How should I price my artworks?

Making art is about creative experiences that come from within; pricing art for sale is about what's happening in the outside world, where commodities are bought and sold, and where so many other factors dictate worth.

Follow our basic pricing strategy to get started!

Basic pricing strategy:

• Set an acceptable hourly rate 
• Multiply this by the hours spent creating an artwork
• Adding costs for materials on top

For example, if you decided on an hourly rate of £15 and spent 25 hours creating your piece, the materials for which cost £100, your calculation would look like this:

• 25 hours x £15 hourly rate = £375
• Material costs = £100 
• Artwork price = £375 + £100 = £475

Consider the Market:

Whilst it is of course important to price your artworks on their own merit, it is incredibly important to consider what's going on in the world of art around you:

• Consider the pricing of other artworks that are similar to yours by artists who have experienced similar professional success
• Compare your art in terms of size, style, medium
• Whilst it's easy to focus in on your area of the art market, don't make that focus too narrow - be aware of how others are pricing their artworks, even if they bear no resemblance to yours. Such knowledge as this is an indicator of the direction that the broader art market may be directed.
• Think objectively about your art and where it lies in the grand scheme of things. But think objectively - perhaps invite somebody who knows your work, but isn't family, or your harshest critic for that matter. You are looking for an objective valuation. 

Limited editions:

Setting prices for editions is not much different to the strategy above:

• Take the above basic pricing strategy and add value for additional considerations for the entire edition e.g. how much does it cost to produce an entire edition of 50 prints? And how many hours do you spend doing this? 
• Then divide this total by the number of editions to get a price per unit
• Bear in mind that all editions should ideally sell out!

Other factors to consider:

• Exhibiting success and other accomplishments in the art world
• How long you have been selling for
• Further costs, including commission charges and gallery guidelines, need also to be taken into account. 
• If you find yourself consistently selling the majority of your output over an extended period of time, you should consider upping your hourly rate, or applying a 10% increase to your existing prices.
• Can you justify the price? Can you break it down and explain it to another person? If not, it might make sense to review your pricing. 

Kindly note that we use European Central Bank’s daily exchange rate to convert prices between USD, GBP, CAD, AUD, and EUR with rates getting updated weekly.