What Is the Average Price for a 16x20 Art Piece

A few months ago I started sharing snapshots of works in progress on social media. Not long later on, someone I know on Facebook asked if my work was for sale, because she wanted to purchase a particular slice I was working on.

It gets better: turns out she was interested non just in purchasing the sail-in-process; she also wanted me to create a second, "sister canvas" to go with it.

Just from posting my process pics on Facebook, I had a buyer for not ane, but two paintings! Great!

The just problem? Now I was going to have to come up with a price…

Groan!

I am convinced that pricing is always the hardest thing I do as an creative person. How the heck practice we determine what to charge? Pricing just feels like a large, blackness void, and one with a lot of pressure: charge too much, and they'll run abroad; charge too piddling, and you're shooting yourself in the pes.

Ultimately, this spontaneous Facebook committee fabricated me determined to fix an entire pricing construction for my work, rather than just grabbing a number out of the air every time I create a new slice. Here are some of the "ground rules" I followed, and some tips that I hope will help you confidently set pricing for your own fine art.

Pricing Ground Rules for Painters

i) Call up: your pricing gets to alter.

If, like my story above, yous've got a customer waiting to hear back almost a price, know that as you lot become more than established, you lot'll be able to command college prices. Yous may fifty-fifty raise your prices+ on your very next auction.

In other words, whatever you charge this 1 client is non set in rock, and then don't stress too much well-nigh it. Go along in mind, though, that information technology's ever a meliorate business motion to raise your prices than to lower them, so leave yourself some room for growth.

2) Never undercharge.

That said, leaving no room for growth is not actually about artists' problem — well-nigh of us have the opposite issue: charging likewise little. Once I brought art to exist juried into a evidence, and was horrified that one of my young man artists was charging less for her work than it had cost her to frame information technology!

Needless to say, this is a large no-no.Always make sure your pricing covers your actual costs (canvas, paint, framing, aircraft if applicable — unless y'all're going to accuse a separate, additional corporeality for aircraft/packaging).

You likewise want to take into consideration how much time you put into creating your work. Emerging artists may not be able to control high enough prices to pay themselves fantastically for their actual time spent, just that'south definitely the goal for the long term!

If you lot're lucky enough to piece of work fast and loose, you tin can become away with charging less, because each piece just doesn't take long to produce. Even so, if your style is very particular-oriented and meticulous, what some other artist could sell happily for $500 might hateful you lot'd be earning pennies per hour, which is non sustainable. Your selection, then, is to dust your teeth and charge a lot more, and/or to figure out how to offer less-expensive work (smaller and/or looser originals, prints, etc.)

Non certain if you're undercharging? Equally I wrote in this post on five Pricing Lessons Learned the Hard Way, I have a practically foolproof guess: resentment. If I observe myself feeling resentment about a sale, information technology's a good bet I need to heighten my price!

On the other hand, if my prices don't brand me experience at to the lowest degree a footling uncomfortable that I'm charging too much, I'm probably undercharging!

Your mileage may vary with this: beginning to pay attention to whether you tend to undervalue or overvalue your work, and adjust appropriately.

Seasons of Yes by Melissa Dinwiddie

three) Exist clear and consistent.

Of grade your goal is to be paid well for your time, but the truth is, some of your pieces probably accept a lot longer to create than others.

Yous know how much work went into each piece, but customers don't know (and don't normally care) how long a piece took y'all to create. Charging past the hour is likely to upshot in a lot of defoliation as potential customers wait at two pieces of the same size and wonder why piece A is so much more expensive than slice B.

Customers who are confused do not buy, which is why I'm a believer in clarity and consistency.

Editor'south notation: for more than on why clarity is so of import, check out our post What Artists Tin can Learn From a Door-to-Door Salesman.

Size-Based Pricing

If you're a painter, one way to ensure you're clear and consistent is past using size-based pricing — either by the square inch (h 10 w) or past the linear inch (h + w). This makes your pricing easy for potential clients to sympathise, and it prevents you from charging more than for pieces you're specially fond of, which makes your pricing seem random and confusing (and remember, customers who are confused do not buy).

With size-based pricing, yous simply need to make up one's mind your current multiplier (the number you multiply past the canvas size) in lodge to immediately know the price for whatever given piece (okay, possibly with the help of a calculator) .

If you create in a lot of different sizes, you lot may find linear inch pricing more sensible than square inch pricing. Why? When you charge past the square inch, the price difference between a small painting and a larger one tin can become astronomical.

Here, for example, is foursquare inch pricing, using a multiplier of ii.5 (ie, $ii.50 per square inch):

4×four inches = xvi square inches ten 2.v = $40

8×8 inches = 64 square inches x 2.5 = $160

16×16 inches = 256 square inches ten 2.5 = $640

24×24 inches = 576 square inches x 2.v = $1,440

32×32 inches = one,024 square inches 10 2.5 = $ii,560

I don't know about y'all, but $xl seems awfully pocket-size price for a painting past someone who commands $2,560 for a 32×32 sail.

