Written by Sara Chojnacki, Artwork Network’s Artist Coordinator.

How much should you charge for your artwork? Here are some key points to help price your work.

Find your base price

To get an accurate base price, you must consider materials and time. How much paint/graphite/wood did it take to create the piece of art? The larger the piece, the more materials will be used. The more expensive the materials, the more expensive the piece needs to be to break even on these costs.

Next, consider what your time is worth. While we would all like to say our time is worth $100 per hour, it is important to be realistic. Choose an hourly wage that you think reflects your time and worth. Calculate how much time was spent creating the piece and add this to your materials cost.

Compare

If you’ve never sold a piece before, it would not be wise to price your piece at millions of dollars and compare it to a Picasso or Matisse. Do some research on the artists in your area. Look at artists that are at the same level as you, with art that is comparable in areas like size and materials. An artist with more experience and art sales will have higher priced art than that of the beginner artist. Before a customer buys, they will do the same research to compare pieces and prices.

Be Consistent

All of the art you create should be priced based on a structure that relates to the rest of your pieces and their prices. In other words, your newest creation should not be $2,000 more than your last piece, just because you value it more. Regardless of where you are in your art career, be prepared to adjust your prices regularly with market demands. As you sell more art, you should increase your prices with demand. If you haven’t sold any art in several months, you may need to consider lowering prices.

Objectively view your art

As an artist, you invest yourself in the pieces you create. To properly price your artwork, you need to emotionally remove yourself from the piece. It is not always easy, but necessary in order to fairly price your pieces for potential buyers.

Putting special prices on pieces just because they mean more to you is not relevant to a buyer. They do not want to spend money on your emotional attachment that means nothing to them. If the piece is that close to you, consider keeping in your private collection. (The price of milk does not fluctuate wildly because the farmer had a special connection to the cow.)

Signs your pricing system needs to change:

• Customers are interested, but never purchase (your prices are too high)
• Your pieces are priced higher than artists with comparable art
• Your pricing is all across the board
• The demand for your artwork outweighs how much artwork you can create
• You can’t explain your pricing systems to clients