Are these commission prices too high?

[TheThoughtfulBoxful]

Winter break is coming in a few weeks and I really want to try taking a few commissions (like 2 or 3 slots) during my time off from school, but I'm kind of on the fence about setting my prices.

I want to be reasonable since I'm not as established, but I also don't want to sell myself short.

These are some examples along with the prices I'm thinking of using... each tier goes up by 25 ($25, $50, $75, $100) depending on detail or amount of effort put into it (so a lineart drawing with sparse colors would be $25).

How does $50 for an illustration like this? What about $75?

Or $100 for this?

I'd like to hear some outside opinions before making a final decision.

[phen]

These are very nice and, while simple, display a great amount of technical skill gained over years of drawing. I believe your commission prices are fair! It's always good to test the waters with a bit of field work, too, see what kinds of commission offers sell (ie, if uncoloured lineart/sketches sell better than colour illustrations, you could offer small discounts to repeat clients for them).

You mention you're not as established but no worries, this is a personal, customised service you're offering and doesn't necessarily need to be leveraged heavily into pricing early on. From these two pieces, I feel you have a very whimsical, storybook-like style that would appeal to audiences looking for caricatures of friends/family.

Have you considered your target audience? With the holidays so close, if you're concerned about prices being too-high, you could up the ante with simple templates to construct cute, festive themes.

[Zaboem]

(non-expert opinion by a filthy novelist)

Market forces are not without their role here. A visual artist supplies her unique but non-essential product, so supply and demand come into play. If someone is willing to pay, the price is not too high. If you think you are not receiving enough commission orders, the price use some adjustment. If you receive no orders, you are promoting in the wrong places. Supply and demand are never the only factors of course. Sometimes raising process can generate more interest and result in more orders, but that doesn't happen often.

[TheThoughtfulBoxful]

Thank you both! This has been very helpful!

@phenylketonurics I'm hoping to attract people interested in full body (or half/busts) portraits of people, like you mentioned, but also OCs, fursonas and pet portraits, as long as they're safe for work.

If I do decide to open shop next month, I'll test these prices before I try adjusting them, just to see if anyone will bite.

Thanks again!

[fattackycats]

Because art is subjective and we all value things differently, the strategy that I use when coming up with base prices for tiers is "what do I feel my time is worth?". So if you use that strategy, determine how long both of those types of pieces will take you, come up with a good hourly rate, and round up from there. So if a piece takes you 4 hours to do, how much do you want to get paid an hour to do it? Be reasonable of course, but don't undersell yourself!

[punkarsenic]

how long does it take you to make one of these, on average?

these are beautiful and show a tonne of skill - you should get paid at least $10 an hour for these. id go for $20 an hour personally ( or £20, which is the english arts union graduate rate)

if that adds up to a number that you think is too much, you can speed up a lil or cut down a lil of the pay, but you must earn at least minimum wage per hour to justify the work

[TheThoughtfulBoxful]

how long does it take you to make one of these, on average?

See that's the thing: It takes about 2-3 days to get either style of drawing with the hours varying due to my habit of lingering on a piece (to touch it up and whatnot). But if I were to only clock the hours I actually made progress with said drawing... it'd probably be between 4-10 hours, depending on detail and available time.

But okay, numbers. Say I spent around 8 hours in total on the top piece, and 10 hours on the bottom, priced at 20 an hour:

8 * 20 = $160
10 * 20 = $200

That seems... really high, and that's just the base price for a character without a background or extra characters added. Which is why I kind of prefer having set prices based on quality/amount of detail, rather than by the hour. It seems more fair, at least for something like this.

[Rasp]

$100 for a piece with no background might be pushing it a bit I feel you're leaning slightly on the high side. I've commissioned a lot of artwork before and... well it really is a buyers market. You may need to price down just a bit if you really need the extra income. It really depends on if you plan to put yourself out there or you're fine waiting for work to come to you. $5 - $10 could make the difference between you and one of half a dozen other talented artists competing for the same piece. I've had to make that call more than a few times.

[punkarsenic]

i agree that does seem high... okay, so go for $10/hour - thats $80 and $100. that looks more reasonable

[kip]

Your prices are completely reasonable for your skillset, but you are on the higher side of pricing. Since your work is more professional, that makes complete sense, but it also means most people won’t be able to casually afford your work (after all, art isn’t a necessity).
I think you need to place your focus in expanding your following because going any lower than you are now would just mark your work as unprofessional (which it’s not).

[Nachi]

I am really bad with pricing, but you should really set it according to how many customers you get.
I would suggest, however, working on speeding up your process. I used to and sometimes still spend a lot of time on some drawings. If you get to the point where you can speed up the process of these to, let's say, 3 hours, you'll be able to either offer them cheaper and get more commissions, or, get more stuff done in less time, for better money.
Your stuff looks great, but I believe there are artists, who can finish a cartoony caracter without background in a couple of hours, or less. And I suppose the customers would care more about the final product and money than time spent. So it would be to your advantage to un-learn to be a perfectionist, although, trust me, I know it is hard.
That said, I agree these prices are not excessive, but are on the higher end. And that said, I am not from the USA and people are less willing to pay enough for art here, although it changes slowly, so I may be biased, too.

[craftymarten]

Sorry for being a bit blunt here, I hope this doesn't come across as too rude but I think you need to work on speeding your process up a bit. I think your examples are lovely and very appealing to a large market but if you asked me how long I'd think they took I'd probably have said 1-3 hours not 8-10 and I can't really see a big jump in the amount of work between the 1st and 2nd example.
I think charging $20 an hour (at least) is what you should aim for but you should do it by trying to work a bit more quickly. The prices you have there are very reasonable but you're earning way less than you should with them because it's taking you so long to do.

[sushy00]

To be honest I am happy to see someone not undercharging so much. Most artists are only undercharging themselves nowadays. Really demotivating. It would be good if the rates for artists go up for once. After all we are dealing with inflation almost everywhere.

[TheThoughtfulBoxful]

No, you're good! It probably does takes a few hours less than my hypothetical numbers, but I agree I need to work on my production speed/focus when I'm drawing. Or at least start timing myself for better accuracy.

[zuggarts]

Do you know the primary demographic of your followers/people who would be buying these commissions from you? I'd say $50 (USD?) is fair for the top--it's clear that your work is polished and consistent; I wouldn't mind dropping a 50 for you!

Not sure about the bottom pricing though. It can definitely be more expensive than the top but at around 2x the price I doubt many will go for that option.

[TheThoughtfulBoxful]

Do you know the primary demographic of your followers/people who would be buying these commissions from you?

Hmm... I just checked my twitter, and it appears I'm being followed primarily by other artists, with a lot of them being under 25. I don't know if that's good or bad.

Not sure about the bottom pricing though. It can definitely be more expensive than the top but at around 2x the price I doubt many will go for that option.

You're probably right about that.

Okay! This thread has been a big help! Based on the feedback I've been getting, I think my best bet would be to offer only one type of commission (top illus. @ $50 base price) since this is mainly to test the waters/gain experience and to pad my savings a little.

I still have a couple of weeks to prepare; wish me luck!

(and thank you for your advice! I appreciate it as always.)