Should I accept commission requests, and how can they help my business beyond just the one-off sale?

Every artist should have a commissions option available, whether or not you typically do custom work. When someone requests a commission, they’re essentially holding up a credit card and saying ‘make something specific for me.’ Your job is to ask: what do they know that I don’t? Is there a new opportunity here? Is this what my audience actually wants? One artist received a commission to interpret someone’s favorite song in her medium. She was initially uncertain but offered five options, and the client picked one and gave her creative freedom. That piece became her best-selling print and opened up an entire new product line—custom song interpretations. She’s since done multiple commissions in this vein. The real value of commissions isn’t just the initial $300 sale—it’s discovering new directions that can become best-sellers as prints, merchandise, and products that reach far more customers.

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Asked by an artist hesitant about doing commissions · Answered by Karen Payton (sharing experience); Patrick Shanahan (affirming strategy) · art-marketing-podcast · 2025-08-29