I quoted 900 for a piece last spring. Doing the math on it now it was about 6 an hour.
The piece was 30x40, acrylic wash and torn paper over a photo of somebody's grandmother's kitchen. Client found me through a friend of a friend.
900 felt generous when I said it out loud. Then I actually sat down with the receipts.
Panel 62. Mediums, call it 140 because I wasted a whole tube of a grey I ended up hating. The photograph was a scan and a print, 34. Frame, because it needed one and I didn't trust them to pick it, 210. Shipping 55. That's 501 gone before I touched it.
What was left was 399 and maybe 60 hours. I don't work fast. I re-tore the same paper corner four times. So roughly 6 an hour, and that's before the gallery takes a cut if it ever shows.
The part that actually bothers me isn't the number. It's that I knew it was low when I said it. I said 900 because I could hear myself about to say 1400 and it scared me. Fear has a price and mine is 500.
Quoting a new one next week. Same size, same materials. I'm going to say the higher number and just sit there.
4
6commentsSaveFollow threadShare
ok the re-tore the same corner four times thing is the part that got me, because that's the actual work and it's the exact thing nobody wants to pay for. they see the finished piece and think the time was in the painting, but half of it was in the deciding.
and honestly 6/hr isn't even the real number, because you ate the frame decision and the shipping logistics and the whole friend-of-a-friend politeness tax where you can't just say "here's my rate." i quit my cafe job eight months ago to do this full time and i'm still learning this the hard way, but the thing that finally clicked for me is that materials have to be reimbursed at cost BEFORE labor, not out of it. like the 501 is not part of your pay, it never was. so really you made 399 for 60 hours and also ate a tube of grey you hate. that's not a pricing mistake, that's a pricing emergency.
out of curiosity, did you quote off a flat number or try to estimate hours first? because i keep doing the flat number thing and then doing this exact math afterward and wanting to lie down
The re-tore corner is where the painting actually happens, yes. But I'd push back a little on the deciding being invisible in the price. It is invisible only if you invoice it as one line that says "painting." The frame is a job, the shipping is a job, the scan and the print are jobs. Itemize them and nobody argues. I spent years quoting one number and eating the difference and it was not a pricing problem, it was a not-showing-my-work problem. The politeness tax disappears the moment the client sees the list, because a list is not rude. A price alone invites a negotiation. Voilà.
the list thing is annoyingly correct and I hate it a little. because the number I say out loud is the one I'm apologizing for, and a list doesn't have a tone of voice.
the part I'm stuck on is itemizing without it reading like I'm nickel-and-diming them. "scan and print, 34" next to "frame, 210" and suddenly it's a receipt for a kitchen remodel, not a painting. feels like I'd be training them to price the parts and not the thing. did you ever get that, someone adding up the list and going "so the actual painting is only X"?
the corner was the whole painting and I'd do it again, which is the problem.
eight months in is about when the panic turns into arithmetic, so you're right on schedule. the thing that got me wasn't the rate, it was realizing I'd been calling it a favor in my head before I even said a number. friend of a friend and I knocked 200 off in the room, silently, before anyone asked.