Pricing Your Work: Part One
At some point in art school, my colleagues and I thought it was beneath us to create artwork to sell. We disdained the idea of being beholden to money. We wore paint-splattered jeans and drank tea from the lopsided cups we made in Ceramics 101. We were those kinds of art students.
At the end of our last semester, most of us traded work, a piece of pottery for a print, that sort of thing. Then one of my friends offered me cash for a piece. It felt different, even validating.
There is nothing wrong with creating artwork for sale. And though making a living as an artist can be challenging, it is also deeply satisfying. The first step toward earning a sustainable income is effectively pricing your work.
Putting a dollar value on a piece of art is one of the most challenging parts of running an art business. Some artists meticulously track hours worked, material costs, and overhead like studio rent, and use those figures to calculate prices. In my experience, even with these numbers, the result often doesn’t reflect the true value of the work. You might arrive at a figure that makes sense mathematically, but it won’t always translate into a price someone will pay.
In the early days of my home pottery studio, before I had gallery representation, I sold my work at arts and crafts shows. I made all kinds of one-of-a-kind pieces, from tiny ring dishes to large vases and bowls. Pricing them was complicated. I would group similar pieces together, starting with the smallest, and start assigning prices. As I moved up in size and complexity, I raised the prices accordingly. By the time I reached the largest pieces, I often realized no one would pay what I had assigned, so I lowered the price and adjusted everything else down the line. It was time-consuming and not entirely logical, but it resulted in price points that were more likely to sell.
Part of my challenge was the sheer variety of pieces, which ties back to building a body of work.
Years later, when I ran my gallery in a rural area of Western North Carolina, I gained experience through seeing what seasoned artists sold their work for and helping new artists price their work. In my gallery, pottery mugs ranged from $24 to $60. Greeting cards made from original works retailed for $4 to $6. One artist priced his paintings by size, for example, an 8”x10” painting sold for $125. Another artist sold prints of her original paintings: 8”x10” digital prints were $17, and giclées were $30. Beaded gemstone earrings ranged from $20 to $40.
On the higher end, I carried one-of-a-kind textile wearables, exceptional jewelry, and large paintings, priced from the hundreds to thousands of dollars. These prices aren’t meant to serve as a framework for your own work. They reflected my gallery, my community, and my customer base at the time. If you are looking for gallery representation, trust the gallery professionals to know their market and what price points are most likely to sell.
Every artist’s journey is unique, and the numbers that make sense for one studio or gallery may not fit yours. If you’d like more personalized guidance on setting prices that reflect your time, materials, and creative value, I welcome you to reach out. Together, we can look at your work, your audience, and your goals to find a pricing approach that works for you.