How to Price Artwork: The Square-Inch Formula Artists Use, From First Sale to Gallery

How to Price Your Art 1:18:31

To price artwork, multiply a painting’s height by its width in inches, then multiply that by your rate per square inch. Once you’re selling to people you’ve never met, $2 to $3 a square inch is a common place to start. A 24 by 30 inch painting at $2 a square inch comes to $1,440. That number is your retail price, and it stays the same everywhere you sell.

Everything below comes from Elli Milan, who founded Milan Art Institute, and the live pricing workshop she teaches. If no one has bought from you yet, start with the three phases further down.

How do artists price their art?

Most artists price their art by size, using one set rate per square inch. The rate itself comes from four things: the quality of the painting, your skill, your materials, and how much demand there is for your art.

Quality is the hard truth, and Elli doesn’t soften it. If two paintings carry the same price and one has muddy color and a weak composition, buyers can tell right away which one is worth it. The fix is to raise your skill, not to argue with the price.

Materials count too. A painting on a thin, cheap canvas can’t ask what the same painting on a thick gallery-wrapped canvas can. Varnish, a clean finish and a wire on the back, ready to hang, all support a higher number. So does generous paint.

Size you already know. Nobody believes a tiny painting costs more than the big abstract across the room.

What’s missing from that list?

Time. Elli is firm on this: the hours a painting took don’t go into the price.

Say a portrait drawing takes you three hours because you’re still learning. The collector shouldn’t pay extra for that. A painter who sketches the same portrait in ten minutes isn’t worth less for being fast, either. Price by the hour and you charge the most for your slowest paintings.

Your skill and materials are already in your rate.

Where do you start if you’ve never sold a painting?

You start at the bottom, and that’s fine. Elli describes three phases every artist goes through:

1. Phase one: a few sales, prices all over the place. Maybe you’ve sold to friends and family. Each price reflects how confident you felt that day.
2. Phase two: steadier sales, prices settling into a range. Strangers are buying now, and you’re starting to see what sells.
3. Phase three: an established price list. You sell a predictable amount each month, and you could tell a gallery last year’s sales without looking them up.

In phase one there’s no demand yet, so there’s no fixed rate either. Elli puts the starting range at about $50 to $2,500. A small sketch on paper might be $50. A large, skilled oil painting with no sales history behind it tops out around $2,500. Size, quality, uniqueness and skill decide where you land in that range.

Expect some trial and error here. You might price a 24 by 30 at $400, then find it sells better at $600. That’s how phase one works. The goal is to get to a written, standard price as soon as you can.

How does the square-inch formula work?

The square-inch formula is height times width times your rate. You move to it in phase two, once paintings are selling and designers, dealers or consultants start asking for your prices.

Here’s the math:

• A 24 by 30 inch painting is 24 × 30 = 720 square inches.
• At $2 a square inch, that’s 720 × $2 = $1,440.
• At $3 a square inch, the same painting is $2,160.

Work that out for every size you like to paint and you have a price list. If you measure in centimeters, convert first or use a rate per square centimeter.

What about small paintings?

Small paintings come out so cheap they look like throwaways. Someone in the workshop chat asked about this. In her example, at $1 a square inch, a 48 by 48 was $2,304, but an 8 by 8 was only $64.

Elli’s answer was to round the small sizes up. If the math says $64, price it at $150 or $175 instead. Another idea from the workshop chat was to add a minimum to every painting. With a $150 minimum plus $2 a square inch, an 8 by 8 becomes $278 and a 24 by 30 becomes $1,590. The small paintings stop looking like an afterthought.

The gap also shrinks as your rate goes up. At $2.50 a square inch, a 12 by 12 is $360, which is a fair price for a small original.

Square inch or linear inch pricing?

Square inch pricing is the industry standard, and it’s what galleries, designers and dealers will ask you for. Linear inch pricing adds height and width instead of multiplying them, so a 24 by 30 is 54 linear inches.

Linear pricing narrows the spread. Small paintings cost more and big paintings cost less. Elli says it’s a personal choice, but changing systems after you’ve built a sales history is hard (she compares it to switching from imperial to metric). If you go linear, be ready to give a rough per square inch figure when someone in the trade asks.

How do you price artwork for a gallery?

You give the gallery your retail price list, the same list you’d use to sell to a collector yourself. The gallery sells at that price and keeps its share, which is often half.

This is the most important thing Elli learned about pricing: your price list is for the collector. Everyone between you and the collector works out their own cut from it. In the Mastery Program’s selling lessons she adds one tip. Label it “Retail Price List,” so nobody thinks you expect that amount from them.

Here’s roughly what you’d keep on a painting that retails for $1,000, by who sells it:

Who sells it	What you keep
You, directly to the collector	All of it, $1,000
A gallery	About half, $500
A wholesaler	About 40%, $400
A dealer buying in bulk	About 15% to 20%, $150 to $200, often paid up front
A licensing company or publisher	About 10%

The decor market sits at the low end. Elli says she very seldom sees prices above about $3 a square inch there at entry level, and some dealers pay the artist around 15% of retail.

Why should your price be the same everywhere?

One price everywhere builds trust. Elli uses Apple as the example. If an iPhone cost one thing in New York and less in Alabama, people would hunt for the cheap one and wait for sales, and the brand would lose its value.

