Pricing your work: a working artist's guide

Pricing is the hardest part of being a working artist. Charge too little and you cannot afford to keep working. Charge too much and nobody commissions you. Most artists settle on prices by copying other artists they admire, which is a reasonable place to start but not a strategy.

How gestuo pricing works. Every commission on gestuo falls into one of three tiers:

- Tier 1 — Digital concept. £15–£200. The artist delivers a high-resolution file. No shipping. Fastest turnaround. - Tier 2 — Print. £40–£600. The artwork is professionally printed and shipped. Slower, more expensive, but the buyer owns a physical object. - Tier 3 — Original. £150–£10,000. A one-of-a-kind piece. The longest turnaround, the highest price, and the most personal transaction.

Where the artist's price sits. Within each tier, the artist chooses where they sit. A Tier 1 commission at £15 is appropriate for a quick portrait study. A Tier 1 commission at £200 is appropriate for a fully-rendered, gallery-quality digital work. Same tier, very different effort and skill.

We do not police where artists sit within the band. We do require artists to be honest about what each tier includes — number of revisions, what happens if the buyer declines the concept, etc. The platform fee (10%) and VAT (20%) are added on top of the artist's price, not subtracted from it.

How to think about your own prices. Start with your time. A Tier 1 digital concept typically takes 4–12 hours. Decide what your time is worth per hour, multiply by the time the project will take, then add a margin for revisions and concepting. That is your floor.

Then look at what other artists at your level are charging on the platform. If your floor is significantly higher, you are either under-pricing your skill (and should adjust upward) or you are at the top of your tier (and should move up a tier). If your floor is significantly lower, you are probably under-pricing and leaving money on the table.

The platform fee. gestuo takes 10% to cover payment processing, escrow, dispute resolution, and the platform itself. For Tier 3 originals, the deposit/balance structure is also handled by us. The artist receives 90% of the buyer's payment, less payment processing fees (~2.9% + 30p per transaction in the UK).

VAT. gestuo is VAT-registered in the UK. For UK buyers, 20% VAT is added on top of the artist's price + platform fee. For non-UK buyers, the platform fee and artist's price are zero-rated for VAT, but the buyer may owe VAT in their own country under their local rules.

**The honest answer to "what should I charge" is that we cannot tell you. We can show you what other artists charge, what the bands allow, and what the platform fee is. The rest is your judgement. Most artists adjust their prices every six months based on demand and feedback.