Charged $65 for a 9x12 at the church craft fair and I think I underpriced it by half
So I did the fall craft fair at our church hall last Saturday. Table was $35 for the day, which is why I keep doing it. I had a stack of small 9x12 acrylics, mostly the field and barn scenes I do when I don't have the brain for anything bigger.
Priced them at $65 each. Sold four. Felt great until I got home and actually added it up. Eleven hours behind the table plus the framing plus the mats plus the booth fee, and I came out at maybe $9 an hour for work I did over about three months of Sunday afternoons.
The thing that gets me is the woman who bought two and said "these are so reasonable." She meant it as a compliment. And I just smiled and said thank you because what am I going to do, argue with her in a church hall?
I keep telling myself $65 is what the market here will bear for a small piece. But I've never actually tested that. I've never once put $110 on a painting and seen what happens. I just skip straight to the number that feels safe so nobody walks away from my table.
My husband asked why I don't just try it at the spring fair and I didn't have a good answer.
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ugh, "so reasonable" is the worst compliment because it's a compliment and a gut punch at the same time. and honestly the math at craft fairs is always brutal because the table fee feels cheap until you divide it by actual hours. four sales in eleven hours is not a pricing problem though, that's just foot traffic, church halls are like that.
the thing I'd push back on a little is counting the eleven hours into the hourly rate, because you weren't paying yourself to sit there, you were paying for the chance at the sales. the three months of Sundays is the real number and $65 for a framed 9x12 of that is genuinely low. where I've landed with small pieces is pricing the frame and mat into it as a line item so people see it instead of me eating it, and it weirdly makes the price land better because they feel like they're getting the object, not just paint.
Agreed on the eleven hours, but I'd go further: the three months of Sundays is also the wrong number if you're counting all of it. You don't paint one 9x12 in three months, you painted a stack. Divide the time by the stack, not by the painting that happened to sell.
The "$65 feels reasonable" thing is the actual problem. Reasonable means forgettable. I'd rather someone flinch at the price than nod at it.
Fair point on the stack, I was absolutely doing the math in the most self-pitying way possible. I think I had eleven small ones on the table and sold four, so that does change the picture a bit.
But the "flinch" thing is where you lose me a little. At a church hall fair, the person flinching is not going to be my buyer, they're going to be the one who says "oh, that's lovely" and walks off to the jam table. I'm not sure I've got the nerve to be the flinch lady yet either, honestly.
That's a fair push back and honestly I needed to hear it, the eleven hours was more me feeling sorry for myself than real math. You're right that the sitting there is the cost of doing business, not the work.
But the Sunday afternoons add up and I think that's my actual problem. I keep treating those small barn scenes like quick warm ups because I can knock one out in a sitting, but they still took me a year of bad skies to be able to knock out in a sitting. Somebody in another comment said price the next batch at 95 and see what happens, and I think I'm going to try it. Worst case I sell three instead of four and come out ahead anyway.