Pricing digital art commissions can be tricky. You value your digital art, so you don’t want to undersell it, but you still want to remain competitive. These TOP 6 tips on how much to charge for digital art commissions make it easy for you to find the right price. So let’s dive in and see how art commissions work!
Selling digital art commissions is one of the best ways for artists to generate an income, along with selling digital downloads and selling digital printables.
In a previous post, I already talked about the best places to sell digital art commissions. In this post now, I’ve put together a quick guide on how much to charge for digital art commissions.
Pricing is always a delicate topic and many artists are not sure how much they can ask for their work. Whether it be art prints, print-on-demand products, services, courses, and other things you can make money with as a digital artist. It’s never easy to figure out the ‘right’ price for your offerings.
So when you ask me in general: how much should I charge for digital art commissions? Then my answer would be: it depends.
The key to offering commissions is to price your work in a way that allows you to earn a decent hourly wage and accept only as many commissions as you can handle at any given time.
You should not undervalue your work. But you shouldn’t overprice it either so that you cannot keep up with your competitors in the market.
Pricing digital art commissions correctly actually depends on a number of factors that may be different for each artist and that we are going to look into right now!
TOP 6 Tips On
How Much To Charge For Digital Art Commissions
Not sure how much to charge for digital art commissions? These TOP 6 Tips make it easy for you to price your work!
1.
The first factor that influences the pricing of your digital art commissions is time.
If you are unsure about everything else, you can just focus on the time factor. This is the simplest way to price an art commission.
Figure out how many hours it took you to create a particular piece. Did you spend 2 hours on it? 6 hours? 8 hours? Or even a couple of days?
Once you figured out your working time, you’ll need to decide how much you want to get paid per hour.
The hourly rate also depends on where you live.
Someone from India or the Philippines gets a much lower salary than people from the United States or Australia. A good way to start is by finding out the minimum wage per hour in your country and then take it from there.
For example, if people in your area are getting paid 20$ per hour, you can take this salary as a starting point. Also consider to what country you want to sell your digital art commissions when figuring out the pricing.
2.
The next factor that determines how much you can charge for digital art commissions is originality.
Ask yourself: how unique is your product? Is the commission something that only you can do? Or do you have many competitors that offer the same type of work?
Let me give you an example. If you offer digital illustrations of pet portraits, you cannot charge as much as an artist who offers, for instance, surreal photo manipulations in their very own style.
Related: How To Develop A Unique Art Style
Take a look at your competitors in the market. What do they sell their commissions for? If other artists charge, for example, $30 for a pet portrait, you cannot sell yours for $100. You want to stay competitive, but at the same time you don’t want to sell your commissions below market prices either.
Try to find a middle way that satisfies both you and the market!
3.
Two other factors that will play a role when you decide on how much to charge for digital commissions are your reputation as an artist and your skill level.
Both skill level and reputation develop over time. If you’ve been making digital art for ten years, your skills are obviously better than someone’s who is just starting out.
The same is true for your reputation. If you’ve already established yourself in the art world, sold some pieces and build a solid following on social media, your market value increases.
Related: 12 Sure-Fire Ways To Get Your Artwork Seen [Exposure For Your Art]
Try to find other artists with a similar skill level to yours and check how much they charge for their digital art commissions. You will see that some artists ask more, some ask less, independently of their skill level.
So have a look at a number of examples and make out an average price of what people are asking. That way, you should be able to get a good baseline for what you can charge.
4.
This is an important point to take into account when pricing your commissions. There is a huge difference between the personal use of an image and using it for commercial purposes.
Personal use of an image is, for example, when someone commissions an artwork in order to hang it on the wall in their home or use it as a wallpaper on their smartphone.
On the other hand, an image is used commercially when the person who purchased it wants to resell it on print-on-demand products or use it for their marketing brochures.
Related: What Is Commercial Use Of An Image? (+ FREE License Agreement Template)
These different types of usage require different image licenses and also come with different price levels.
So always make sure to find out what the buyer wants to use your digital art commission for and then price it accordingly. Commissions for personal use usually sell at a lower price than commercial commissions.
The extra for commercial commissions can be between 50% and 100% (or even more) of the price of a commission for personal use.
