Artist pricing guide
How to price original artwork without guessing.
A sustainable price covers the work, the cost of selling it, and enough profit to keep making the next piece.
1. Build the cost floor
Add materials, labor hours at an honest hourly rate, packaging, overhead, and any piece-specific costs. This is the amount the work must recover before it creates profit.
2. Account for selling fees
Marketplace and payment fees are usually calculated as a percentage of the order plus fixed charges. Because those costs rise with the price, simply adding them to your cost floor can still leave you short.
3. Choose a target margin
Margin is profit divided by revenue. It pays for slow months, experiments, damaged shipments, marketing, and growth. Start with a target you can explain and adjust it with evidence.
4. Check the market without copying it
Compare artists with similar medium, size, finish, sales channel, experience, and audience. Use comparable work as a positioning check, not as permission to ignore your own costs.
5. Keep a consistent structure
Use a repeatable method across a collection. Consistency makes price differences easier for collectors to understand and easier for you to defend.