Pricing Digital Art For Sale

If you're an artist that creates your work entirely on computer, for example a digital illustrator, digital painter etc. then pricing your art may seem a lot different to traditional artists when you don't have to factor in the cost of materials... or do you?

When pricing your digital artworks for sale here are some of the things you may want to factor into your final prices. Many of these still apply to traditional artists as well:

Cost of living, running your computer equipment etc.

All artists, no matter what medium, working full time need to consider the cost of living and running their studio (even if your studio is just a laptop computer and a Internet connection - it still costs to run it). If you can't cover these costs from the sale of your work then you'll be looking for alternative income sources really quickly.

You need to know how much it costs for you to live and run your studio per month then work out how many artworks you need to sell per month to cover that cost. For example - say you need $1200 per month to cover all your living expenses and to run your studio. To cover that cost you'll need to sell 12 artworks at $100 each or 6 artworks at $200 each etc. to break even. If you want to make a profit you'll need to charge more than that per artwork to have savings.

Time 

You could factor in the time it takes to create your art. Determine an hourly rate for your time spent creating the work. Your hourly rate could be based on how many hours you need to work per month to cover your living expenses. 

If we take the previous example of $1200 per month and say there are twenty 'working' or business days in a month where you intend to work 8 hours per day, your hourly rate would be: 

$1200 / (8hrs x 20days) = $7.50 per hour

If you wanted to price all your artworks the same you could produce one painting every 5 days and price each one at $300 ($7.50 x 8hrs x 5days). Again that's a break even price. If you want to have some savings you'll need to charge more per artwork.

What format you intend to sell your digital work

Will you be selling the digital file or prints?

If you're selling your work as a digital file then really the only overheads you might have are any online hosting fees for the file or, if you're providing copies on CD's for example, then the cost of the CD's (and postage and packing perhaps?).

If you're selling prints then the cost of printing each one are factors. Are you going to use a print on demand service like Redbubble.com? Are you going to use a bricks and mortar printing house? Are you going to sell prints you've printed on your own printer?

Whatever you choose the cost of making each print needs to be factored in to your price. Again you'll need to charge more than the cost of printing per artwork if you wish to make a profit.

Limited edition versus Unlimited copies

Selling a limited number of prints will enable you to set a higher price than if you sell an unlimited number. By limiting the number of prints you make you're creating 'rarity'. For example you may only produce 10 prints of a particular artwork making it more valuable than if you sold prints to everyone who wanted one.

If you're only selling the digital file you could create rarity by only making it available for a short period of time or for a specific number of downloads/copies. It would be harder to keep control of since anyone who has the original file could make any number of copies. You'd have to trust in copyright law in the same way that software authors do. Many digital artists sell licenses to reproduce their work through stock photography and digital illustration sites like shutterstock.com thus giving the site responsibility for policing unlicensed use of their art.

Note that if you advertise your prints or digital files as limited then you must stick to that commitment. You'll get your buyers really upset if you say you're only printing 10 copies then print 2 more because you found 2 more buyers. It's a good idea to number and sign limited edition prints too. In some buyers minds owning print number 1 is more valuable than print number 20.

The same goes for digital files. If you're limiting the time or number of downloads the file will be available then rigidly stick to that commitment. Failure to do so will erode the value you can add to your work based on rarity.

Comparison to other Digital Artists

One way to determine prices (in any art form) is to look at other artists producing similar work, who have a similar reputation and career level as yourself,  and seeing what they charge. Find out if they're selling at the prices they're charging and then price your work competitively with theirs.

Volume Pricing

Ultimately digital artists have an advantage over traditional artists in terms of materials. Once you have a computer you can start producing an unlimited number of artworks and sell digital copies for just a few cents each (like songs on itunes - $0.99 per song) and go for volume sales. This is actually how many digital artists and photographers make money from stock photo sites like shutterstock.com.

Stock photo sites usually let you choose exactly how much you want to sell each image for minus their standard fees for hosting your image on their site. Often their fees are very small since they're going for volume sales too.

If you think your artwork has mainstream appeal or an extremely large niche market then volume pricing through a stock photo site may be for you. It can be an extremely lucrative option given the online demand for images to illustrate blogs, news articles, web sites etc.


As you can see pricing your digital art for sale does have many factors to consider. Some are just as relevant to traditional artists whilst others are unique to the digital medium. As with traditional art pricing there is no one 'right' way. How you determine your final prices will be based upon your situation and your goals for earning income with your art.

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net