This minimum rate is what you have to charge to survive. This is your minimum hourly rate - if people try to talk you into charging less than your minimum hourly rate, whether that's clients, or other artists, or friends or family or strangers, ignore them and move on. So, if you can work full-time on commissions and need to make $1000 a month from commissions, double that to $2000 and divide it by 100 hours, equalling a minimum rate of $20 per hour. If you've ended up with an hourly rate of under $10 through this formula, round it up to $10. Divide this by the number of hours you can work on commissions per month, at a maximum of 100 hours per month.Īny more than 100 hours per month is unsustainable - believe me I've tried. Here's an easy way to figure out a minimum hourly rate, regardless of your living circumstances: Take the amount you need to make every month from commissions to cover your monthly living expenses, then double it - to account for other expenses like taxes, sick days, holidays, replacing equipment etc. A simple formula for minimum hourly rates for commissions There are so many factors and expenses that you have to handle in self-employment as a freelance artist, it's not fair to compare it to an employee's wage - but I'll get into that later. I remember hearing some of the hourly rates charged by freelance artists, and comparing it to my wage at work, and figured freelance artists must all be wealthy!Īlthough rates of $100 an hour, $50 an hour or even $30 an hour sounds like loads of money, the reality of being a freelance artist is a little less glamorous.
BECOMING A FREELANCE ARTIST REDDIT HOW TO
How to calculate your hourly rateīefore I got into doing freelance and commissions, my only jobs had been in someone else's employment. Since the price of a commission is usually agreed on with a client before you begin working, you have to figure those two things out first, to then be able to give clients an accurate price.
So, that essentially requires you to know two things - how long does your art take, and how much per hour do you need to make? The best measurement digital artists can use to charge a sustainable price for our commissions, is to track the actual time spent making a piece of art, and multiply that by an hourly rate that we know covers our time.
Nor can you really price your art by square inch, like you might price a physical canvas, since in digital art the size of your canvas is so easy to change and doesn't correlate as much with the time you spend making a piece of art. Since you'll almost always be sending a digital file to your client, cost of materials isn't a factor in digital art pricing. Unfortunately, most price calculators on the internet are aimed at traditional artists, and as a digital artist, you can't price your work the same way. If you charge too much, you might find yourself with no work in sight, and still unable to pay those bills! If you don't charge enough, you may find yourself under a mountain of work yet still unable to pay all your bills. Calculating your prices is an important step before taking art commissions - you don't need your prices to be absolutely spot on before you begin, but you also don't want to be way off.
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