ok interest has been expressed, so i will go over my alternative, non-hourly method of calculating commission prices!

this is not perfect and it is not a good method for everyone, but i feel it reframes the problem in a useful way.
first, you need to look over your finances and figure out how much money you NEED to make per month (your base expenses + 30% for taxes) and then how much you WANT to make per month (so your necessities + breathing room for savings, surprise expenses, fun stuff, etc.)
a lot of people do not have the luxury of making more than their bare minimum, but it's still an important consideration to make!

from this number, multiply it by 12 to get a yearly income (and remember that taxes will come out of this number AFTER the fact)
from there, you need to decide how much of this money you want to come from commission work specifically (not just art).

for the rest of the thread i am going to assume that you, the creator, want to make 100% of your money from commission work. this is not true for most ppl.
first, i suggest taking a base commission price and dividing your desired monthly by that amount.

so, if you want to make $3000/mo ($36k per year before taxes), divide that by your current idea of a commission number. let's say $50 per piece.

that's 60 pieces per month.
that's roughly 2 pieces per day, sometimes more. IMO this is unsustainable.

is it doable? yes, depending on your art. will you burn out doing it? probably.

so then the question is: how many pieces can i COMFORTABLY and SUSTAINABLY finish per month?
maybe you can finish 2 pieces per week. that's about 8 pieces per month.

if you divide your desired income (3000/mo) by 4, that is $375 per piece.

so suddenly you see what you actually need to charge to be where you want financially.
THIS METHOD DOES MAKE A LOT OF ASSUMPTIONS:

1. that you want to make all this money from commission work specifically

2. that the client interest is there

3. that your pieces typically take roughly equal amounts of time
it is not a perfect method, but it is a good way to reframe this problem.

charging an hourly rate IS good and CAN work, but it fails to take into account all the parts of commission work that aren't spent directly on the art, because how can you calculate that?
this way focuses specifically on a quality of life (or at least a quality of life that is represented by a desired monthly income) and lets you see what you need to charge in order to have your desired monetary outcome.
it also removes the temptation to compare your hourly rate to physical goods.

for instance, if you are thinking about charging $60/hour, then suddenly it's like "well someone could buy an hour of my time... or a nintendo switch game"

this is a thought trap!! it is bad!
you CANNOT compare the price of custom, one of a kind work to something mass produced.

that is like looking at an artist's shop, seeing they charge $10 for a single print, and going "oh so custom work is also $10 a piece then." it's very much not the same thing!
sure, the consumer pays $60 for the game... but the people who did the custom work for the game (art, story, programming, modeling, etc.) made way more than $60 from their hard work.

you CANNOT compare custom, unique work to premade goods that are one of multiple.
another note: this method requires you to include an average calculated cost for your tools in your necessary monthly. it works best for digital art (where tool cost is usually 1 in done or a steady monthly), but you can do it for traditional media as well with some extra math!
again! this method is not a good match for everyone and it is not infallible. what it DOES do is reframe this issue in more tangible terms.
most people who are paid hourly are working undervalued service jobs under $15/hour. IN GENERAL once you hit a certain hourly threshold, companies will put you on salary (bc it's cheaper), so looking at a $60/hour rate can SEEM absurdly high and like you are overvaluing yourself.
charging hourly is versatile but it inspires you to compete not just with others but with your own idea of your perceived value.

usually charging hourly is meant to encourage people with prices in the $10-30 range to value their time more but it doesn't scale well after that.
charging hourly is useful and may be a more accurate representation of what your audience is willing to pay, esp if you're not an established artist.

the purpose of this method is too look at your actual desired monetary quality of life & figure out how to get there sustainably.
also -- i find this method is more versatile/useful to people living outside the US because it asks what you PERSONALLY need/want and helps you calculate what you need to charge to get there, instead of assuming you want to make an "average" american monthly rate.
god ok something else i want to address -- another reason i prefer this method over an hourly rate is i see a lot of people saying that artists who charge low prices undercut and undervalue the entire community.

that they are "harming" the community.
this is... real stinky.

the online art community isn't just one community. we're not all in the same place in our careers. we don't all have the same goals. we're not all IN THE SAME PLACE.

your pricing should be more personalized than "minimum wage+ in the US"
in my experience the twitter art community is very "assume they're american until proven otherwise."

we're all just different people trying to make money doing something we enjoy

you can't assume everyone's dollar hits the same or that we're all at the same point in our careers
i fully support people charging more for their work -- i love to see it!!!!!!

but i dislike how people moralize this. you charge too much and it's "extortion" of the client. you charge too little and you're "undercutting" your peers. it's stinky.
online art commissions are basically luxury gig work. in a way we are all incentivized to undercut each other under capitalism.

but approaching pricing from a "worth" standpoint instead of a "need/want" is hobbling. and everyone's needs are different.
anyway closing out this by saying hey wouldn't it be cool if there were some way everyone was guaranteed a certain quality of life regardless of class standing or employment? wouldn't that take a huge stress off and enable more people to get GOOD work done, not just busy work? 🤔
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