Art works the same way. If your 24 by 30 is $1,440 in a gallery and $700 at your tent show, the gallery has no reason to carry you. And the collector who paid $1,440 feels cheated. When the price never changes, a buyer trusts that $1,440 is what the painting is worth, and that it’ll still be worth at least that next year.

When should you raise your prices?

Raise your prices when demand outruns your supply. That’s the point where galleries, dealers or buyers want more paintings than you can make.

You control that demand more than you think. Elli’s point is that art turns normal supply and demand upside down. Every original is already one of a kind, so painting more doesn’t make your art less rare. It gets more eyes on it, and that creates demand.

When you do raise, make it a real step: about 25 percent, or roughly $1 a square inch. At $2, your 24 by 30 was $1,440. At $2.50, it’s $1,800. A tiny raise goes unnoticed and does nothing.

Once you reach about $5 a square inch, you have room for other price points, like signed, numbered limited editions or a lower-priced studio series. Before that, an $800 print next to a $1,200 original won’t sell, because buyers just take the original.

What are the five never-evers of pricing?

Elli ends her workshop with five rules she says never to break:

1. Never lower your prices once you’ve set a precedent. Picture a collector finding a painting like theirs at half the price.
2. Never be without a written price list. Even at a tent show, a price on paper builds trust.
3. Never price the same painting differently in two places. Two galleries, one price.
4. Never apologize for your price. Say “It’s $800” like you mean it.
5. Never raise your prices because the crowd looks wealthy. If you can’t hold that higher price everywhere from then on, don’t charge it anywhere.

She also warns against the year-end sale, where unsold paintings get marked down before Christmas. Your old paintings are worth holding. A collector who owns an early piece from an artist who later grows in value has something worth more over time.

There’s one exception she allows. A painting that’s truly special (gold leaf, a piece made during something rare in your life) can be priced above your formula. But that higher price is then that painting’s price for good.

What if a buyer hesitates at the price?

Often it isn’t the money. Joc Armor, who runs Milan Art Gallery, says one of the most common reasons people don’t buy is that they can’t picture where the painting would go.

So offer help, not a discount. Ask to see a photo of their room and show them where it would hang. You’re the expert on your own art.

A strong title helps too. Elli teaches that a good title can sell a painting, so give each piece on your list a real one, not “Girl with Flower.”

How do you find the price of a painting you already own?

To find what a painting is worth, start with the artist’s own price list, website or gallery. A working artist with set prices has already done the math. For older art or a well-known name, look up auction results for that artist’s paintings of a similar size and medium. For anything valuable, pay a certified appraiser.

How do you handle commissions?

Price a commission from your normal list, then put a written policy around it. A common setup is a 50 percent non-refundable deposit up front and the balance once the client approves the finished painting, with delivery after final payment. Have the client sign it before you start.

Custom paintings carry extra back-and-forth that studio paintings don’t, so read how to price art commissions for that math and how to set up art commissions for the full process. For more on what to charge and why, Rita Vicari covers common mistakes in How to Price Your Artwork to Get More Sales on The Light Movement Podcast.

Price it like it matters

Pick your rate, write it down, label it Retail Price List, and use it everywhere. Then paint a lot, get your paintings in front of people, and raise the price when demand catches up with you.

A price list only works on art people want to own, so photograph your art well and keep growing the skill behind it. When you’re ready for the next step, read how to sell your art and explore the full sell and price your art collection. If you want to sharpen the painting itself first, Milan Art Institute’s 2-Week Challenge is a good place to begin.

Frequently asked questions

How much should I charge per square inch?

Once you're selling steadily to people you don't know, $2 to $3 a square inch is a common starting rate. Before that, most artists price by feel somewhere between about $50 for a small study and $2,500 for a large, well-made painting. Raise the rate by about 25 percent, or roughly $1 a square inch, when demand outruns what you can paint.

How do you price artwork for a gallery?

Give the gallery your retail price list, the same prices you'd charge a collector directly. The gallery sells at that price and keeps its commission, often around half. Never mark your prices up for a gallery or down for your own show, because the collector should pay the same price anywhere.

Should I charge for the hours a painting took?

No. Time isn't part of the price. A collector shouldn't pay more because a painting took you longer, and a faster, more skilled painter isn't worth less. Your rate per square inch already holds your skill, quality and materials.

How do you price small paintings?

Low square-inch rates make small paintings look too cheap, since an 8 by 8 at $1 is only $64. Round small pieces up, or add a set minimum to every painting and then add the square-inch amount on top.

Should I use square inch or linear inch pricing?

Square inch pricing multiplies height by width, and it's what galleries, designers and dealers expect. Linear inch pricing adds height and width, which narrows the gap between small and large paintings. Either works, but switching later is hard, so pick one early.

How do you price watercolor paintings and art on paper?

Use the same square-inch method with a lower rate than you'd use for oil or acrylic on a good canvas. Materials and finish change the rate: a thick gallery-wrapped canvas, varnish and a hanging wire all support a higher price than thin paper or a cheap canvas.

When should I raise my prices?

Raise them when demand outruns your supply, when buyers and dealers want more paintings than you can make. Go up about 25 percent, or around $1 a square inch, so the change is real. Then build demand again before the next raise.

How do I price commissioned paintings?

Start from your normal price list, then add a written commission policy. A common setup is a 50 percent non-refundable deposit up front and the balance once the client approves the finished painting, with delivery after final payment.