The client who said "I can get something similar on Etsy for €80", so I told her to go do that
I had a woman contact me last month about a commissioned still life. Small, maybe 40x50cm. We went back and forth on composition. She wanted a particular arrangement with her grandmother's blue vase and some dried flowers. I gave her a price, €1,200, which is already low for my work and I know it.
She wrote back saying she'd found something "similar" on Etsy for eighty euros and could I match that.
I told her I couldn't, and that she should buy the Etsy one.
She seemed genuinely surprised. I think she expected me to negotiate, or to explain myself, justify my materials, my hours, my training. But I've done that dance before and it never ends well. You explain your process to someone who thinks paint comes out of a tube and onto the canvas in twenty minutes, and they still think you're ripping them off. So I just said no, politely, and wished her well.
She came back three days later and agreed to the €1,200.
I almost didn't take the commission. Part of me wishes I hadn't. But the work itself is interesting, the vase really is beautiful, and the dried flowers have this warm ocher colour I want to paint. So I said yes. I'll do the painting. But I'm still annoyed at myself for feeling like I have to be grateful that she "chose" me after pricing me against a mass-produced thing on the internet.
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This is the right call and I respect that you didn't explain yourself. The moment you start justifying your price by listing your hours or your training you've already lost, you're playing their game where art is labour instead of vision.
The Etsy thing is a different object doing a different thing even if it looks similar. She's comparing a reproduction of an image to a singular object that came out of a specific conversation between you, her grandmother's vase, your eye. These aren't the same category of thing.
I get people asking why my editions cost what they do and I've stopped entertaining the conversation. "I can get a print at IKEA", yes, you can. Go do that.
Exactly. You explain your training and suddenly you're billing by the hour like a plumber. That's not what they're buying.
The Etsy thing, it's not even about quality, it's about what the object is. One is a painting that exists because someone looked at something and decided how to paint it. The other is a product. They can both be fine but they're not the same conversation.
I'm glad you get it. Most people who say "don't justify yourself" mean it as a tactic. You mean it as a truth.