Art Pricing Calculator

Cost-based pricing adds up materials and labour, then applies a markup. The calculator uses defaults of £45 materials, 8 hours at £30 per hour, and a 50% markup, which gives £427 for a 50x70cm painting. Per-square-inch pricing multiplies width-times-height in inches by a flat rate - here £15 per square inch as default. The same 50x70cm painting (about 19.7 x 27.6 inches, or 543 sq inches) comes out at £8,145 at £15/sq inch. The difference is huge and that's the point - the methods serve different career stages.

Use cost-based pricing when you're new, selling direct, and trying to hit a price point a non-collector will pay. Use per-square-inch when you have a sales track record, gallery representation, and your work commands a stable rate that buyers compare against your peers. The calculator shows both numbers side by side so you can see where you sit. The gap usually closes as your career grows: emerging artists at £2-£4 per square inch climb to £15-£30 over 5-10 years, then jump to £50-£200+ when galleries start dictating prices.

Per-square-inch rates roughly correlate with career stage. Hobbyist or self-taught: £1-£3 per square inch. Emerging artist with a portfolio: £3-£8. Mid-career with a gallery and 5+ solo shows: £10-£30. Established with consistent collector demand: £30-£100. Major artist with auction record: £100-£10,000. The calculator's £15 default sits at the upper-emerging / lower-mid level. Drop it to £3 for your first ten paintings and raise it deliberately as you sell out shows.

The trap is jumping straight to a number you've seen another artist use. Sarah at the gallery up the road might charge £25 per square inch, but she has a 15-year track record and a waiting list. If you set yours at £25 with no track record, your work doesn't sell, and you can't 'reduce' the price next year without signalling failure. Better to start at £4-£6, sell out a couple of small shows, and step the rate up by 20% per year. Once you're at £15-£20 and selling consistently, the gallery conversation becomes easier.

Most artists use width times height in inches for square-inch pricing. A 24x36 inch painting is 864 square inches; at £10 per square inch, that's £8,640. Some artists use 'linear inches' (width plus height), which gives wildly different results: 24+36 = 60 linear inches; at £10 per linear inch, just £600. Linear pricing is more common in markets where buyers want consistent prices across paintings of different aspect ratios; square-inch pricing rewards larger work disproportionately and is what most galleries use.

The calculator uses square inches because that's the international gallery standard. If you find your work isn't selling because the larger pieces feel overpriced, two things to try: cap the per-square-inch rate at a maximum painting size (so anything over 36x48 inches is priced at a discount), or switch to linear-inch pricing for smaller works and keep square-inch for larger commissions. Either is more honest than starting with mixed conventions and confusing your buyers.

When the cost-based price is much higher than the per-square-inch price, you're either overestimating your hours or underpricing your work for the format. Either work faster (or estimate hours more honestly) or raise your per-square-inch rate. When per-square-inch is much higher, the rate is aspirational for your size of work - either drop it to a more realistic level or paint larger to capture the rate's benefits.

The sweet spot is when the two numbers come out within 20-30% of each other. That tells you your hourly rate, your markup and your per-square-inch rate are all roughly aligned. Established artists usually have these three numbers consistent within a tight band, which is what 'pricing maturity' looks like. For the cost side, see the [painting cost calculator](/painting-cost-calculator); for the marketplace fees that take a slice when you sell, see the [Etsy fee calculator](/etsy-fee-calculator).