I agonise over pricing. I really do!

It is such a hard thing to do. I’ve read books on it, I’ve read blog posts on it and I’ve spoken to other artists about it, and I still struggle with it.

Most have said, make sure you get what your worth! Just because it is doing something you love, doesn’t mean you undercharge yourself.

I was speaking to a girlfriend about it. She makes exquisite little woven baskets. She said she has had many enquiries from acquaintances to make them and sell them, but she refuses to as people aren’t prepared to pay her for her time to make the item. She said, “It takes me over 30 hours to weave the basket, so if she charged $10 an hour for her time not including cost of product, that’s already $300 dollars.” She said, “as soon as I said that, people just weren’t interested, so I just make them for myself and close family to enjoy.”

I saw a post on instagram the other day from a jeweller and the post was -Why handmade costs more. She wanted to share the important reminder of the costs of running a small business, both to herself as a small business owner (who often undervalues their own work) but also for the customers (as it is easy to compare a small business pricing to a retail store’s pricing).

She went through to show the costs of the product for making her goods, the labeling, wrapping and boxing and postage costs, her shopify fee, her website fee, her office supplies, her subscription fee to the app to do her product photo’s, she then went into detail of the hours, including time taken to buy the product, the make time, the time to take photo’s and edit and upload to the site and to advertise on social media. So the earrings she charged $30.00 for she was making $6 profit.
She finished the post with – “To all my fellow small business owners, don’t forget how valuable your time and skill are!”

So when you look at my artwork, don’t forget the costs of purchasing the canvases, the paint and the paintbrushes, the hours of painting time, (most artworks take layers of paint and time), the framing if framed, the photographing and editing and time taken to upload to the site, the packaging of product, the packaging for mailing and the postage fees. (an eg of this is for me to post a small set of earrings, the cheapest I could do was $5.00), the app for editing my photo’s and the costs associated with a website, I’m sure there are other costs I haven’t thought of.
Added to that the fact that you are buying an ORIGINAL PIECE OF ARTWORK, is the reasoning behind the cost of a product.
And if after reading this you still feel artisans costs are too high, then we are happy for you to go and buy from a retail store, that sells 300 items of the same mass produced product.

So yes, I chose to value my time and skill!