Pricing an original work online sits at the intersection of craft, market, and confidence. It is the line where every other strategic decision becomes legible, and the place where most artist-run stores quietly undercut themselves.
Here is the field guide we share with the artists we work with.
Three numbers, in this order
Before you publish a price, write down three numbers privately:
- Studio cost — what the work owes you in materials, time, and overhead.
- Market position — what comparable artists at your stage receive, in your medium, in your geographies.
- Long-term floor — the lowest price you can hold for the next three years without resentment.
If your published price falls below any of these, the listing should not go live yet.
The page price is a public commitment
Once a price exists in public, you are committing to defend it across every channel — galleries, fairs, secondary, future studio visits. Discounts to favoured collectors are private; the published number is the spine.
This is why we resist sale tags, urgency widgets, and "from / to" ranges on originals. They corrode the spine.
A note on tiers
A useful structure for an artist with a developed practice:
- Studies and works on paper — accessible entry, often $1k–$3k.
- Mid-scale paintings or sculpture — the centre of the catalogue, $5k–$25k.
- Large signature works — held back, sold by enquiry, priced on application.
Show all three on the site. Let collectors meet you at the level they are ready for.
Closing
A price is not a verdict on your worth. It is a sentence in a long conversation between you, the market, and the people who will eventually live with the work. Write it carefully. Then let the rest of the site stand quietly behind it.
Gilad Levy
Written from the studio. For more notes on the practice, return to the magazine.
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