That means if you charge 100$ for a personal digital art commission, you can up the price to 150$ or more if someone wants to use your work commercially.
5.
There are always expenses that an artist has to cover, regardless of whether they make digital or traditional art.
Traditional artists have arguably more expenses than digital artists, as there are a lot of consumables (like paints, brushes, canvases, etc.) that need to be purchased again once they’ve been used up.
Related: How Is Digital Art Different From Traditional Art?
While digital artists don’t need to replace any consumables on a regular basis (maybe a pen nib here and there), they still need to pay for their working tools.
Every digital artists needs to have at least a basic drawing tablet, some also use more sophisticated display tablets.
Then you need a software program to create your artwork. Even though there is a good deal of free apps available, a program with advanced features always needs to be paid for.
If you’re using a powerful editing program like Photoshop, which many artists do, then you need to count in a monthly subscription fee. But also if you work with Corel Painter or Clip Studio Paint, you have initial purchase costs.
Apart from that, many artists have their own website where they advertise their commissions. A website comes with hosting or subscription fees, depending on whether you’ve created your artist website with WordPress or whether you are using one of the website builders for artists.
Related: 10 Reasons Why You Should Make A Website For Your Art
The digital art hardware and software you buy and use, the website you create, and any other thing you might invest in are important stepping stones on your way to selling digital art commissions. That’s why you shouldn’t shy away from taking these investments into account when you price you commissions. After all, every company does the same!
6.
Now, there are a few other cost factors to add in when it comes to how much to charge for digital art commissions.
Most of the time, you will be delivering your digital art commission over the internet. In rare exceptions, you might be asked to ship a print of your work. In these cases, you’ll need to include your costs for paper, printing, packaging, and shipping.
Some artists also add their living expenses, like electricity and space, to the price of the commission. This can be reasonable when you are renting a studio to work. However, if you are working from home, it’s probably easier to consider stuff like that in your hourly rate.
Another thing to take into account might be your education. Did you spend three years in art school to get a degree? Even if you are self-taught, you might have joined online courses on Skillshare, Udemy or LinkedIn Learning to perfect your skills.
Related: How To Teach Yourself Digital Art – 5 Tips For Beginners To Get Started
So do keep all of that in mind when figuring out how much to charge for your digital art commissions!
Digital art commission form
When accepting commissions, you should always use a written digital art commission form and never make verbal agreements only!
It’s important to protect yourself by having everything detailed out in writing before you start working on the project.
That way, you make sure that both you and the client are on the same page (pun intended). Make sure you agree on a price and a delivery deadline and go over all the other details relating to the commission work. That helps avoid misunderstandings and disappointments on both sides.
Here are some things that you should not forget to mention in your digital art commission form:
- Describe the commission project. What is the subject of the digital art commission? Are you making a painting, drawing, or photo manipulation? Will you work from one reference photo or will you need more? Decide if you want to leave room for changes during the project. If so, do you want these changes to be paid extra or are they included in the price?
- Set a deadline for the project. Get a precise idea of the commission the client desires and then see how much time it will take you to complete. Don’t let yourself rush into finishing them pell-mell. Try to find a timeframe that’s acceptable for both of you.
- Specify the delivery details. Let the buyer know in advance how you will deliver the project. In most cases, you will send the finished digital commission via email. In rare cases, the client might want to an art print sent to their home. Then how much will you charge for printing, packaging and delivery? Will there be any other costs, such as customs? How long will it take to ship the product?
- Set out your payment terms. How can the client pay you? Do you use PayPal or Stripe? Do you prefer direct bank transfer or check? More importantly, when do you want to get paid? Upon delivery of the artwork or at the beginning of the project? Usually, it’s a good idea to ask for an upfront payment of 30% to 50%, and the rest at the end of the project.
- Inform about progress updates. Oftentimes, it is useful to email progress updates to make sure the client is happy with what they will get. If the client wants any changes, they can give you feedback and you have enough time to adapt the project.
- Claim your copyright. The copyright always stays with you as the author of the work, even if you’re selling it to the client to use. Make sure your client understands that the work still belongs to you and that they are not allowed to reproduce or resell it without your permission.
