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"How" to commission someone
11 years ago
General
now I know at the end of the day its up to the buyer
but i do get irked when commissioners make me pay the paypal fee and it gets deducted from my total pay.
I dont know if it's considered 'courtesy' or whatever but I really do encourage you to pay the fee yourself if you choose to commission me from now on.
it may not seem like much, but when almost every person does it it really takes a lot out of the grand total. put yourself in my shoes.
thank you.[edit] As suggested yes tipping a bit extra so it covers the fee is a great way to make up for it without getting in trouble with paypal
Ya can always include that transfer fee in the final cost of the commission.
The alternative is to adjust your prices so that they include the fee. So if you want to actually earn, say $50 for a picture, then make the price a little bit higher and the extra is used to pay for the fee.
The fee is the cost of doing business normally since Visa/Mastercard/Amex/Discover all have to take their cut which is usually 2.75% + a set percentage of the amount, every business owner has to pay the fee for having "merchant services", gotta pay money to make money; etc.
Honestly, I feel that if you want the fee covered the price should either be adjusted to reflect that on your commission prices or you should just invoice the user directly and explain why it's a bit higher than what was advertised, alternatively throw in http://thefeecalculator.com/ as a link too. I would hate to see you get in trouble where the user doesn't want to pay the fee so they opt to give it to you as a gift which as you know it leads to all sorts of trouble, plus the commissioner loses out on buyer protection.
I've purchased a lot of commissions and the fee of what Paypal charges rarely comes up since, again, it's the cost of being able to accept debit and credit cards worldwide and having it transferred to you, the artist. My best practice is that I see how responsive my artist is when I work with them the first time and then I pay more the next time to cover the fee and give them a tip.
Sorry if this seemed wordy but I'd rather explain why I do what I do.
Don't expect commissioners to be mind readers or automatically over generous beyond what was agreed upon. It is a business and you need to make these things clear before taking on said business.
Do a good job and people like me give out tips at the end. ^_^
If an artist tells clearly show that his/her price is without the taxes included and tells me to pay it, I will do it. If he/she doesn't, I feel that I've bean cheated on.
Here in France, the government commands the prices to be shown with the mention "taxes included" or "without taxes" so the customer knows what he will pay before he takes his credit card out of his pocket.
And as mentioned in some posts here : if you think your work is worth 50$ and want to get these 50$ knowing taxes apply, just raise up your prices a bit (52,45$ or so ?) or use invoices. Problem solved