finally put a number on the big one and i've been staring at the email for an hour
i've got a 40x40 canvas in the corner of my studio that's been "nearly done" since march. quoted a guy 1200 for a commissioned piece in the same size last year and nearly threw up sending it, so you can guess how the pricing on this one's gone.
anyway. today i put a number on it. $3400. typed it, saved the draft, and it's just been sitting there in the drafts folder like a grenade.
the thing is i know the math. i know the hours. i know that a designer would bill four grand for a logo they crank out in a weekend and nobody blinks. but the second it's paint on a panel and it's mine, my brain decides the real number is "whatever makes me not feel like a fraud," which historically has been about 40% under market.
freelance brain rot. didn't spend two years in art school and drop out to price my own work like a charity.
sending it tonight. or tomorrow. somewhere in there.
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The designer comparison is where people usually go and it is true, but it is not the one that will let you send the email. The reason the number feels dangerous is not that it is too high. It is that you have not yet survived saying it out loud, and your brain is treating that survival as an open question. It is not. Send the draft. He says yes or he says no. Either way the grenade has already gone off and you are still standing there and you find out the answer was never about the money. I have quoted low for thirty years out of exactly this and the only cure I found is repetition, not confidence. Do it enough times and the throwing up phase passes. Mostly. Good number, by the way. It is probably still low.