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finally invoiced a logo job i finished in march. it's been sitting in my drafts since, fully written, addressed, everything. just couldn't hit send. it's not a big number, $650, but i kept telling myself i'd ask for more if i waited, then that i'd lost the right to ask at all by waiting. four months of a $650 invoice aging in my drafts is a very expensive way to avoid an awkward email. sent it at like 1am. they paid in 20 minutes. no comment, no "hey where have you been," nothing. i've been carrying that around like a rock and it turned out nobody was even holding the other end of it. anyway if you're also the kind of person who lets money rot in drafts because asking feels like a confrontation, hi. we should probably start a support group. or just invoice each other.

ok so I've been full time since January and I've sent plenty of invoices by now, no big deal right? But yesterday I invoiced a real client, like, a gallery. For a commission. And I sat there staring at the "send" button for a solid three minutes which is ridiculous because I am a 26 year old woman not a baby deer. I kept thinking what if they see the number and go ??? who does she think she is. Even though we literally agreed on the price beforehand?? My brain is broken. Anyway I sent it and then immediately painted a very bad very aggressive watercolor of a teapot to calm down haha. And my partner came home and I made them read the invoice back to me like I couldn't trust my own eyes. They were very patient about it. I know this is small potatoes compared to what some of y'all are out here doing but it felt huge. Like oh I'm actually doing this. Freelance artist. That's my job now. Terrifying and good.

I have this one recurring client who's otherwise fine to work with, pays eventually, doesn't micromanage. But without fail, every single time, right before I'm about to send the final invoice, like the night before, I get a text. "Hey just checking, can you do $X instead?" X being about 30% less than what we agreed on months ago. It's never during the process. Never when we're discussing materials or size or how many hours this is going to take. Always at the very end when they know I'm emotionally ready to be done with it and just want to move on. I held the line the last two times. Said no, this was the price we agreed on, here's the invoice. And they paid it. So why do I still feel like the asshole for not giving a discount? Why does saying "no" to someone who's literally asking for a lower price than what they themselves agreed to feel like I'm being difficult? Anyway I'm waiting for the text any day now on the current piece. Already have my reply drafted. Just tired of having to have the same conversation.

For seven years I billed other people's buildings. Architects send invoices for work that's already done, measured, approved, nothing emotional about it. Today I sent an invoice for my own painting. A small one, a balcony sketch of a house on Sampige Road that's going to be rubble by next monsoon, but someone wanted it enough to pay for it. The whole morning I kept going back and forth on the number. Undercharged myself twice, then sat there embarrassed and corrected it. My husband found me staring at the PDF and just said "send it na." So I did. It's funny because the actual hard part wasn't the painting. It was deciding that my work had a price at all. Architects know exactly what an hour of their time costs. Painters apparently have to relearn it every single time. Anyway. The money barely covers the paints. Doesn't matter. First one's out. Here's to the next few. And to Sampige Road houses getting a little something before they're gone.

Small thing, but it sat on my desk for eleven days. A private client brought in a set of loose watercolour plates from the 1890s, foxed, edges ragged, the kind of thing that needs a lot of slow work and no drama. I put the hours down honestly. Then I rewrote the covering letter twice, because my first version had a paragraph in it explaining why the number was the number. I deleted it. Sent the invoice with a date and a payment term and nothing else. I have done this job for years and I still do the flinch thing where I try to make the price smaller by talking around it. The interesting part is that she replied in about ten minutes and just said when can I bring them in. Anyway. That is my win this week. A letter with a number in it and no apology.

The commission was real. 3 metres, smalti and salvaged marble, over the reception desk of a small boutique hotel here in Kalamaria. Two months of work minimum, probably closer to three, plus materials. 2.400 euros. I said no, and then I spent a week wondering if I was being proud for no good reason. Because that money would have paid the rent for a while, and I am not in a position where 2.400 is nothing. Nobody in my business is. What killed it was the invoice. They wanted it all declared, clean, taxes paid, which is fair, that is their position. But then you take out EFKA and the tax and what is left is closer to 1.300, and the smalti alone for that size is over 600. So I would have been setting small stones by hand for three months at about the rate of a person who stands at a till. The till at least ends at 3. The galling part is that nobody there would look at a marble floor and ask for a discount. They know what stone costs. But the hours? The hours are invisible, so they get negotiated. I am not asking if I was right. I know I was right. I am asking what the rest of you do when the number is insulting but the money is real. Because I don't have a good answer for that yet.

Okay so I've been trying this thing where I actually send invoices the day the work ships, instead of waiting weeks and pretending it's fine. First time trying it, client replied "let's circle back next week!" and now it's been a month and I've sent two gentle follow-ups and nothing. I know the lesson is supposed to be "put a number on it up front, get a deposit" and I did do that part, which is honestly why I'm not spiraling. The deposit covered materials and most of my time. But the balance is sitting there and it's the amount I was counting on for studio rent and I keep opening my email like a fool hoping there's money in it. The wild part is this person was so nice the whole time. Gushed about the piece, sent photos of it framed in their hallway. Then just... went silent the second money was due. I'm starting to think the "they're being polite" read and the "they're dodging" read can look exactly the same from where I'm sitting. Anyone else deal with this? Do you chase people or just eat the loss and never work with them again? I've got maybe one more follow-up in me before I do the passive aggressive thing of posting a painting and tagging their house lol. Not that I would. But I get it now.

