Forums » Art & Creativity » A question about fees

Wow! Been meaning to post at this forum for a while...kind of sad that my first post has to be about money ayyy :'D

So, yeah, I wanted to ask you lovely, adorable people who roam this part of the page about commision prices.
The situation is the following: A friend of mine a while ago saw a drawing of mine they liked, and asked me to pay for it in a shirt for themselves. Since they are paying for the fabric and impression, I would be only charging them for the picture....But i have absolutely no idea how much should I ask for it ;v;

If you are an artist who does this kind of commisions: What do you usually charge for the design alone? And, if you're a person who has bought personalized stuff like this; What prices do you usually pay?

Since they're good friends of mine, I'm obiously going to adapt the prices a little. But I've fould zero places to take reference, and any kind of guidance would be great :'D

I obviously can't speak for all artists here, but I normally only charge extra fees if I'm also covering the extra cost of making the product, or if I have to go out of my way to design for some weird template (like for charm production, or in one case I ended up making a pattern for embroidery).
Otherwise, I just charge for detail/hours spent like I would for any other piece, and take the final product into consideration.

Basically, I'd just make sure you're being compensated in a way that makes you feel worthwhile. I know that's not the -best- answer, but I've always felt that when making art for friends, as long as you both feel good about the end product, everything's cool.
For non-friends, I would shoot for making sure you're making at least $10-15/hr for time and effort, and adjust based on having to tweak things for the shirt (like adjusting colors for printing, materials & shipping, matching colors on the shirt, and all that good stuff).

If I'm reading this correctly, you're saying that the art is already drawn up as part of some personal project, not a commission for this person? And they just want the rights to put it on one shirt, for personal use, not to produce shirts for selling? And they will be dealing with the printing process in entirety?

If this is the case, I wouldn't charge much--you aren't selling them the rights to it, and you also aren't dealing with the minutiae of dealing with the printing site or paying for materials. Maybe $15? But like ACK said, if you're having to deal with adjusting the image, add on an hourly fee.

Don't worry! You where pretty helpful. And it's also a good fact to know the charging per hour thing! Tbh I have a hard time thinking about parameters over wich measure the prices, and time def is a reasonable one!
Well, sort off. It WAS going to be part of a personal project (and by project i mean silly sketch that I shown them), but when my friend showed interest, I properly drew and finished it with some instructions and request of them in it. But yes, in essence, they just want to put the desing on a shirt for themselves, and they will be paying the printing fees.

$15 is a bit too expensive for me to charge them :'D, but I'll use it as a reference price for the future! I will also use the hour fees some other time, mostly bc they're my homie....and bc I didn't had the idea to take notes on the time it took me to made it ;;v;;

Anyways, Thank you so much the two of you! You've been really helpful and I appreciate it a lot