What Is the Average Price for a 24 by 36 Fine Art Print

For those who regularly check into Amend Photography yous may have seen my articles on business organisation. I accept been actively pursuing a side gig of selling my landscape prints around Southern Utah and take been seeing some success. With the successes and failures I have learned a few things, one of those is the nearly asked question out there. Today I am going to tackle that question: how to price my prints?

To be honest, I sell more than physical prints than ninety% of photographers (I think anyways). I don't say this to brag. I make enough to embrace my photography and to pay boosted bills while merely working four hours on Sat mornings. I say this to let you lot know I have a decent agreement of pricing and how information technology works.

I besides have been in two galleries, so I know that world… well just a lilliputian. Not a ton, simply plenty to become an thought on what to expect if that is the route you are wanting to pursue.

The other matter that I exercise is heed to podcasts. Not just photography ones, merely business concern and economic podcasts. As of right now I listen to seven different podcasts that intertwine money, finances and business in some way. Easily ii-3 hours of my week is defended to this, usually while I am getting set for work, driving out to photograph, and driving to and from work.

I besides happen to be married to a wonderful woman who has a degree in business management whom talks to me well-nigh principles of business.

I am no professional in every respect of finance and business, only I have a groundwork with real world experience.

With all that is said, lets dive into a very complicated topic, and mayhap shed some low-cal on the world of pricing photography.

What is your business?

This is the almost important decisions you demand to make correct now with your business organization.This will dictate the remainder of your decisions from this betoken on out. I have broken downwards the three basic business models for fine art photographers and probably their business model to generate income.

Option A

• Licence photos
• Tutorials
• Workshops
• Prints

These people make a majority of their income from the first iii bullets on the listing. They probably sell a few prints a calendar month and don't plan on it equally their primary source of income. Many professional photographers fall into this category. They dearest printing, but in the finish they don't make information technology a priority in their business concern model. Considering of this, their prints cost fair fleck more than your average photographer like me.

Option B

• Your main goal is to sell lots of prints
• Don't focus on anything else

This is me. I am not focusing on whatever other course of income only volition accept any other grade as it comes.

Option C

• Sell few merely expensive prints
• They piece of work through galleries and art dealers.

I know a few of these guys. You lot have to have a proper name in the industry to pull off this model. If you have not made a splash in the photography world, this route is probably out of your reach. You need to build to this point. Rarely will you find yourself here at the beginning of your photography career. On a side note Option B and Option C don't become along that well if they begin to overlap and you will run into why in a chip.

What Is A Impress Worth?

Before I go whatever farther let me break downward some principles that must be understood to properly price your prints.

There are million dollar photos in this world. But something you should know is that you do not gear up the value of the impress. Of form you set the price, but the worth of a print is set past your audition. If they perceive your photographs being worth $500 dollars y'all can sell it at such. If they perceive your prints to only exist valued at $5… that is what they are worth and what you lot can sell them at. This is where you have to step back and ask yourself how much would you really pay for the print. This may hurt your photographer ego. If you imagined walking downward a route and saw your print and wanted to purchase it, how much would you really pay for information technology? You might ask an unbiased audience if you want to get a second opinion. If you only call up your prints are worth $5 or $ten dollars, the impress market is non for y'all. If you discover that you lot would pay $20 plus dollars for it, you might take a chance.

How Material Furnishings Price

Material furnishings price drastically. There are 2 reasons for this. If you print on expensive stuff, you have to accuse more to recover costs. Different materials also conduct more value, even though they really may non be the all-time for your photograph. If you print on metal, you lot will be able to charge more considering it carries novelty and people run into it as worth more. I can sell a 20×xxx metal print for 3x the amount I tin sell the same epitome in a luster paper impress.

Material matters. Cull your material wisely.

The popularity of canvas prints has been massively increasing. I accept grown to really LOVE CanvasPop for my canvas printing needs. They just make it so easy. They too practice framed prints, photo collages, and triptch prints (These are and then cool to me)

Presentation Matters

Want to know how a hole in the wall and a v star restaurant differ when they both sell tacos? Presentation. They might even become their meat from the same moo-cow. Simply if one uses white plates with a dash of salad on the side and the pretty drizzle that zig zags its way beyond that plate they volition accuse more, even if the hole in the wall has better tacos.

