How to use the Gallery Commission Split Calculator
- Pick the arrangement. Consignment is the usual deal: the gallery shows your work and takes a commission when it sells. Outright purchase means the gallery buys the piece from you at a discount off retail and resells it.
- Enter the retail price and the split. Type the commission from your agreement or tap one of the common splits. In outright mode the same box becomes the wholesale discount.
- Add the discount and the costs. If the gallery offers collectors a discount, say who absorbs it. Then enter framing, shipping and any other costs, and choose who pays each one — you, the gallery, half each, or Off the top of the sale before anyone is paid.
- Read your take-home. The big number is what lands in your account. The bar splits the retail price into your net, your costs, the gallery’s share and the collector’s discount.
- Work backward. Type the amount you want to keep in the To take home box to see the retail price that gets you there, and compare 30, 40, 50 and 60% splits in the table. Copy breakdown gives you the numbers to bring to a contract conversation.
The 50% split is rarely 50%
A gallery’s commission pays for rent in a district where collectors walk in, staff, openings, mailing lists, art fair booths and the slow work of building a collector base. Commercial galleries usually take 40 to 60%, with 50% the most common figure. Co-ops, nonprofit spaces, cafés and framers that show art often take less, from about 20 to 40%, because the artist does more of the work.
What artists underestimate is how much of their half disappears before payday. Take a $2,400 painting on a standard 50% consignment. The gallery gives a regular client 10% off, so the work sells for $2,160. Your half is $1,080. You paid $180 for the frame and $60 to ship the piece to the gallery, so you take home $840 — 35% of the retail price. The gallery keeps $1,080.
Small contract terms move that number more than you’d expect:
- If the discount comes only out of your share (commission still calculated on the full $2,400), you net $720.
- If the gallery absorbs the discount, you net $960.
- If framing is reimbursed off the top before the split, you net $930 and the gallery’s share drops to $990.
None of these is unusual. All of them belong in writing before the work goes on the wall.
What it takes to net a target
With the same 10% shared discount and $240 of your own costs, here’s the retail price you’d need to take home $1,000, $1,500 or $2,000 at each common split:
| Split | You net at $2,400 | Retail to net $1,000 | Retail to net $1,500 | Retail to net $2,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30% | $1,272 | $1,969 | $2,762 | $3,556 |
| 40% | $1,056 | $2,297 | $3,223 | $4,149 |
| 50% | $840 | $2,756 | $3,867 | $4,978 |
| 60% | $624 | $3,445 | $4,834 | $6,223 |
Going from a 40% to a 60% gallery raises the retail price for the same take-home by half. That doesn’t make the 60% gallery a bad deal — a gallery that sells three pieces a month at $4,834 beats one that sells one a year at $3,223. It does mean your prices have to be set with the split in mind, not before it.
Consignment or outright purchase
Under consignment you own the work until it sells, so an unsold piece comes back to you. Many US states have art consignment laws that treat consigned work and the money from its sale as held in trust for the artist, which protects you if a gallery runs into trouble. The cost is time: you’re paid after the sale, by a deadline the contract should name.
In an outright purchase the gallery pays you now, typically around half of retail, and carries the risk and any discount. At 50% wholesale the $2,400 painting pays you $1,200 up front, or $960 after your framing and shipping. The gallery can then sell it at any price it likes, which is why many artists still ask for a minimum retail price in the agreement.
Tips from practice
Keep one retail price everywhere. If your website sells a piece for less than the gallery asks, you undercut the people working to sell you, and galleries notice. Price direct sales the same and treat the gallery’s share as a cost of being shown.
Ask the three questions before signing. Who pays for framing and shipping, who absorbs discounts, and how many days after a sale you’ll be paid. Most disputes between artists and galleries start with one of those.
Price the frame into the work, not on top of it. A heavy custom frame can eat a fifth of your share on a small piece. Plan sizes that fit standard frames with the Frame & Mat Size Calculator, and build your base price with the Art Pricing Calculator.