The custom portrait I charged $80 for and spent 14 hours on

I did a custom portrait commission for a friend of a friend back in February. Watercolor, 9x12, pretty detailed reference photo of her dog who had just passed away. I quoted her $80 because I was still in my "I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm terrified to ask for money" phase and also she was nice and sad about her dog.

14 hours. I literally tracked it because at some point I was like wait this is getting absurd. $5.70 an hour. I had to buy a new tube of burnt sienna halfway through because I ran out, which was $12, so make that even less.

She framed it and sent me a photo and I was happy she loved it. But I also wanted to cry a little bit. I think about that commission a lot now that I'm trying to take this seriously. Like what would I charge today? Probably $300 minimum. And even that feels like I'm making it up. I don't know when that stops feeling fake honestly.

10comments

Add your reply to this discussion…

10 comments

Aprajita·4w

That’s not right! You are devaluing your own talent

Margaret Hsu·4w

It's the kind of mistake nearly everyone makes early on, and it's a hard one to undo once a number has been said. The real damage isn't just the $5.70 an hour, it's that she's now set a baseline in that person's mind for what her work costs. The next portrait for that circle will be met with "but you only charged Sarah $80."

Dani OkaforOP·4w

oh man the "but you only charged Sarah $80" thing is genuinely keeping me up at night ngl 😭 like I keep thinking about the next time someone in that circle asks and I have to be like "actually it's $250 now" and they're gonna think I got greedy when really I just stopped being an idiot. it's such a specific trap and you're right, you can't undo it once it's out there. have you had to have that awkward conversation yet or did you manage to dodge it?

Dani OkaforOP·4w

oh believe me I KNOW haha I'm still mad at myself about it months later. the worst part is I knew better?? like I had literally told friends "don't undercharge yourself" and then turned around and did this. I think I just panicked because she was sad and I wanted to be nice and then I was in too deep to renegotiate. lesson very loudly learned though, I promise I'm not making that mistake again 😭

Karen Wessel·4w

Oh I've been there, it's such a crummy feeling when you do the math after the fact. I did a pet portrait last year for a neighbor and I think I charged like $60 and it took me probably 10 hours, and I even knew better at that point. It's that thing where you feel bad charging what your time is really worth, especially when it's for someone's memorial pet or something emotional like that.

But 14 hours for $80... yeah that one stings. The burnt sienna detail made me laugh though because that's such a real painter problem 😅

Did you at least feel good about how it turned out? Sometimes that's the only consolation. And hey, lesson learned for next time, you'll never do that again.

Tomáš Havel·4w

The burnt sienna line is what gets me too. Not just the lost time but you had to go buy more materials to keep losing it. That's a special kind of insult.

But here's something nobody told me when I was starting out and it took me years to figure out: nobody ever got better at pricing by charging too little once. It's a data point. Now you know what 14 hours of a certain kind of work costs you in real terms. Next time you won't guess, you'll know.

The feeling-bad part never fully goes away though. I still sometimes catch myself giving work away because someone seems genuine. I just got better at catching it before I open my mouth.

Dani OkaforOP·4w

god the "special kind of insult" is exactly right 😭 like I was literally LOSING money to paint this dog. I should've been paying myself $12 just to break even on the paint.

You're right though about it being a data point, I keep telling myself that. I have an actual spreadsheet now. I'm trying to treat my past self like a friend who made a mistake and not just be mad about it. It's helping a little.

The giving-work-away thing though, yeah, I think that's the part I'm still figuring out. Like how do you stay a person who cares about people and their dead pets without also being a person who works for free. I don't know if there's a clean answer to that one.

Dani OkaforOP·4w

oh man $60 for 10 hours is even worse somehow because you said you knew better 😭 why do we DO this. it's like the second someone's emotional about it my brain just short-circuits and I forget I have bills to pay.

the painting itself actually turned out really well, I'll give it that, I was so careful with it because I kept thinking about how much the dog meant to her, and the fur texture came out nicer than anything I'd done before. she cried when she saw it which was honestly worth something, just not $5.70 an hour worth lmao. I told myself I'd treat it as a "practice piece" to make myself feel better about the money 💀

Giulia Bruno·4w

I've done this exact math on a few pieces and it's genuinely painful. The worst part isn't even the hourly rate, it's that you can't really go back to that person and say "actually I need three times that" because the price was set. So you just eat it and learn.

I think the thing that shifted for me was realising that the labour isn't just the hours with the brush in your hand. It's the years of figuring out how to get that kind of rendering, the materials you already had around that you don't factor in, the overhead of even being able to do the work. If you charged for all of it, the number would terrify you, but that doesn't mean the number is wrong, you know?

Anyway. Burnt sienna tax, that got me. Hope the dog portrait turned out well at least. The ones that take that long usually do.

Dani OkaforOP·4w

YES exactly, the part about not being able to go back is genuinely the worst. Like you've already said the number, it exists in the world, you can't unsay it. And they're happy and they framed it and sent you a photo and you're supposed to feel good?? Which I did!! But also I was doing math in my head the whole time.

The "years of figuring it out" thing is so real though. I think about all the terrible paintings I made in my early degree that nobody saw, all the paper I wasted learning how to not overwork a wash, and none of that shows up in the price. How do you even factor that in without sounding insufferable lol. I'm still figuring out where the line is between "this is what my time and skill is worth" and "I sound crazy asking for $200 for a painting" 😭