If you'd ask me, what is the most asked question that students ask, it would be "what should I price my artwork at" This has always been a hard question to answer, but recently I took a course from a business consultant for artists and I learned a great deal from her about this subject.
Since I like to make my teachings simple, effective and easy to
understand, I will try to answer this question with those principals in tacked, even though this is a complicated issue.
1. Do some research on what others that are similar to you are selling their work for. This can give you a good idea of what you can price your art for. Find artists that are selling in the area that you want to sell in. Different areas get different prices.
2. Who is your target market or who do you want to sell to? Know who
you are selling to or want to sell to.
Once you set a price remember not to change it. This price will be for all buyers, you can't give different people different prices. From that point on your prices should only change when the price goes up for your work.... make sure that your prices never go down.
3. Make sure you get more than what you paid to paint and frame your work.
4. Selling cheap, cheapens your work.
Here is an excerpt
of the article By Laura C George the business consultant I took a Bootcamp from, this explains a lot about the collector and why you don't want to underprice your work:
"Collectors (and casual art purchasers too) have a certain expectation for how much art should cost. Depending on their personality and current life circumstances, they may want to pay less
than they expect, exactly what they expect, or more than they expect. Most often, people who are open to buying art – which usually feels like an unnecessary luxury – are in the latter category of wanting to pay more than they expect the art would cost.When you spend a lot of money, you
feel like you’re getting something of incredibly high quality. Most collectors want to purchase high quality art (and other things in their life as well). It might leave them with a bad feeling if they go out to eat and order the cheapest thing on the menu. That makes them feel cheap. And the same happens with art. A collector wants to feel like they can afford something high-end. They want to treat themselves. They want to feel like they have great taste – and the price tag
reflects the quality of art, and thus their taste level."
