Should artists include art prices on their website?

I often get asked whether displaying your pricing on your artist website is a good idea or not and why, so in today’s blog post I will share my thoughts on this fiercely debated matter.

As I see it there are pros and cons and the advice I give to my clients is always based on their overall art portfolio and career goals. In my consultations, I also evaluate with them other aspects such as their financial objectives, career level and the type of relationships they have or want to develop with the different actors of the primary market, mainly galleries and art advisors. The display of prices really comes to the different business models an artist wants to follow, as well as their personal preferences and their clients’ profile.

So for instance, some of the artists I work with excel in the art of selling and marketing themselves. They enjoy the retail market and have no problem setting up a shop on their websites, promoting themselves on social media and listing their prices. This is a great strategy for artists who love selling on a retail level or who have special arrangements in place with their gallery.

Other artists I advise would rather pursue a different approach and sell only through galleries and dealers, so their websites only function as online portfolios. These types of artists focus their attention on developing relationships with galleries, art agencies or art advisers so they can close the sales. In addition, other groups of artists I work with only do commissioned works and public art projects, therefore putting their prices on display is not recommended because of the site-specific nature of these kinds of artworks, with their pricing often depending on several circumstances specific to each commission and/or project. Pros of displaying your prices Listing your prices will stop you from wasting your time with people who don’t have the budget for your services. On the other hand, those actually interested will more likely buy it right now as you’re giving clients more immediacy. That is, you’re eliminating the need for customers to have to ask you for the price, which can put some people off and go somewhere else. Likewise, not displaying the prices could feel for some potential customers as you’re withholding information from them, which can also deter them from buying from you.

Cons of listing prices Especially if you’re an artist determined to only sell wholesale (with galleries / dealers), putting your prices on display can actually put some high-net worth individuals off as they won’t like everybody to know how much they have paid for certain artwork. If you work with galleries, most likely they won’t be happy either if you list your pricing for the same reason or because they want exclusivity of your artworks in a specific region and therefore wouldn’t want you to display prices on your website, but this really depends on the type of gallery and the agreement you may have with them. Having said that, the arts industry has profoundly changed since the pandemic, with many galleries having closed, therefore an increasing number of artists are relying on their websites to get prospective clients. Indeed, as I mentioned earlier, there are artists who manage to maintain a balance between the retail and wholesale markets and are therefore selling their art directly (with prices on display) while having gallery representation. On other occasions, what I noticed is that some artists don’t display the pricing of their works altogether because they are not sure how to put prices on their pieces.

I’m eager to hear your thoughts on this topic: do you think artists should be listing their prices on their websites? Why or why not? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!