As a professional artist/maker, one of the discussions I have most often with my fellow makers is the issue of pricing.
I sell at a lot of art and craft events and that means I encounter artists at all levels of the professional and hobbyist spectrum and selling at all kinds of different prices.
This can be confusing for customers purchasing work. Why is one print so much more expensive that another? Is it better quality paper, or mounted with archival quality mounts? What is archival quality anyway? And what’s a giclee print? Is the artist just up herself? Are artists just charging whatever they think they can get away with?
I’ll cover some terminology in future posts but, for now, let’s look at how artists go about pricing their work and why prices can vary so much.
One simple answer is that the vast vast majority of people aren’t charging what they need to in order to earn a living wage.
If, like me, that thing you have made is a representation of your very hopes and dreams it can feel like you are lying naked on the table, alongside your precious work, just waiting to be poked and prodded like tomatoes on the greengrocer’s table.
Sometimes, the easiest thing is just to make it very inexpensive so that no one can tell you that your dreams aren’t worth what you want to charge.
Another common mistake we make is that we just don’t know how to value our time and workmanship. We are often just beginning in business and we really underestimate our overheads and running costs. We compare our prices with products made in low cost countries or by those making work just for a hobby.
All this leads to lots and lots of lovely makers, making really special and unusual work and not getting paid for it.
Here’s how I think about pricing for my work.
I spend so much time on each image that it’s very difficult for me to calculate the cost of the time involved in making it.
So instead, I think about the amount of money that I would like each image to bring to my business in order to keep growing. I also think about how many images I can feasibly produce in a year while still doing all the day to day running of my business.
I then divide the total amount for each image by the number of prints available in the edition, making adjustments for some of the larger and smaller sizes.
I then calculate all the material costs involved in making the print itself and make sure they aren’t more than a certain percentage of the retail price (otherwise I wouldn’t have anything left over to pay my overheads). I use high quality papers and ph neutral mounts to ensure that my prints stay in great condition for as long as possible.
I’m left with a price that allows me to earn a living wage and continue making images. Sometimes the balance gets skewed when I sell fewer prints than expected, or I find myself with less time to take photographs, but it’s a starting point.
For artists working in different media, there are different considerations.
For example, someone working with mixed media or with illustration has an original piece, from which they may take prints. They often charge a high price for the original and then sell their prints for a much lower price. As digital photographers have only prints, and no original work, they can’t follow this method.
Illustrators working with bold colours may be able to produce very high quality prints of their work with a less expensive printer than photographers, where the printer must be able to reproduce a greater range of tones.
Some artists produce editions of more than 250 prints, sometimes even 500 which means they can charge a much lower price than those producing smaller sized editions.
Some prints are open edition, which means that the artist can sell as many copies as they would like. Some artists use very expensive materials and some buy small amounts and so get less favourable pricing on their materials.
So you can see why there is a wide range of prices for prints, and why there is a lot of variation from artist to artist.
Artists working in different media have different needs.
Artists have widely varying overheads and material costs.
Some are producing artwork for their only source of income and others have other sources of income.
All of them are thinking constantly about how to price their work appropriately so that they can continue to produce beautiful artwork for their valued customers.
So what do you think? Did you already know why print prices vary so widely or were you surprised to find out all of the things artists have to consider when setting their prices?