Here are the same canvas sizes using linear inch pricing, using a multiplier of 20 (ie, $20.00 per linear inch) — as you lot tin see, the divergence in toll feels a lot less out-of whack:

iv+4 inches = eight linear inches 10 twenty = $160

eight+8 inches = xvi linear inches x xx = $320

xvi+xvi inches = 32 linear inches x 20 = $640

24+24 inches = 48 linear inches x xx = $960

32+32 inches = 64 linear inches x twenty = $i,280

Neither of these pricing methods is "right" or "wrong," just once y'all decide your method and your multiplier, charging past size can be a very helpful manner to eliminate the guesswork, and feel confident about your pricing.

Different Pricing for Unlike Media?

One possible modifier to your size-based pricing structure is the media you paint with. If you but paint watercolors, or only pigment oils, there's no problem, but if you paint both on sail and on newspaper, as I do, it gets a little tricky.

For any reason, paintings on newspaper tend to sell for less than paintings on canvass — fifty-fifty though they crave framing, which is an added expense. In my case, if I were to pay to have a piece framed, my costs become much higher for a piece of work on paper than for a canvas painting! What's an artist to practise?

(And think that pricing your prints is an entirely dissimilar topic.)

I don't have a final answer to this question, except to refer y'all to the item beneath…

4) Practice your research.

It can be useful to look effectually at what other artists are charging for their work: artists in your local expanse, and especially artists at a similar stage in their careers.

What are people charging for framed works on paper? For unframed works on paper? For stretched canvases?

The challenge here, though, is that what other people accuse is likely to be all over the map. So when y'all practice your inquiry, be sure to take into consideration how you want to make yourself: do you pride yourself on making "fine art for everyone," at "everyman" prices? Or do you desire to make your marker as a loftier-end, premium-pricing artist?

When creative person Matt LeBlanc was deciding what to price, he looked at what kinds of fine art were available in his area and noticed the low-terminate and high-terminate of the market were rather saturated. The mid-range, though, didn't have a lot of competition, and then that's the toll range he decided to use for his paintings — at the time of this writing, Matt has piece of work for sale from $50 to $900.

This kind of inquiry worked well for Matt: he went from selling no fine art, to being featured on HGTV, and beingness one of the hottest selling artists in his expanse.

five) Land your price, then close up.

My well-nigh expensive moment as an creative person was several years ago, when a couple flew out to California from Philadelphia to meet with me about commissioning a ketubah for their anniversary.

I'd already told them my toll range, which at the time was something like "from $1,500 to $5,000" (mistake #one: never put an upper limit on your pricing!), and when they told me what they were looking for, I realized it was going to be one of the most time-intensive pieces I'd ever made.

In other words, this was a height-of-the pricing scale committee.

However, I'd never yet commanded $5,000 for a piece, and I was afraid this number, which felt so big to me, would scare them off! So when it came time to give them an gauge, I hemmed and hawed, and said something similar, "Well, what you're looking for is at the acme of my toll range."

Then, instead of keeping my oral fissure shut and seeing how they responded, I stupidly barreled alee to say, "…merely if $five,000 is too much for your upkeep, I tin e'er scale back the design to make it less expensive."

Doh!

The husband said, "$iii,000, $4,000, $five,000 — it'southward all the same to me. Only I'm a eye-of-the-road kind of guy, so let's go with the center price — $4,000."

Yep — because I couldn't just state my price and shut up, I lost a thousand dollars in a heartbeat. (And "scaling back the design" is a myth. It never happens!) Lesson learned.

This one is important, and then I'll say information technology again: state your price, then shut upwardly. Catamenia. Practice not explicate, do not apologize.

(I've done that likewise — gotten defensive almost my pricing — and oh, the pain! Now I've learned to say, "If you like my work, this is the cost. If you don't desire to pay that, you don't accept to buy it.")

If you're sending an email to a potential customer, "state your price and shut up" might look something like:

"For this painting, the price is $X

[plus shipping/packaging, if you're charging for shipping separately]

Or:

"I charge $Y per linear inch, and this painting is 24×xxx, which is 54 linear inches, so the toll is $(Yx54)."

Then:

"If you'd like to purchase information technology, just let me know and I'll send you a link to a payment page where you tin pay either with a credit card or your PayPal account

[or any payment method you utilize]

Once I receive your payment and aircraft address, I'll ship your painting to you via

[shipping service]

.

[Be sure to indicate when you'll ship — a twenty-four hours? a week? does the painting need to cure first? does information technology need to be varnished first?]

Summing Up

The actually challenging affair well-nigh pricing is that there are no hard and fast rules. Everything depends on y'all, your work, where you live, where you are in your career — there are so many variables it can drive us nutty!

The tips I've shared here have helped me get more confident with my own pricing. I won't lie to you, pricing my work is still really, really difficult, but hopefully these ground rules will aid light your path as you lot negotiate this trickiest of areas for artists.

Expert luck, and let me know how information technology goes!

Bio:

Melissa Dinwiddie is an artist, writer, performer, and creativity instigator, on a mission to empower people to feed their creative hungers. She coaches and consults with individuals and groups, and leads creativity workshops and retreats in inspiring locations around the world as well every bit online. Get a Gratis mini-poster of Melissa's Keys to Creative Flow and her Imperfectionist Manifesto at Living A Creative Life, MelissaDinwiddie.com.

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Source: https://theabundantartist.com/pricing/

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