Home › Forums › The Art Business Center › General Art Business › Need pricing advice using the linear inch method!
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October 10, 2017 at 12:39 pm #995322
Hello all! I’m new to this site and excited to be here!
I have been battling myself trying to figure out the best prices for my first art show. I am an abstract artist in NC. I have a decent sized following and lots of support but keep getting mixed advice about pricing.
Some people tell me to look at etsy for comparisons, but I see many large and original paintings being sold for 150 or so, which seems like way too little. Some say to charge hourly but that can be confusing for interested buyers. I have decided to price by linear inch because it seems easiest and most fair. The problem I am having is deciding what to multiply the added height and width by. I saw an article stating that the established artist would multiply by 20, which is obviously too much for me starting out. I am trying to figure out what is the best number for myself, in my area. I was thinking of multiplying by 7, making a 36×36 painting 500. I use good quality materials as well. But still don’t know if that is too much or too little.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Pricing is absolutely annoying so I am thankful to find an experienced community of fellow artists!
Thank you all!October 10, 2017 at 12:58 pm #1272787Hi Abstractlover!
Welcome to WetCanvas, it literally changed my life when I found it! Used to type for lawyers, much nicer to be painting for a living!
As far as the linear method, I can’t help you.
What have your sales so far looked like?
As far as Etsy, I wouldn’t go by what you see in listings. Most of my listings start at $225, but they rarely sell for that size, I almost always sell much larger ones. So it’s hard to tell what sellers are ACTUALLY getting.
Anyway, hopefully someone who charges that way will come along to answer your question.
Robin
October 10, 2017 at 1:08 pm #1272811Hi Abstractlover!
Welcome to WetCanvas, it literally changed my life when I found it! Used to type for lawyers, much nicer to be painting for a living!
As far as the linear method, I can’t help you.
What have your sales so far looked like?
As far as Etsy, I wouldn’t go by what you see in listings. Most of my listings start at $225, but they rarely sell for that size, I almost always sell much larger ones. So it’s hard to tell what sellers are ACTUALLY getting.
Anyway, hopefully someone who charges that way will come along to answer your question.
Thank you! I haven’t had any official sales yet as i am finally starting to put myself out there. I gained a following fast but anxiety stopped me from selling yet because I am still unsure of what to ask for. So i am finally taking the big step this week at my first show and then a second show a few weeks later.
What is your pricing method?
October 10, 2017 at 1:34 pm #1272788What the market bears. I started by looking at my competition and pricing similarly, and raising my prices every year.
I haven’t had to lower again, so I know I’m not too high for my target market.
Robin
October 10, 2017 at 3:27 pm #1272798That is cool that you are selling more of larger sizes, Robin. I have been messing around with smaller sizes and they have been selling immediately upon being posted on FB, but some of my larger ones have been snapped up by one collector also. So I kind of am baffled which way to go. I did order a bunch of 10 x 10″ supports from Blick because I am liking doing the smaller stuff. I am pricing them at the same price per square inch as my larger ones but will raise them a bit. I agree with you that Etsy is not a good source for average prices, but there are people on there selling abstract landscapes 5 x 7″ for $100 or more.
https://www.haroldroth.com/
https://www.instagram.com/haroldrothart
https://www.facebook.com/haroldrothartistOctober 10, 2017 at 7:00 pm #1272794Do mean using a square-inch formula rather than a linear-inch formula? Don’t know how you would do it using linear inches, but please describe.
A good yardstick is to visit local galleries, competitive shows and exhibitions, noting the price of artwork of a quality and subject similar to yours.
All prices are local. For example, prices in New York and Los Angeles have very little to do with prices where I paint in Texas.
Good luck!
Sling paint,
VirgilSling paint,
Virgil Carter
http://www.virgilcarterfineart.com/October 10, 2017 at 8:50 pm #1272806…………All prices are local…………
Unless you’re selling on the world wide web.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/wetcanvas-hdc/Community/images/18-Sep-2019/1999899-sigsmall.jpg
STUDIOBONGOOctober 10, 2017 at 9:06 pm #1272812Do mean using a square-inch formula rather than a linear-inch formula? Don’t know how you would do it using linear inches, but please describe.
A good yardstick is to visit local galleries, competitive shows and exhibitions, noting the price of artwork of a quality and subject similar to yours.
All prices are local. For example, prices in New York and Los Angeles have very little to do with prices where I paint in Texas.
Good luck!