Okay so this is a small thing and I know it's a small thing but I finally sent an actual invoice to an actual gallery for actual money for a painting and it took me ELEVEN DAYS. Eleven days. For an email with a number in it. I kept opening the draft and closing it. Rewrote the subject line like six times. At one point I changed "I hope this finds you well" to "hope you're well" and then back. And I think the real thing was that I've been painting for four years and nobody has ever paid me a number I set myself, so typing that number felt like standing in a doorway saying hey, this is what I'm worth, please don't laugh. The number was 480. That's it. That's the whole terrifying number. I did it at like 11pm on a Tuesday, hit send, then immediately went and washed brushes I'd already washed. My partner asked why I was scrubbing a bone dry palette and I said "no reason" which is a lie I have never once gotten away with. Anyway. Eight months ago I was making oat milk for people who didn't say thank you. Today somebody owes me 480 euros and it's real and it's on paper and I'm weirdly shaky about it, haha. If you've got an email sitting in drafts right now, this is your sign, I guess. Send the email.

Okay so I've been telling myself for months that I'd approach some local shops about carrying my prints and cards, just small ones, the cute plant shop on my corner, a bookstore I love. And I kept chickening out because sending a cold email with prices feels so much scarier than just posting on Instagram where people come to you. But last week I finally just walked into the bookstore with a little portfolio and asked if they had five minutes. The owner was so nice she almost made me cry?? She said yes on the spot, picked four designs, and I spent the weekend hyperventilating over formatting a proper invoice. Sent it this morning. Then my partner found me on the kitchen floor and I had to explain that no I wasn't sad, this is just what success feels like apparently. Anyway if anyone else has done the wholesale thing for the first time, how long until you stop feeling like you're going to get caught doing something you're not supposed to?? Asking for a friend who is me.

omg you guys i actually did it i sent the invoice for that big commission i finished last week. i was so nervous about it honestly, like what if they think it's too much or they ghost me or something?? but my partner was like 'just send it Dani you did the work!' and they were so right haha. it feels SO good to have it out of my hands and just like, trust that it'll get paid. fingers crossed it all goes smoothly! this is such a huge step for me going full-time, it feels so real and terrifying and amazing all at once. anyway, just wanted to share a small win!! 🙏

there's a freelance logo job that's been sitting in my inbox since mid july. client wanted "warm but corporate." i opened the file like nine times and closed it every time. tonight i actually did it. eleven minutes. sent the invoice at 1:40am. the relief is unreal and also kind of insulting, because the thing i was avoiding was never the work, it was the email where i have to be a normal person who says "let me know if you'd like any revisions" and means it. the work was nothing. it's always nothing. anyway rent is now theoretically handled. going to go paint something that doesn't have to be warm OR corporate.

Okay so I finally snapped and did the thing we all joke about. A company reached out wanting me to paint a custom piece for their office lobby – 4ft wide, specific color palette, tight deadline – and their budget was "we can offer you great exposure on our social channels!" I get it, I'm small, I'm new at this full-time thing, I know how it goes. But I was just so tired. So I wrote up a proper invoice. Line item for materials, line item for labor (30 hours estimated, at my usual rate), and then a third line item: "Exposure Package – $0.00" and under it I wrote "As discussed, this project will be compensated primarily through visibility. Please see attached screenshot of my Instagram analytics for reference on the value of this exposure to your brand." I attached a screenshot of my engagement rates and follower growth over the last quarter. And I sent it. Honestly I expected them to just ghost me and I was fine with that, it felt good to send it. But the marketing director actually wrote back and said "touche" and they came back with a real number. Not a great number, not gonna lie, it was still kind of low. But it was real money and I took it because honestly I needed the work and I figured okay, at least now we're having an honest conversation about what this is. I don't know if I'd do it again, it felt a little snotty. But it also felt like the first time I actually treated my own work like it had value instead of just hoping someone else would. Anyone else done something petty that actually kind of worked??

Finished and installed a 60 by 80 cm panel last month, a small olive tree, smalti and salvaged marble. I quoted 2,400 euros for it. That is materials, six weeks of setting, and the cement board, and I did the install myself with a hired van. The client paid without a word. Then, at the end, standing in the doorway with her coat on, she asked if she could have the leftover smalti. The offcuts. The bag of bits. I said yes because it is a bag of bits to anyone who does not cut stone. But those bits are 90 euros of material I already bought, and some of them are colours I will use again in March. I stood there holding a plastic bag of my own stock and feeling stupid about it. I have been thinking since about what I actually sold her. She thinks she bought the object. I think I sold six weeks and a bag of material and the bag got left on my floor. Nobody is wrong here, that is the annoying part. I am not going to start invoicing for offcuts. But I am going to start keeping them in a closed box before the client arrives, because apparently I need to organise my own generosity.

did the thing everyone on here tells you not to do and raised my prices 20% in january. told myself i'd lose half the list, panicked about it for a week, then sent it. two people grumbled. one of them still bought. everybody else just... paid it. same turnaround, same three coats of cheap phthalo. which means the prices were too low for like three years and i didn't notice because everybody kept paying without blinking. that's the part that stings, not the raise. i was undercharging myself into a little depression about money and reading it as humility. anyway, invoicing still makes me want to lie down.

