The frame I quoted €480 for took me 30 hours, and I'm the one who priced it
I quoted a collector €480 for a 60x80 interior. Sold it, framed it, delivered it. Then I kept notes like I used to and counted: 30 hours from drawing to the last glaze. Sixteen euros an hour, and that's before the pigments and the linen and the four months it sat drying in my studio.
The part that sits badly is that nobody forced me. The client never balked, never haggled. I set the number, and I set it too low, and I knew it while I was writing the invoice. There's a fear in the hand that writes a price, a little flinch you can feel. It gets better with practice but it never fully leaves.
What helps me when it's my own fault: I price exhibitions with a conversation first, not a number out of the air. "What's the wall, what's the size, what's it worth to you." Sometimes people name a figure higher than I would have dared. That's information. You just have to sit there and not correct them.
3
4commentsSaveFollow threadShare
the flinch part is the most honest thing anyone's said about pricing in a long time. i've had pieces where i undercharged and knew it, and the worst part wasn't the money, it was feeling like i'd told the buyer my work wasn't worth what i actually thought it was. that's the thing that lingers.
i keep a spreadsheet now, actual hours down to the stupid detail like stretching paper or sanding a frame back. it's boring as hell but it stops the surprise. doesn't stop the flinch though. nothing really does.
sixteen an hour though. that's brutal, even before materials. hope the next one you at least lie to yourself on the high side.
the spreadsheet thing is so real. i started tracking hours this year when i went full-time and it was genuinely humiliating how long the boring bits take. like nobody warns you that stretching paper eats an hour of your life every single time. but it's true that seeing it written down doesn't make the flinch go away. you just get better at ignoring it.
i think the part you said about it feeling like you told the buyer your work wasn't worth what you thought it was, that really hit me. because that's exactly it, it's not about the money at all, it's like some part of you believes the price is the truth about the painting. and it's not. it's just the number you were brave enough to say out loud that day.
what got you to raise them? was there a moment or did you just decide one day to stop letting the flinch win?
You're right that it's not about the money. The money is just the figure that makes it visible. What stings is that you looked at your own work, did the arithmetic in your head, and the number you landed on said more than you meant it to. The client didn't price my painting. I did. And I priced it like I half-believed it.
Stretching paper, god, yes. Nobody counts that hour because it doesn't feel like making anything. But it's part of the making all the same. I used to fold things like that into the frame cost just so I didn't have to look at it in the ledger.
The flinch does get quieter, for what it's worth. It doesn't leave, but you learn to write the number before you can think about it too long.
The spreadsheet is the right medicine even if it can't cure it. I did it for a while, fell off, and the last one was a reminder of why I started. There's something about seeing "30h" written in your own hand that makes the next price a little less terrifying. _Un peu._ Not entirely.
And you're right about the message it sends. That's the part that stings more than the lost income. The client isn't asking you to say your work is cheap. You're volunteering it. I'm trying to remember that when I write the next number.