Sling paint,
VirgilLinear inch method is adding height by weight and multiplying by a certain number (say 20) as opposed to multiplying height by width and then multiplying it by a certain number (say 2) like the square inch method. So adding vs multiplying height and width is the only difference. Linear inch method has less of a gap between small and large sized paintings, unlike the square inch method which has a much larger gap in prices. I hope I explained that well! 😊
My only problem is figuring out what my certain number would be. Local shops have some paintings priced in the low thousands. I am new and not yet known in my area, so going off of that is a little difficult. Also, my first few shows do not take a commission on my sales, like those galleries do with their artists. Why is pricing so difficult starting out? Lol I know I and probably most new artists, have trouble asking for several hundred dollars for a painting. So, that is sometging I need to work on as well.
October 11, 2017 at 10:33 pm #1272804I find the linear pricing method to be the most logical if you work in a wide variety of sizes with LARGE stuff being in that mix. I started out working fairly small, nothing over 11×14 and I priced my work comparable to artists that were close to my skill level and were actually selling their work at the galleries I was also hanging in.
Since I was new to the local scene, even though I had more years experience than some of the other artists, I priced my work slightly below theirs but not so low as to make the buyers wonder why it was so cheap. If the best artist in the gallery was getting $700 for a framed 11×14, I priced mine between $500 and $600 to start and some did sell fairly regularly.
When I went to price a new large 36×48 and based it on the approx $3.90 per square inch price of my 11×14, it came out at $6,739 which was more than double the price of anyone else’s work that size in any of the galleries I was showing in. So I tried the linear equivalent of my 11×14 – which produced a price of $24 per linear inch or $2016 for the 36×48. This happened to be about right when compared with most of the larger works by other artists so I went with that and did end up selling some also.
I have noticed that some artists don’t seem to have any kind of pricing method, just pricing it where they want it to be. I think this confuses some buyers when they see an 8×10 for $500 and another one by the same artist that isn’t any more complex for $900, so I stick to the linear price formula, based of my smaller piece pricing and it has worked OK for me. I do add some to the price for 8×10 and smaller pieces which seems to be a fairly common theme among successful artists here.
Be aware that if you are using inexpensive and expensive frames you need to factor that in, otherwise you are going to lose too much money on the expensively framed work vs the less so, if your price per sq inch is based on the cheaper frames. To avoid confusion and questions by the buyers, I use the most expensive frame I might put it in to calculate my base linear price, regardless of which frame I actually use. Remember to increase the cost of your frame by the gross profit margin that matches the gallery commissions or you will lose money on the frames.
October 11, 2017 at 11:48 pm #1272808how do you price round paintings? —1/2 the circumference?
http://s3.amazonaws.com/wetcanvas-hdc/Community/images/18-Sep-2019/1999899-sigsmall.jpg
STUDIOBONGOOctober 12, 2017 at 7:47 pm #1272799So by linear inch to you mean take the longest of the width or length and multiply it by some number?
https://www.haroldroth.com/
https://www.instagram.com/haroldrothart
https://www.facebook.com/haroldrothartistOctober 12, 2017 at 7:57 pm #1272807length plus width times xdollars.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/wetcanvas-hdc/Community/images/18-Sep-2019/1999899-sigsmall.jpg
STUDIOBONGOOctober 14, 2017 at 11:30 am #1272789Virgil, re: all pricing is local?
Only if you are selling local.
If you sell via the internet, the whole world is “local”.
Robin
October 15, 2017 at 7:06 am #1272795theBongolian above – for non-rectangular paintings I would use half the circumference, since that is what length + width boils down to for a rectangle.
Two points come to mind more generally. If you work in different media (in my case printmaking, collage/mixed media and painting) I assume you use the same process with different multipliers for each medium – however arrived at.
Secondly, the approach breaks down in my case for very small works. I’ve been selling some tiny collagraphs and monoprints (about 2″ square) and if I use that price to set the multiplier the larger ones work out too cheap. I’m going to use a larger size as the reference point and treat the tinies as outliers.
With that caveat, I like the approach. It seems to generate prices with a more consistent feel than pricing by area and then fudging it to remove the anomalies created for larger sizes.
Ian
Website - https://ianbertramartist.uk
Instagram: - https://www.instagram.com/ianbertramuk/
Facebook: - https://www.facebook.com/ianbertramartist/October 15, 2017 at 7:44 am #1272800Half the circumference for round ones, I think. Because length + width is only for two sides.
I tried this with smaller ones, and it almost doubled the price. I don’t know…
https://www.haroldroth.com/
https://www.instagram.com/haroldrothart
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