When you sit down to research art pricing, it is easy to become quickly frustrated by the inconsistencies. You look at the websites of peers with similar career levels and notice wildly different approaches to retail numbers. One artist might list a large painting for $4,000, while another lists a comparable piece for $4,800 but proudly advertises free shipping.
For large works, shipping and crating charges can easily add $400 to $800 to the final bill. As an artist trying to formulate a professional price list, this raises a persistent question. Should you be baking those shipping charges into your retail prices, or keeping them separate?
To build a professional, consistent art business, you must establish a strict baseline retail price that completely excludes shipping and logistics. You have to create an apples-to-apples comparison for your work.
1. The Need for a Strict Baseline
When you conduct pricing analysis or build your inventory list, you need to know exactly what your work is worth in and of itself. If you bake a variable expense like freight shipping into your retail price, you distort your baseline.
Imagine taking a piece that should retail for $3,000 and inflating it to $3,800 to cover a cross-country crate. You have just artificially inflated your market value. If a local collector walks into your studio to buy it and carries it out the door, are you going to drop the price by $800? Doing so immediately compromises your pricing integrity.
You must extract the shipping expense, separate it out, and put it to the side. Your suggested retail price must reflect the art, not the delivery truck.
2. The Gallery Preference for Logistics
I spend a significant amount of time reviewing gallery websites, and in my experience, the vast majority of galleries prefer to charge the client for shipping after the sale is finalized. There is a very specific psychology behind this.
As a gallery owner, my primary goal is to get the collector to fall in love with the artwork. I want them looking at the canvas, not a freight surcharge. “Let’s get this beautiful piece into your collection,” is the focus.
Once the client has committed to the artwork at the established retail price, we treat shipping as a secondary, practical necessity. Furthermore, every gallery handles shipping differently. Some have in-house crating, while others use expensive third-party handlers. If you try to anticipate those variables and bake shipping into your suggested retail price, you create massive inconsistencies when you start talking to different galleries.
3. The Rules for Factoring Logistics
When assembling your portfolio and price lists, I recommend following these specific guidelines to keep your numbers clean.
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The Baseline Rule: Always list your suggested retail price exclusive of any packing, shipping, or installation fees. Let the gallery handle the logistics.
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The Framing Exception: While shipping is excluded, framing is not. If you frame your work before sending it to a gallery, the cost of that frame must be included in your suggested retail price.
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The Consistency Rule: Never alter the core retail price of a specific piece based on where it is being shipped. The retail price remains static; the shipping line-item absorbs the geographic variables.
One Final Takeaway
Your pricing strategy must be built on a foundation of stability. By stripping out the unpredictable costs of shipping, you ensure that a gallery in New York and a collector in your hometown are looking at the exact same value for your creation.
Question for Readers
How do you currently handle shipping on your website or in your studio sales? Do you charge it as a separate line item, or have you been trying to bake it into your retail prices? Share your experiences in the comments below.