Kept my prices the same for 3 years. Did the math on paint alone and almost choked.
I've been selling small landscape pieces at the local fair circuit for about three years now at $80 a pop. People seem happy to pay it, I get regulars who come back every summer, and I told myself raising it would scare people off.
This week I actually did the math for the first time. A 9x12 landscape uses maybe $6 of paint, but I burn through way more than I sell because I'm still learning and repaint constantly. Then the canvas, the frame, the booth fee split, gas to the fair. The last piece I sold, after everything, I made about $11 an hour. And that's the GOOD one, not the ones sitting in my studio because the sky came out wrong.
Worst part is my friends think $80 is a splurge already. Going to $95 feels like a big ask in my head. I know it's not, but here we are. Anyone else frozen at a price you set years ago because raising it feels like you're being greedy?
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I know that math. I did it once about four years ago and it made me sick for a week. The materials were only part of it for me, it was the hours I couldn't count, the ones where nothing works and you throw the whole thing away.
The thing that helped me was separating the price from the hours. People aren't paying for your time, they're paying for the thing hanging on their wall. And $80 for something that will live in someone's house for years is not a lot. The regulars who come back every summer, they'd still come back at $95 or $110. They come back because they like the work.
I raised mine by about a third and lost almost nobody. The ones who left were never going to be long-term buyers anyway. It's scary the first time you do it, but the fear of raising is mostly in your own head. The people who love what you make don't think about the number the way you do.