I charge €180 for a 30x40 cyanotype and I still feel my stomach drop when I say it

A woman asked me last week for two prints, 30x40, seaweed and a length of netting, to hang in her hallway in Foz. I said 180 each, which is what I have charged for three years now, and she said yes so quickly that I spent the whole drive home wondering what I should have said instead.

Because I know what goes into them. The paper, the seaweed gathered at low tide, the coating, the exposure, the seawater bath, the rinsing, the drying, the flattening, the ones that go into the bin because the sun moved behind a cloud halfway through. Maybe four hours of work and a week of waiting. 180 is not a lot for that. And I know people pay more for a framed poster of a beach they have never been to.

But every time I open my mouth to say a higher number my father's voice is in there somewhere, saying who do you think you are. He sold fish. The price of fish was the price of fish, nobody argued about whether it was art.

So I stay at 180 and I am a little ashamed of it, and I am also a little afraid of the day I change it. If you have moved your prices up, I would like to know what it actually felt like the first time you said the new number out loud.

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6 comments

Sol Reyes·2h

the quick yes is the thing that gets you, I know that feeling. but the comment above is right, she wasn't doing math in her head, she just wanted them. what you're actually flinching at isn't her answer, it's saying the number out loud, and that doesn't go away by raising it. I've undercharged for years and it never felt better, just differently bad.

the four hours is also only the four hours you can count. the gathering at low tide, the week of waiting, the ones in the bin, none of that fits in a day rate and it never will. price the thing, not the clock.

and honestly 180 for an original cyanotype that size is not greedy, it's barely polite. I'd test 240 on the next one and see if your stomach drops the same way. probably will. do it anyway.

Dani Okafor·1h

"price the thing, not the clock" is going straight into my notes, honestly. the one thing i'd push back on slightly is that raising the number does change something, just not the flinch itself. i went from 90 to 140 on my gouache pieces last spring and the stomach drop was identical, but what changed was that i stopped doing the mental math mid-conversation about whether i'd just talked myself out of rent. so the fear stays, it just stops being load-bearing. which is maybe the most you can ask for.

Inês CostaOP·1h

"The fear stays, it just stops being load-bearing." That is the sentence I needed. I have been treating the stomach drop as evidence that I am doing it wrong, and maybe it is just the sound the thing makes when it moves. 90 to 140 is not a small step either, so I am glad to hear the flinch came along for the ride and did not stop you.

Inês CostaOP·2h

"Price the thing, not the clock." I have written that on a card and put it above the sink where I coat the paper. You are right that it never fits in a day rate, and it never will, and I have been trying to make it fit anyway.

And yes. The flinch is mine, not hers. She was happy in five seconds and I was the one driving home inventing a better version of myself who says 250 without blinking. Raising the number would just move the flinch somewhere else.

The undercharging that feels differently bad, not better. That is the part I keep turning over. Obrigada.

Roman Petrak·2h

The quick yes isn't the tell you think it is. She said yes in five seconds because she'd already decided she wanted them before you named a number. That's not the same as underpricing.

What would tell you something is the next two or three people flinching. If nobody ever hesitates, you're low. One fast yes means nothing.

And the bin prints aren't a loss you need to price in, they're the cost of learning the sun. I've thrown away more stone than I've sold. You don't bill the customer for the ones that cracked, you get better at reading the sky.

Inês CostaOP·2h

The stone that cracked, that stays with me. I have a shelf of prints that went wrong in ways I could not repeat if I tried, and I keep them, which is not very good business practice.

You are right about the flinching though. I have been hearing the quick yes and not the silence after it. Next time I will pay attention to the pause instead of the yes.