Most pricing trouble comes in two flavors. The first is pricing by feel: the painting you’re proud of costs more, the one that came easily costs less, and buyers comparing the two can’t tell what the numbers mean. The second is pricing by fear — whatever you think someone might pay, which is usually less than the work cost you to make.
A price list that holds up has three parts: a floor (what a piece costs you in materials and time), a formula (how the price changes with size), and a market check (what comparable work by artists at your stage actually sells for). This guide walks through all three with one running example, then covers commissions, prints, galleries and raising prices.
The example: a painter working in acrylic on stretched canvas, whose most common size is 12 × 16 in. One of those takes about nine hours and $34 in materials — $16 for the canvas, $12 of paint and medium, $6 for varnish and hanging hardware.
Step 1: Find your floor with cost plus time
The floor is the price below which you lose money. It’s materials plus your time at an hourly wage:
$34 + (9 hours × $22) = $232
Where does $22 an hour come from? It should be the rate you actually need to live on, after the hours nobody pays for: packing, posting online, answering messages, framing, driving to drop-offs. The Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator works that out from your income goal and real working week. For many artists it is higher than they expect.
The floor is not the retail price. Retail has to leave room for a gallery or shop to take its share and still cover your floor, which is why many artists multiply it by two: $232 × 2 = $464. Round it and you have a defensible retail price for a 12 × 16 of $480. Before you commit, compare it with work of similar size and medium by artists at a similar stage — local shows, galleries you’d like to be in, artists you follow. If $480 is far off the market in either direction, that’s information worth acting on.
Step 2: Pick a size formula and anchor it
Once one size has a price you trust, the formula extends it to every other size. The two classic methods:
- Per square inch: width × height × rate. $480 ÷ 192 sq in = $2.50 per square inch.
- Per linear inch (also called united inches): (width + height) × rate. $480 ÷ 28 in = $17.14 per linear inch.
Both give $480 at the anchor size. Everywhere else, they disagree — a lot:
| Size | Square inches | By square inch | By linear inch | Average, rounded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 × 10 in | 80 | $200 | $309 | $250 |
| 11 × 14 in | 154 | $385 | $429 | $410 |
| 12 × 16 in | 192 | $480 | $480 | $480 |
| 16 × 20 in | 320 | $800 | $617 | $710 |
| 18 × 24 in | 432 | $1,080 | $720 | $900 |
| 24 × 36 in | 864 | $2,160 | $1,029 | $1,590 |
| 36 × 48 in | 1,728 | $4,320 | $1,440 | $2,880 |
Square-inch pricing quadruples when both sides double, so it makes large work expensive fast and small work very cheap. Linear-inch pricing only doubles, so it flatters small pieces and undersells large ones. At 36 × 48 in the two methods are $2,880 apart.
Averaging the two, as in the last column, is one simple compromise. Check it against the floor at the small end: an 8 × 10 that takes this painter five hours and $20 of materials has a floor of $130, or $260 doubled. The averaged $250 sits right on it, while pure square-inch pricing at $200 would lose money every time one sells. The Art Pricing Calculator runs all of these methods side by side and can fit a curve to your past sales if you already have some.
Step 3: Keep it consistent
A formula is only useful if you stick to it.
- Same size, same medium, same price. The subject, how long this particular piece took and how much you love it don’t change the number. Buyers trust a list; they get wary of exceptions.
- Different media get different rates. Works on paper are usually priced below paintings on canvas of the same size. Give each medium its own rate rather than discounting case by case.
- Frames are separate. Add the frame as its own line. If the piece sells through a gallery, remember the gallery’s commission usually applies to the frame too.
- One retail price everywhere. Your studio, your website, art fairs and your gallery should all show the same price for the same piece. Undercutting a gallery online is the fastest way to lose one.
Originals, commissions and prints are different products
They share a size formula at most. An original from stock is a finished piece the buyer can see before paying. A commission is a custom piece with sketches, calls, revisions and deadline risk attached. A print is a reproduction whose main cost is production. Each one is priced on its own logic. Using the 12 × 16 painting as the example:
| Product | Example | Price basis |
|---|---|---|
| Original from stock | $480 | Your size price list |
| Commission | $600 | Size price + a 25% custom premium + extras |
| Print, 11 × 14 | $45–$60 | Production cost × markup |
Commissions start from the same size price, because a 12 × 16 is still a 12 × 16. Then add a premium for the custom part — the back-and-forth, the sketch rounds, the risk that the client wants changes. In this example 25% turns $480 into $600. Extras such as additional figures, a rush deadline or commercial usage rights are priced on top, and a deposit (often half) is paid before you start. The Commission Price Calculator itemizes those extras and shows what payment fees take from each invoice.
Prints are priced from their cost, not from the original. Say your lab charges $14 for an 11 × 14 giclée and the backing board, sleeve and envelope add $3.50, so each print costs you $17.50. At a $45 retail price you keep $27.50 on a direct sale. But if a shop buys it wholesale at half retail, $22.50, you make $5. At $60 retail, wholesale pays $30 and you keep $12.50. Decide whether prints will ever be sold wholesale before you set the retail price. Keep prints clearly below the originals, too: a $60 print of a piece whose original costs $410 protects the value of the original.
Gallery commission math
Commercial galleries commonly take 40 to 60% of the retail price, with 50% the most common figure. The useful formula works backward from what you need to receive:
retail price = what you need ÷ (1 − commission rate)
To receive $600 from a sale:
| Gallery commission | Retail price needed |
|---|---|
| 30% | $857 |
| 40% | $1,000 |
| 50% | $1,200 |
| 60% | $1,500 |
That is why the commission has to be built into your list price from the start, not added on when a gallery shows interest. And because your direct prices match the gallery’s, a direct sale earns the “gallery share” too — which pays for the selling time, fees and shipping you take on yourself.
Run the running example through it. The 12 × 16 sells for $480 at a 50% gallery. You receive $240, minus $34 of materials leaves $206 for nine hours: $22.89 an hour, just above the $22 floor wage. Sold directly, the same piece leaves $446, or $49.56 an hour before your own selling costs. Neither number is wrong; they just show how much the channel matters. Who pays for framing and shipping, and who absorbs collector discounts, changes the result again — the Gallery Commission Split Calculator puts those terms side by side before you sign anything.
When and how to raise prices
Good signs that your prices are behind:
- You sell most of what you make within a few months of finishing it.
- Commissions have a waiting list, or you turn work down.
- A gallery asks for more work, or a show sells through.
- Your materials, time per piece or cost of living went up.
When you raise, change the rate, not individual pieces, and do it in modest steps. Raising this painter’s averaged list by 15% looks like this, rounded to the nearest $10:
| Size | Current | +15% |
|---|---|---|
| 8 × 10 in | $250 | $290 |
| 12 × 16 in | $480 | $550 |
| 18 × 24 in | $900 | $1,040 |
| 24 × 36 in | $1,590 | $1,830 |
Tell your collectors and commission waiting list before the new prices apply, and honor quotes you’ve already sent. Avoid lowering prices on originals once they’re public: earlier buyers see the value of their piece drop, and new buyers learn to wait for a sale. If work isn’t moving, make smaller pieces or works on paper at a lower price point, or look for a better venue, rather than marking down the list.
Put it on one page
Write your system down so every quote comes from the same place: the rate per square or linear inch for each medium, the rounded price for each size you make, your minimum price for small work, the commission premium and extras, print prices with their costs, and the date of the last change. When someone asks “how much for a 16 × 20?”, you read the answer off the sheet instead of inventing it on the spot.