Present cheap, sell cheap. Present high dollar sell high dollar. In the photography globe that means sell your prints disordered. Put a frame on it (if yous are in a gallery). I was selling my pictures without mats and people thought $xv was an exorbitant amount for a picture. I threw on some mats from Amazon on them and suddenly $xx is a steal of a bargain and information technology only price me around $i extra.

Literally that's is all you lot demand to know virtually this discipline.

Size Matters

As rule of thumb in the fine art earth, the bigger that art piece is the more expensive it should be. So if you are wanting to sell your prints for $500 dollars or college, it better exist a big impress. People will pay a lot for size; non so much for quality. Equally a side note on this, I was reading from a website that says you should charge a minimum of $51 dollars for a 8×x or you are losing money. I think that is crazy for a tiny impress. No i in their correct mind buys prints for that small and for that much unless its from someone famous. This leads me to my next topic.

Turn a profit Price Bend

Lets talk about the profit price curve. The turn a profit price curve shows an idea that if you price as well low you can't sell enough products to make upwardly the difference in profit that you would take fabricated if you just charged more. It also shows that if you lot overprice your product you won't ever make a sell and thus you lot wont pay your bills. The reason there are no prices on the graph below is considering the toll is totally based on the seller's needs equally well every bit the audience's. The goal is to discover yourself somewhere in the center of the graph. Middle ways you are maximizing sales and making the most turn a profit. If you lot notice yourself selling lots of prints but not making much, you are likewise low on this turn a profit bend. If yous are finding that you are inappreciably making any sales you lot might be as well high on the price side of the axis. Don't  be discouraged. This takes time to perfect!

Pricing Rules

On the business concern side of things, we need to get-go looking at a phrase called price of good sold (COGS). Cost of proficient sold is how much it costs you to actually print an image and go it to its terminal presentation. The first stride is to become to your printer and encounter how much it costs you to impress an image. I volition use one of my printers, Pixel Foto and Frame, and get to their price list to assist with this example. I will be printing a xi×14 impress (I don't ordinarily print this size) which costs me $iii.90.

Sweat! Now that I have my print am I done?

No!

How are y'all going to display this image? Volition you lot be just shipping information technology out equally is or volition you put it in a small matted frame and bag and sell it at an fine art bear witness?

Ok, lets shoot for that set upward. That is a impress in a sheath of plastic with a mat and backing and then that it is business firm and protected and looks sexy. I utilise this clear bag, mat, and backing set on Amazon for my art evidence set ups. Then for this example I found a quick sixteen×20 mat that is cutting to hold a 11×14 image. I tin can typically get 50 numberless, mats and backing for around $25 dollars. After dividing out the toll of the ready up, it simply cost $0.50

One time you lot add you impress cost $3.xc, to your display set up $0.50 price, your total cost is $4.40.

Now what?

Since it is art you lot can do a couple things. Y'all tin throw all caution to the air current and accuse $300 for the price of the print, go far a limited edition of fifteen and endeavor to sell it. Be my invitee, simply you will be unlikely to sell out.

Why?

Remember the principles in a higher place? Luster newspaper prints tin can be valued at less because information technology is non a premium product. It is a lower form material. Too a eleven×fourteen print is relatively small and in the fine art world, size matters. Larger prints will always fetch a higher dollar amount. If you are working with such small-scale sizes it volition never go anywhere at a $300 dollar price tag unless you lot accept a name for yourself.

Your other option is to follow a bones principle of pricing appurtenances, that is, accuse anywhere between 2x or 7x the COGS price . And then we could charge $22.00 considering that follows the rule of 5x COGS. But call back this is fine art. Size does play a role in the price of the good. Since you are larger than the standard 8×ten print y'all should charge more than. Since we are going to get by that idea, lets exercise the 7x the cost of practiced and accuse $30.00 dollars for the impress. At that charge per unit you will probably sell a off-white corporeality of these prints and y'all will exist making $26.40 dollars per print. If in a single show you sell 4 of these in 3 hours, you lot only made $106 +/- a few bucks  for whatever you are being charged in taxes and credit card fees.