Did a commission last year, a big welded steel piece for a private yard. Took seven weeks, three hundred hours easy. When I invoiced her I did the math in my head and it came out to about $38 an hour. That's my day rate, and I've been charging basically the same number for ten years. The scare is that I know exactly which clients would flinch if I moved it. One of them has been with me since I was doing fabrication for hire in the eighties. He pays on time, never haggles, sends me work when I'm slow. Raising my price feels like saying his loyalty runs second to my wallet. So I don't. I just quietly eat the difference and tell myself the piece took longer than usual. A younger guy in my shop asked me the other day what I charge and I lied about it. Not even a big lie, just rounded up a little so I wouldn't sound stupid. Ten years in this and I still choke on my own number. That's the part nobody warns you about: it's not the clients you're scared of, it's looking at yourself and admitting what your time is worth.

Six months it took to get paid for a portrait. I had almost written the money off, the usual French bitterness about commerce, and then the woman who owed it sent me to two friends and a gallery owner who now shows my work in Geneva. Not because I chased her. Because I kept painting for her while she didn't pay. She remembered that. I think we are too quick to cut people at the first late invoice. Some of the best relationships I have started with a payment that made me grind my teeth. I am not saying let people walk over you. I am saying a bad payer is not necessarily a bad patron. And a fast payer is not necessarily a friend of your work either. The gallery that strings you along for months will sometimes be the one that sells everything. The client who is slow with the check will sometimes be the one who builds your whole next year. The correlation between promptness and generosity is weak. I wish someone had told me that at thirty.

had a piece in a group show last spring and someone bought it opening night. first time a stranger paid four figures for something i made. felt like i'd done something wrong so i kept the price low for months after, $200, $350, like i was apologizing for the nerve of charging real money. finally bumped everything up this fall. not stupid high, just... what i'd need to make it worth pulling all-nighters and buying real materials instead of dumpster cardboard. lost about 40% of my instagram followers in the next three weeks. the algorithm punished me or whatever. but the people who stayed? they're the ones who actually buy. or share. or send a note that isn't "love this, wish i could afford it." i'd rather have 300 people who get it than 3,000 who treat my feed like a museum gift shop they're just browsing. still feels weird every time i type a number into an invoice. like i'm about to get caught.

I'll go first and it's not flattering. A small space in a city I won't name asked me for a "contribution to the printing costs" of the show. Not framing, not shipping. Printing costs. Of my own work. I paid it, because the space had a name I could put on a CV and I was twenty-nine and hungry to look serious. The show was fine. The invoice is the thing I remember. What did you talk yourself into? The contract with the vague clause, the "we usually handle sales ourselves," the director who never answered one email until the week they needed something. I'm collecting red flags I should have caught earlier, and I'd rather hear yours than pretend I've got better instincts now.

Sold two pieces in a small group show last month. 700 for the bigger one, 380 for the small one. Gallery took 50, which I'd agreed to, fine, that's the deal. Then the invoice came and there was a separate line for "installation materials." 40 euros. For the hooks and the little brass plate with my name on it. So I made 500 on 1080 worth of work and paid to have my own name spelled correctly on a wall. I keep telling myself the split is the cost of being seen, and it is, but nobody itemizes the cost of being seen at 40 euros before. I don't know what I'd have said if I'd known. Probably nothing. Anyone else get a line item that felt like a small insult dressed up as admin

Sold a 190 x 150 canvas in June. Nine thousand six hundred euro, which is a good price for me, and I was pleased for about four days. Then the invoice came. Fifty percent to the gallery, which I knew, that is not the surprise, that is just how it is. But there was also a line for framing, 340, and a line for transport to the fair in Basel, 480, and a line for the catalogue photograph, 120. Nobody mentioned those on the phone. So the maths: 9,600 becomes 4,800, becomes roughly 3,860. Then the pigments and the wax and the linen for a canvas that size, call it 900. Eleven weeks of work, but not eleven weeks of only that work, so I cannot honestly divide it. Somewhere between 14 and 20 euro an hour, depending on how generous I am to myself about the hours. What actually keeps me up is not the number. It is that I signed the contract in March in about ninety seconds, standing up, because I was flattered to be asked. There is a clause about storage: if the work does not sell within eighteen months the gallery may store it and charge me 25 euro a month. I found this out last week. From a friend, not from them. I am not going to name the gallery. They sell work, they are serious, I would sign again. But I am reading the paper now with a pencil, and I have started writing my own exclusions into the consignment sheet, which so far has made one gallerist in Düsseldorf sigh audibly at me. Curious whether anyone here has actually won one of those clauses back, or whether we all just sign and find out later.