Pricing Your Work With Confidence

“How should I price my own artwork so that it will sell?  Let’s face it; it’s a mystery, because there really is no rhyme or reason to the value of art.  The intrinsic value of art is ephemeral; the true value is in the eye of the beholder.

-Always refer to the price of your work in terms of retail value.  Weather you are talking to a gallery owner, a visitor to a show, or a private collector, you should have one consistent price for any piece of work. 

It would be helpful for you to think of the value of your work in two parts.  The first part of that value is the value you create in the studio as you employ your artistic talents and skills to create a masterpiece.  You deserve to be paid for the effort it takes to create this value.  The second part of the value comes from the effort that it takes to market and sell the art.  There is a tremendous amount of time, work, and skill invested in making a sale happen, and the value created here needs to be rewarded as well. 

If you sell a piece of artwork through your own efforts, you have earned both halves of the value of the work.  If you turn the sales half of the process over to a gallery so you can devote your time to creating, the gallery earns the second half.

Do not under-value your work by quoting it at a less-than-retail price.  Not in any circumstance.

-Be consistent when pricing your art.

No matter where your buyers are located, price your art the same for every location.

-Institute a pricing formula

Why would you torture yourself by having to figure out the price of each piece as it is created? 

Painters: Price by the square inch.  There is simply no easier method to consistently price your work than by size.  A collector may not realize he is paying by the square inch, but it is quietly reassuring to him that the larger the painting, the higher the value.

The idea is to have a formula so simple you could hand it to someone else, and with a few variables, she could come up with your price.

-Research comparable artists. 

One of the most important factors in your analysis is the pricing structure your competition has in place.  After cracking the artists’ formulas for pricing it’s time for you to determine how to position your pricing in comparison to the competition.

Create a spectrum of the prices you find.  Place the lowest price on the left and the highest on the right; then plot each of the artists you are researching on the chart.  Once you have done this, you will have a clear picture of your competition.  Now draw a line in the center, and somewhere close to this centerline is where you want to be prices.

The tendency of an artist who is searching for a price is to start lower than the competition.  This is a mistake.  Under-pricing your work can be just as detrimental to your sales as over-pricing.  Often a collector will fall in love with a piece, but if the price is too low she begins to question her taste.”

From “Starving to Successful” by J. Jason Horejs