a ton of questions because I want to look out for you. I want to make sure that what you are doing is always in service of you and it always puts you at the forefront.

So we went through several options, kind of all the ways I can think of to price your artwork, the major ways that I see people pricing their artwork. There's some mix and match in there too, obviously, but these are the big buckets, let's say.

Each artist typically will combine a few of these methods to come up with the prices that reflect what they're comfortable with, what they feel like the artistic value of their work is, and something that will allow them to thrive as an artist.

Of course, every single one of these methods has its pros and cons. If you felt the hair on the back of your neck stick up and the urge to fire off an impassioned email or an Instagram post, I guarantee you, you are not alone. Pricing your artwork brings up a lot of thoughts and feelings and emotions.

I get it, trust me, trust me, I get it. But just listening to this, here's how if I were coaching you, if you were in Growth Studio, for example, I know we talk about this a lot, a lot, a lot, and then all of the offshoots of it. This pricing, I know, that's why I'm saying that I know pricing is such a hot-button issue for a lot of artists, it brings up a lot of worry, it brings up a lot of “Should I be charging this? Can I charge this? Am I allowed to do this?” So it brings up a lot, I know.

Some of you might already be feeling that so I want to give you a few ways to narrow it down and help you make a decision. First off, the easiest thing to do is just eliminate anything that doesn't apply to you.

For example, if you're not currently in a gallery and no galleries are beating down your door right now, don't even worry about their markup. You don't have to solve problems that you don't have.

I think solving for problems that you don't have is the best way to make sure that you never come to a decision and you stay stuck because it just puts your brain into this, “What are all the possible things that could happen and what would I do if that happens?” It's just a nightmare.

Eliminate anything that doesn't apply to you. If you're not currently in a gallery, eliminate that conversation. If you're not selling internationally right now, don't even worry about it. It may be a while. I am an exception because I move to different countries. So stay focused on where you currently are at, and that will help you narrow out, that will help you eliminate a lot of them.

Once you've done that, probably you're down to, I don't know, five or six options, and here's where the head drama tends to come in. If you're thinking about, for example, the first one I mentioned, what was that cost-based pricing of figuring out “What are my materials? What are my supplies? What are my time and labor? What's the overhead cost?” and you immediately feel that freeze sensation of, “Oh, my God, how do I even figure that out?” then don't do that one.

That's basically what I would say. I will talk more about this later, but I would choose the one that feels the most comfortable for you and as example, the size-based pricing, like I said, I know a lot of artists who love that method so if you look at that and you think, “Oh, it's easy, I can just look up a number and figure it out,” then great, do that one.

But if you look at that one, you're like, “Wait, but what about the cost of my materials or what about my studio and what about all of that?” and you start to spin it all, then maybe the cost-based pricing is for you or maybe the market-based pricing is.

Think about each one of these and just eliminate it based off of “How likely am I to freeze or get stuck on this?” Or some people get really upset that once I figure out my labor, then I'm at two dollars an hour or whatever and that brings up a lot of internal dialogue that's not helpful at this point.

When I say not helpful, I mean, it puts you into a tailspin. It doesn't mean ignore all of those things. It means if those types of things put you into a tailspin, find the one that is the simplest for you to use.

The pricing method that gets you to put a price onto your artwork and then move forward with all the rest of the things that you need to do in your studio is the best one, I think. This is what I've seen. There is no right way to price your work.

I think the reason so many people get stuck with it is that they think that there's a correct way to do it, they don't want to do it wrong, and/or they think that the art police are going to come and tell them, “Nope, you picked the wrong one.” Or they think that they are going to put themselves into a category that they don't deserve to be in.

You do a little gut check on your final pricing. The simplest one that I work through with some of my clients is to just do a simple gut check. I do the ick factor, basically. When you think about selling your work at that price that you have come up with, do you feel good about it?

Sometimes that's a little bit hard to figure out because for so many artists, even saying a price makes them feel icky. So I take that one tiny step further and we look at it this way: if you were to sell your work at that price, do you feel guilty? Do you feel like you have completely ripped somebody off or taken advantage of them?

If that's the case, then maybe your price is a little bit too high. If you were to sell that work to a person and then you feel somewhat resentful, you feel like you've been ripped off, then your price is probably too low. You're looking for that kind of medium spot of, “I don't feel like I've been ripped off,” or better put, “I don't feel like I've been robbed and I don't feel like I'm robbing anyone.” That's in the range of your sweet spot.

If any price feels that way for you, then we have a lot to talk about. Come join Growth Studio. Oh, and one last thing. Another thing that people worry about when they price their work, I just realized this, it just came to me, I'm like, “What are all the ‘yeah, buts’ that I hear?” Another big one is that it feels arbitrary.

Please don't kill me for saying this, but it is arbitrary. All of the prices are arbitrary. They're all made up. There is no art god who has a list of what you can and cannot charge and what people should and shouldn’t be charging at any point.

When you acknowledge that a lot of it is arbitrary, then it’s easier to get to that place of, “Okay, if it is arbitrary, then which one of these methods feels the most congruent with who I want to be as an artist, who I want to be as the person who is selling my work to somebody else, how do I want to be with my collectors and what feels good to me so that when I develop this relationship with my collectors, I feel really good about it?”

That to me is one of the most important things about pricing your work is to be able to say, “I have a painting and it is $500. Would you like to buy it?” without cringing or kicking the dust at your feet. Or “I have a painting, it's worth $5,000. Would you like to buy it?”

You need to be able to say that with conviction and without feeling like you're being ripped off and without feeling like the other person is being ripped off. That's where my gut check comes in and I want you to just take a look at all of these options, know that whatever price you put on there, don't worry about it. All prices are arbitrary.

One last objection that comes up is “What if I need to raise my prices? What if it's too high? What if it's too low?” That gut check will help you out a lot with that. But what I will say about “What if I need to raise my prices?” is hopefully someday you will.

When you do need to raise your prices, you can run it through a very similar scenario. So for now, let's just agree that “What if I have to raise my prices?” is a problem that you don't currently have and is likely a problem that you don't currently have. You don't need to solve problems that you don't have yet.

I'm always running it through that filter. Am I trying to solve something that is just not even a problem yet? Am I creating doomsday scenarios in my future? If that's the case, stop. Just stop. Okay, that's what I have for you this week. Have an amazing week, everybody, and I will talk to you soon.

If you want to take what you are learning here on the Savvy Painter Podcast even further, join us in Growth Studio. Growth Studio is a unique community of artists. We meet multiple times a week for live coaching, critiques, and demos. Just go to savvypainter.com/join.