How to Create a Price Listbook for Art Work Prices

You lot're finally doing it: inbound your artwork in an exhibition for the first time. That'due south swell! Y'all frame your work, load it up, make your way to the gallery, and go to sign it in. Medium, title, artist proper noun — these are easy questions. Where's the hard stuff?

Oh, there it is. "Price." You lot draw a bare.

The mystery of pricing artwork

For commencement-time exhibitors, pricing artwork is often a last-minute, difficult decision. It'south daunting to assign value to your own piece of work, and beginning artists often tend to err on the side of nether- or over-pricing.

Let'south start with two main assumptions:

Your piece of work has value, and you lot deserve to be paid for it.
Someone out there volition like this piece, want to own it, and exist willing to pay the reasonable price you set up.

Now, what does "reasonable" mean?

Where to outset

Here'south our standard advice for an artist contemplating pricing for the first time:

give yourself a fair hourly wage
add to that the cost of materials you used and other expenses

So, if a piece took you lot 10 hours to make, you desire to get $15 per hour, and the materials toll yous $45, y'all could use $195 equally your starting point (10 times 15, plus 45).

Toll of materials would include your canvas, paper, paint, ink, and and so forth. For expenses, don't forget things like the framer you used and showroom entry fees. It tin be trickier to factor in annual business organization costs like your website hosting, but once yous have an idea of how many pieces you'll sell in a year, y'all tin can include that as well. The of import matter is non to forget these costs, or else you could finish up losing money!

Yous can too visit a gallery with artists similar to you to get a rough idea of what numbers you should be looking at.

Annotation: This is a starting indicate for artists who are new to exhibiting and selling artwork. Artists at different points in their careers may use dissimilar formulas that aren't based on time, and those are good too!

Other considerations

Committee

If you sell artwork through a gallery, it volition take a committee. (At The Art League, it'south 40 percent to us, 60 percent to you.) Don't forget to accept this into consideration when you cost your artwork! You desire to brand sure you're even so making money after that commission is taken out.

Does that mean you should sell the artwork for less on your website? No! Your artwork should exist consistently priced no thing how and where it'south sold. Galleries won't similar discovering they're being undersold, and buyers won't like discovering that others paid less for similar artwork.

Size

Some artists price artwork based simply on size, either by the square inch or the perimeter. This is easy to explicate to buyers, and certainly makes sense if you spend less time on smaller work.

Even if your smaller works accept every bit the time and effort of your larger ones, buyers expect to see lower prices for smaller sizes by the aforementioned artist. It'southward not a hard dominion, merely it's an expectation yous should be enlightened of and prepared to respond to.

What'south your medium?

Depending on the medium you work in, you may have other things to accept into account.

Photography and Printmaking: Yous'll exist selling one (or more) of a limited edition, so make sure y'all number and sign each piece! (Read more about selling editions.)

If you're using the fourth dimension and materials formula outlined above, you can divide by the number of prints to notice the cost you should accuse for each. If the time and materials for an edition of xv totals $1,500, your starting price would exist $100 each (1500 divided by 15).

Jewelry and Sculpture: You tin can all the same use the time and materials formula, but materials will probably be more of a cistron. Exist sure to keep rails of what goes into each piece!

Track tape

Be sure to go on records of the art you sell! You can utilise them to dorsum up the prices you quote and when making decisions nearly raising prices (see below).

Mutual problems

"Simply I don't really want to sell it"

If a slice was particularly difficult to work on, or you are peculiarly attached to information technology, in that location'southward a tendency to desire to cost it higher. That can be hard to explain to buyers, though, and is best avoided. Stick to the tangibles similar the fourth dimension you spent, the cost of materials, or the size — and if you lot don't want the work to sell, don't listing it for sale!

Impostor syndrome

Recollect what we said at the get-go of this postal service? That your piece of work has value? Don't forget that.

Lots of people, nonetheless, sometimes get the feeling that they don't belong. That they shouldn't exist charging what comparable artists charge, fifty-fifty though they're having success. It's called impostor syndrome (and knowing is half the battle).

Where to go from there?

Your prices won't stay the same forever. Equally you get more than sales nether your belt, yous'll want to enhance your prices — you're in demand now! If yous find that you lot're selling half of what you make in a six-calendar month period, then that's a practiced sign that it's time to charge more for your work. Raising prices by 10 to 20 percent is a skillful starting point.

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Should you lower prices if you aren't selling? Don't exist also hasty. Make sure you or your gallery are putting endeavor into promotion before you blame your prices. (Meet below for some tips on spreading the word.) Nonetheless, keep an eye on comparable artists (aforementioned medium, size, identify in career, etc.) for a crude thought of where to cost.

Avoid putting artwork "on auction": call up, you want to present a consistent cost to the public. If your buyer sees work sometimes goes down in price, they're less likely to purchase it at the original price. In full general, your prices should only go upward over fourth dimension (slowly).

Besides: don't forget to promote yourself!

Setting a toll is simply step one! Improve your sales with a salubrious dose of self-promotion. Telling your story, and your artwork'south story, increases its value. Hither are some other weblog posts to get you started:

How to Create an Creative person Website
The Zero-Budget Guide to Photographing Artwork
Email Newsletters for Artists in Three Steps
Starting an Artist Blog
What To Post (and What Not To) As an Artist on Social Media
33 Ideas for Artists' Pinterest Boards

Finally, don't recall that y'all take to practice all the work. If yous exhibit at a gallery, are they sending out emails about the exhibits you're in, blogging about them, and otherwise getting the word out? If not, enquire yourself: are they earning that committee?

Decision

We get it: y'all're an artist, and you'd rather be spending fourth dimension in the studio. Yous tin can always pay someone else to manage your website and even your social media, only no 1 just you can set your prices.

That said, getting started is the hardest part. Afterward your commencement few sales, you'll accept the confidence to know your prices are all right. You lot'll find the pricing formula that works for you, and coming upward with prices won't take so much effort.

And before long plenty, you lot'll be raising your prices. Good luck!

Other resources

About editioned prints and photographs
12 pricing tips
Don't rely on myths and generosity

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Source: https://www.theartleague.org/blog/2016/05/20/how-to-price-your-artwork-a-beginners-guide/