How should I price my art? What's the formula?

Forget magical formulas involving time plus materials plus square inches. The secret to pricing is simply having a range. You need items in three price brackets: $0-$100, $100-$1,000, and $1,000+. This range is critical because there are only three ways to grow an art business—acquire new customers, get existing customers to buy again, and increase average order value. The range allows you to acquire customers at any price point. Someone might not be ready to buy a $5,000 original, but they’ll buy a $45 print or a $15 coffee mug—and now they’re a customer who can come back later. When you use print-on-demand technology, you simply take the wholesale cost of each media type and mark it up by 250%. That’s your retail price. The range also creates a ‘ladder’ that helps people understand why your originals cost what they do—they see the progression from small prints to large prints to limited editions to originals, and it makes sense.

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Asked by general audience · Answered by Patrick · Art Business Webinar · 2026-08-17