So the about important thing from this section was the 2x and the 7x the COGS price point. If you are struggling with a bones price bespeak, start here.

The Price of Good Sold method and the pricing rule works all-time for photographers who run by Business concern Model A and B. Information technology is easy to work with and since y'all are planning on selling lots of prints with loftier turn over you should practise well.

Online Pricing

What if you are not selling lots of photos and but programme on selling online? There are a few points to remember about here. It's non likely that you will sell lots of prints through your web site with mobs and mobs of photographers out in that location all vying for peoples attention offering great photos for a dime a dozen, few people actually ever buy prints through photographers' spider web site.

Merely any, let's say you lot want to do information technology any ways. Use the previous pricing method, but don't include the matting, unless y'all say yous will include it in the print. Y'all may charge less for not doing the matting or you can simply charge what y'all call back the print is worth. Then if you think the print is worth $xl sell it at that without all the fancy set up upwards. You might sell a few.

But Nathan, don't yous sell prints on your website? Why practice you sound so negative? So in the past year I have sold 1 impress from my website. That was during Christmas of last year. I accept sold over 100 prints in person in the last two months lonely. I take it there so people can simply see price points and come up back to me in person and buy.

Option C Photographers

So your goal in life is to exist a galleried photographer. You want to take high price points. Follow this principle.

Information technology is easier to sell 2 $10,000 dollar prints, than 200 $100 dollar prints.

If you are going large, go big. Call back the rules up above. Print only using the highest quality printing fabric. Print larger prints. Frame your images and then that they stand up out professionally in all ways.

Gear up all your images to limited edition. Scarcity creates desire and value. That goes back to economic science' supply and demand graph. In gild the create an artificial scarcity, prints are limited. If the day comes that you lot are that high in demand, your work volition go upwardly in value subsequently the sale. Very few photographers will always get that. I would not programme on it, but if it happens we will be the outset people to cheer you lot on!

So how practise y'all price your prints?

We know the toll of goods model dictates that your prints should exist 2x to 7x the corporeality it takes to produce the product. Since you will probably be selling with a gallery, they typically charge twenty% l% of the total sale as a commission . Then if you charge $300 for a xx×30 metal print that price you $150 to produce, the gallery could take $150 of information technology and you will exist left with goose egg.

The 2x the price rule does non work well hither.

Now lets call back well-nigh the 7x the price rule. Information technology still cost you lot $150 dollars to produce your image that you sold for $ane,050. The gallery is nonetheless going to pull 50% of the auction (Estimating high) all the same, only since you lot are selling at $i,050 you will walk away with $375 dollars in net profit. Non bad. It will take well-nigh four prints at this high price point for you to make $1,500 which pays you at roughly $9 dollars/hour. After taxes you lot could be making close to $7.

Say hello to minimum wage.

So the 7x the price dominion even so does not use here either very well. Information technology works better when the item cost more than to produce, but you are still potentially facing the aforementioned trouble.

In order to sell in galleries you lot will have to accept the pretentious creative person philosophy and accuse more… A lot more than.

When preparing to sell at galleries, charge what you want. Figure out what you want your monthly salary to be, separate that out between your prints and set up your price bespeak. I personally would not sell anything in a gallery for less than $850 dollars and that's only if the gallery is taking 30% of the auction. If you find that you are non selling prints at your chosen cost point, lower the price to run into if causes people to buy. Go along in mind, you may have to wait until you lot are out of the gallery that you are in to do so.

Exercise Market place Research

My final thoughts are to do some market research before setting your concluding print toll. Await up half a dozen photographers in the area and run across what their prices are. Determine their skill level and run into what price points they are charging. You tin can toll match, undercut them, or yous could charge more depending on how yous feel your work should exist valued in comparison to theirs. All possiblities could work. I fix my print prices using all of the higher up rules. I've talked with many photographers and analyzed their prices.

If y'all want to inquire other photographers nearly their prices, you can in the Improve Your Photography Community on Facebook. Click here to join!

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Source: https://improvephotography.com/49062/price-photography-prints/

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