Q: "What to price my art?"

Honestly?

As high as you can convince someone your work is worth.

The hard truth is the price of your art will always be capped by your marketing and sales ability. If you look around you can find countless examples of art having insane value that doesn't correlate to technical input.

Murakami sells pictures of flowers for millions for gods' sake.

Freaks like Murakami aside there are countless artists who sell their work for hundreds or thousands of dollars. I can speak from direct experience from my time as a freelancer - I've regularly sold my art for thousands. And there are many other artists who do the same.

How do you get to price your work for hundreds or thousands? A fine mix of reputation, marketing know-how, skill, and the confidence to say “this is what my work is worth”.

Now. Chances are if you're asking questions about your price you aren't there yet. You're probably thinking well "I don't know about marketing or sales. I just want to know how much I should charge for my commissions".

And that's cool. We all have to start somewhere. My first clients I made the equivalent of about $5/hr. Now my rate is significantly higher than that amount. The difference between those two rates was patience, developing my craft, as well as studying sales and marketing. Legit. That's it.

But I can hear you saying "No. I want a hard number!"

Fine XD

If you need somewhere practical to start go on a place like Fiverr or VGen, and look for people at a similar skill level successfully selling art services similar to what you want to do.

Look at the range of prices. Start with the lower end as your price. Use that as your starting number and raise your price 10% every 3-5 clients until you’re happy with how much your art costs.

And if you’re truly serious? Study marketing and sales! Learn the language of business. You won’t truly master pricing your work until you know about things like ideal client profiles, segmentation, and the sales process.

AND DON'T FORGET TO KEEP PRACTICING! Marketing is really important, but skill really helps.

Peace,
​Brosatsu

P.S. Got a question about being an artist or art careers? I'd love to write about it. Email me - satsu@brosatsu.com​