How to price art: a formula and a worked example

How to price art: the three-part method

To price art, work out a cost floor, check it against a size rate, then check what is left after the fees of each place you sell. The cost floor is what the piece cost you to make. The size rate is what you charge for work of that size and medium. The final price has to pass both checks and still clear the floor after fees or commission.

Pricing by feel can leave large or slow pieces below their costs and small ones above the market. A written method fixes both, and it gives you an answer when a buyer asks why a piece costs what it does.

1. Cost floor: materials, plus your hours at an hourly rate, plus a share of overhead such as studio rent, website and packaging.
2. Market check: a size-based rate, such as a price per square inch or per linear inch, that you apply to every piece in the same medium.
3. Channel check: the price minus the platform fee or the gallery commission must still be above the cost floor.

Worked example: pricing one original painting

Example: an original acrylic painting on a 16 x 20 inch stretched canvas, sold unframed. All inputs are assumptions chosen for the example, not typical prices.

1. Add up materials

   Example inputs: canvas $30, paint and medium $10, varnish and hanging wire $5. Materials come to $45.

2. Price your time

   Example inputs: 12 hours of painting and finishing at an hourly rate of $25. Time comes to $300. Count the hours you actually spend, including drying-time touch-ups and varnishing.

3. Add a share of overhead

   Example inputs: $120 a month in studio and website costs, spread across 6 paintings a month, adds $20 to each piece. The cost floor is $45 + $300 + $20 = $365.

4. Check against a size rate

   Example input: a rate of $1.25 per square inch. The canvas is 16 x 20 = 320 square inches, so the size-based price is $400. That is above the $365 floor, so $400 becomes the retail price.

5. Subtract the selling fees

   On Etsy, the $400 sale pays $38.45 in listing, transaction and processing fees. That leaves slightly less than the $365 cost floor, so at $400 the painting pays you a little under your own hourly rate.

6. Set the final price

   Raise the price until what is left after fees clears the floor. Etsy's 6.5% transaction fee and 3% + $0.25 processing fee grow with the price, so round up with some room. Example result: at $410, Etsy's fees still leave more than $365. Use one price everywhere you sell, and run the same check for each channel before you list there; galleries are covered further down.

How to choose an hourly rate for your art

In the worked example, time is $300 of the $365 cost floor, so the hourly rate moves the price more than any other input. Pick a number on purpose and write it down, so every piece is priced from the same rate.

Public figures give a frame. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, and many states also have minimum wage laws, so a rate below your state's minimum means the work pays less than a minimum-wage job would. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median pay of craft and fine artists at $26.58 per hour. That figure does not include pay for self-employed workers, and self-employed workers hold 58% of craft and fine artist jobs. BLS notes that earnings for self-employed artists vary widely.

A self-employed artist's rate also has to cover tax. Self-employment tax is 15.3% for Social Security and Medicare, and it applies once you have $400 or more in net earnings from self-employment. If you are in business for yourself, you generally need to make estimated tax payments, and estimated tax is used to pay not only income tax, but other taxes such as self-employment tax. Set part of each sale aside for it.

• Count only making hours in the price, then raise the rate to cover the hours that do not make art: photographing, listing, answering messages, packing and shipping.
• Example: if half of your working hours go to making, a rate of $25 per making hour pays $12.50 for each hour you work in total.
• Use the same rate for every piece in a medium, and change it only when you review your prices.

Tax rules depend on your situation and vary by state and city. This page is general information, not tax or legal advice; check the IRS and your state tax agency, or ask a tax professional.

Price per square inch and linear inch formulas

A size rate keeps your prices consistent across a body of work. Buyers and galleries compare pieces side by side, and a small piece that costs more than a larger one in the same medium needs a reason.

Square inch pricing multiplies width by height, then by your rate. It rises fast as pieces get larger, so linear inch pricing is an option for big work: add width and height, then multiply by a rate. Pick one method per medium and keep it.

Set a separate rate for each medium. Oil on canvas, watercolor on paper and digital prints have different material costs and different markets, so one rate across all of them under-prices some and over-prices others.

The two example rates give almost the same price at 16 x 20. Below that size, linear inch pricing gives the higher price; above it, square inch pricing does. One way to combine them is square inch pricing for small and mid-size work and a linear inch rate as a cap on large work. Whatever the formula says, never go below the cost floor from your own materials and hours.

What selling fees take from a $400 painting

The $400 size-based price from the worked example, sold through a marketplace or an own-store builder, using each platform's own published rates. A lower fee on a store builder comes with the work of bringing buyers to your own site.

Pricing for galleries and consignment

A gallery or shop that sells your work on consignment keeps a commission from each sale. The rate is set in the consignment agreement, so read it before you agree to a price, and get it in writing.

Example: a gallery that keeps 50% of a $410 painting pays you $205. That is well below the $365 cost floor from the worked example, so either the retail price goes up or the piece is not a fit for that channel. At a 50% commission, you keep $365 only if the retail price is at least $730. Check every channel this way before you commit work to it.

Keep one retail price for the same piece everywhere. If a painting costs less on your own site than on the gallery wall, buyers have a reason to go around the gallery, which can end the arrangement. Set the retail price high enough that the channel with the largest cut still clears your floor.

How to price prints and limited editions

Prints follow the same method with different inputs. Your time was spent once on the original, so the cost of each print is mostly printing, paper and packaging, plus the time to sign, pack and ship it.

Price open-edition prints from their unit cost upward, and keep them well below the original so the original stays the main piece. Limited editions sell a fixed number of signed and numbered prints. Because the number is capped, you can price them above open editions; state the edition size on the listing and never reprint the same edition.

• Example: a print that costs $12 to produce and $4 to package, at a markup of three times the unit cost, sells for $48.
• Price each print size separately from its own unit cost.
• Keep a record of each edition: size, number printed and numbers sold.

When to raise your art prices

Raise prices when work sells steadily at the current price, when a waiting list forms, or when your costs go up. Raise them across a whole body of work at once by changing your size rate, so older and newer pieces stay consistent.

Avoid cutting the price of a piece that has not sold. Earlier buyers paid the full price, and a cut tells them the work lost value. If a piece does not sell, move it to a different channel, show it in a different setting, or keep it for a later show.

Write your rates down: hourly rate, overhead per piece and size rate per medium. Review them on a fixed schedule, such as once a year, and change them with a reason you can state.

Where Nation fits

Questions about pricing art