FA+
Shop
price increase? (part 2)
3 years ago
so i gave it some more thought, along with everyone's kind words (i greatly appreciate it), and decided to go with the price change. if you go to my commission list, towards the bottom of the list currently, you will see where i have marked for the price change. again, this means that anyone already on the list before that mark do not have to worry about the change, while anyone after will go with the new price. if anyone currently on the list would rather pay the new price, i'll leave that up to them (as well as be very thankful). i will not force/demand it, nor want to screw anyone over with a shift in price so abruptly.
now with that said, many have told me that even my new asking price is a bit low, so this leads me to my next question for you all (the commissioners); do i go with $60 per character, or $75 (what others are suggesting)? i'm not one to get greedy, and i do know/understand i must make enough for a living, but at the same time i don't want to scare customers away with "being too expensive" (i love drawing for others and that steady flow of commissioners). like the last question i'll give it a full day's time to think about it, as well as read feedback from you all that decide to respond. i promise that this will be the last question i ask. again, i thank you all, and look forward to reading all your comments.
deonwolf
now with that said, many have told me that even my new asking price is a bit low, so this leads me to my next question for you all (the commissioners); do i go with $60 per character, or $75 (what others are suggesting)? i'm not one to get greedy, and i do know/understand i must make enough for a living, but at the same time i don't want to scare customers away with "being too expensive" (i love drawing for others and that steady flow of commissioners). like the last question i'll give it a full day's time to think about it, as well as read feedback from you all that decide to respond. i promise that this will be the last question i ask. again, i thank you all, and look forward to reading all your comments.
deonwolf
Plus, think about it this way. You draw pretty quickly, your actual work time on an image is only a few hours. Let's say you take 5 hours to finish a pic, at $75 that's $15 an hour. In my state, that's only minimum wage. Artists shouldn't really be charging bare minimum wage (they should charge more than that), especially when their quality is as good as yours. But thinking of it that way, you definitely should not charge less than that!
Plus, another thing: Your commission queue is growing faster than you're turning over art. Yes, if you charge more, fewer people will sign up; but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Because I can just about guarantee that you will still have a steady enough flow of commissioners at $75 a pop, thus your queue will always be there. In other words, you won't price yourself out of commissioners entirely and be waiting around hoping to get new bites. Right now, you can always grab the next person off the queue and do a pic, because there are hundreds on the queue. Well even at $75 there will surely still be a steady stream of stuff to do!
As it is your offering is very cheap for what you are presenting and while it would price out some people you also need to apply appropriate value to your time investment on the art you produce (how many hours does it take to produce a final product?). It also stands to reason you should be able to feed/cloth/house yourself at the end of the day.
I know it might not sound appealing but you're long overdue for updating your prices and you might want to consider 'add-ons' pricing if you want to keep things open to those that struggle to afford a comm.
Talk with some folks that get frequent comms, I'm sure they'd happily discuss their opinion of what they paid for vs what they got.
I agree with KatTheFoxtaur and Kesarra; you should be able to make enough to thrive, not just survive, and you need to think about the amount of commissions you get, how long it takes you to complete them. You do have a steady stream of customers, so think about it.
If you’re only taking in minimum wage or less on an hourly basis you should raise your prices.