Pricing Your Art: Helpful Guidelines...
Nov 25, 2015
Should I start high so I have room to mark down? Or is marking down “the kiss of death?” Should I start low to get my name out there? These are questions we hear all the time, and while there is no right or wrong answer for figuring out how to charge for your art or photography, we can offer some guidelines you may not have thought of. The bottom line is, the market will always dictate your prices, so your job for the marketing portion of your weekly tasks is to find the venue that will support the pricing structure you come up with.
I like to remind Artists and Photographers, that in the retail scheme of things you are the “manufacturer.” In the retail business world, there is almost always the manufacturer who produces the product and gets the lowest price in the whole pricing structure. The manufacturer has to price its goods so that retailers can afford to have it in their stores and still make a profit off of it when the end-consumer purchases it, and of course the end-consumer must feel like they are getting a good value in order to make the investment. Basically, you are the manufacturer who needs a profit, the galleries are the retailers who need a profit and the collectors are your end-consumers who need to feel good about their investment. It’s a daunting task to figure out the formula that works for you!
It is not uncommon at all for a gallery to take a 50% cut of the final sales price. In fact, when comparing to regular retail goods, doubling the manufacturer’s cost is standard procedure, and usually retailers will create a bigger margin than that. For the retailer / gallery, 50% goes to pay the manufacturer (you) and the other 50% goes toward rent, advertising, insurance, payroll, promotional events, all those things it takes to run a business and tell people about your art – then the retailers hope there is enough left to actually turn a profit. Now you can always “skip the middleman” retailer and become the retailer yourself – either through doing the art show circuit or direct web sales, or both. In fact, you can do all three as long as you remember these VERY important tips:
- A website is imperative. Even if you do not sell on your website, you should use it as a “brochure” to help the galleries and others market you. Your website should have pictures of your images along with the story for each and a place for your artist statement & bio. No prices, just links to the galleries that are selling your work. In fact, most retailers consider the Artist a competitor if the Artist is selling on their own website, but some do not AS LONG AS YOU ARE CHARGING THE SAME PRICE AS THE GALLERIES! Want to get kicked out of a gallery the fastest way? Undercut them on your pricing.
- If you do the art show circuit or host your own e-commerce site without any galleries involved, you should probably be pricing your products as if there is a middleman/retailer involved anyway. Most definitely there will come one rainy day when the art show cancels and you’re left holding your hotel bill and travel expenses when you say “I’m done with all this hard work, I’m going to let galleries sell my work from now on…” then you won’t have to mark all your prices up to do so. Or better yet, you’ll impress a gallery owner who is walking by your booth and says, “Hey, do you do galleries?” Then you can have another sales outlet and maintain consistent pricing.
How do you figure out what that “manufacturer’s price should be?
Well, there are loads of formulas and opinions on this. In fact one great article on this subject can be found by clicking here. Suffice it to say that you must do at least these four things if you do nothing else:
- Keep track of the cost of your materials.
- Keep track of the time you spend to produce each piece – not that you should charge per hour, because collectors really won’t care about that, but because you need to know the AVERAGE time it takes you to complete a piece. This will be helpful in coming up with a “per square inch” price that is a little easier for buyers to comprehend.
- Decide what a reasonable price per hour is for your time.
- Overhead – do you need to pay rent for an outside studio and its utilities? Don’t forget that in your equation!
The trickiest is deciding how much your time is worth. This is where I see the biggest egos or the biggest lack of confidence. I always advise artists to do what the corporate work force does: base your hourly rate on your amount of formal education in the field, and your current experience and success with it. Just because you know an artist who is charging $100 per hour for their works, does not mean that’s what you can charge! If you’re degreed in an artistic discipline, you can probably start out getting more per hour than a self-taught artist. But always remember, the market is king – figure out what you’re comfortable with, then figure out WHERE you’ll be able to command that price!