Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Tips and Tricks: Pricing your Art


Here is an interesting question of which I have had many an artists as well as art lovers ask me. How do you price art work?
After asking various working artists in my community I have pretty much come up with one answer… there isn’t only one answer when pricing your art work.

A couple examples I have picked up:
1)
Canvas Size 10X10 square the inches (10*10=100) then times that by $2.06 (or whatever dollar amount seems about right depending on the medium, IE oil will cost more than water color which will cost more than a drawing.)
So you end up with a piece priced at $206.00

2)
Cost of materials plus time times 3
Materials:
Paint $ 5.50
Canvas $ 20.00
Framing $ 80.00
Time:
5 Hours *Say your charge ten bucks an hour this will equal $50.00 (you can charge more or less)
Now some artists would leave it at materials plus time = sale price, in this case $155.00. However if you are selling at galleries who take about a 50% cut out of your profits that’s when you have to charge 3times the cost so you at least make a profit of what you selling. There for you would take that painting that you can make for $155.00 and charge about $465.00.


If you don’t feel comfortable charging as much as these formulas can end up costing your customers then I suggest only charging a dollar per square inch or perhaps cutting back on how much you think your time is worth. I also suggest along with the first example adding on the cost of framing and doubling it to make the price more accurate. You want to be able to buy more supplies each time you sell a piece, not just break even.

KEEP YOUR PRICES THE SAME EVERY WHERE YOU SHOW!
You don’t want to sell your work for three times as much at a gallery then out of your studio, that’s just bad business for the gallery. Why would anyone want to spend more money on your work when they can just come to your studio? Adjust your sales prices across the board, you start to sell at a gallery asking 50% then you jack up everything to match that elevated price.

For more tips on pricing your work visit artbisrto.com they just put out a nice simple article http://artbistro.monster.com/education/articles/9311-how-to-price-your-artwork on how to price your art work.

Happy Creating.

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