Most art commission price guides are one artist's price sheet, or a forum thread where twenty artists argue about it. Neither tells you what the work is worth in the United States, and neither accounts for what the site you sell through takes before the money reaches you. This guide prices commissions from the only published wage data that exists for artists, then shows the arithmetic that turns an hourly floor into a headshot, a half body and a full render.
The short answer. Employed US fine artists and illustrators earn a median of $26.68 an hour, $55,490 a year (BLS, May 2025), with the bottom tenth under $15.14 and the top tenth over $63.37. Upwork tells clients illustrators cost $15 to $30 an hour. A US artist who wants to take home that median as a freelancer has to price commissions at about $77 an hour on an 8% platform, or $88 on a site that keeps 20%. At $77, a one-to-two-hour sketch headshot is $75 to $155, a three-to-five-hour flat-color half body is $230 to $385, and a six-to-twelve-hour rendered full body is $460 to $925. Price the piece, not the hour, and put the hours behind each tier in writing.
How much do artists charge for commissions?
There is no survey of commission prices with a sample size worth quoting, so the honest starting point is what the same work pays on payroll and what the largest marketplace tells its buyers. Every row below names its source and how many people sit behind it.
| Source | Rate | What it measures | Sample and date |
|---|---|---|---|
| BLS, fine artists and illustrators, lowest 10% | Under $15.14/hr | Employed, under $31,490 a year | Federal survey, May 2025 |
| BLS, fine artists and illustrators, median | $26.68/hr | Employed, $55,490 a year | Federal survey, 53,400 jobs in the group |
| BLS, fine artists and illustrators, highest 10% | Over $63.37/hr | Employed, over $131,810 a year | Federal survey, May 2025 |
| BLS, independent artists, writers and performers | $23.61/hr | Industry median, $49,100 a year | Federal survey, May 2025 |
| Upwork, illustrators | $15 to $30/hr | Median band of freelance rates, all countries | Upwork cost page, Apr 2026 |
| Upwork, illustrators by tier | $15 / $23 / $30 | Beginner, intermediate, expert | Upwork cost page, Apr 2026 |
Two things stand out. The federal spread is wide, more than four to one between the bottom and top tenth, which is what you would expect from an occupation where 58% of workers are self-employed and set their own prices. And Upwork's "expert" illustrator rate of $30 sits almost exactly on the employed US median. That is not a coincidence: the marketplace figure is set by a global pool, and its top tier converges on what an American gets paid for the same hours with an employer covering payroll tax and health insurance.
How much should I charge for art commissions?
Charge the hourly rate that clears the income you want after the costs an employer used to pay, then convert it into flat prices per piece. The rate is private; the piece price is what goes on the sheet. The freelance rate calculator does the first step with your own numbers, and these are the results for the three federal wage points at its default assumptions: 1,104 billable hours a year, $13,200 of software, hardware, insurance and health cover, self-employment tax at 15.3% on 92.35% of profit, and the platform's fee.
| Take-home target | On an 8% platform | On a 20% platform | With no platform fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| $31,490, the BLS bottom 10% | $49/hr | $57/hr | $45/hr |
| $55,490, the BLS median | $77/hr | $88/hr | $71/hr |
| $131,810, the BLS top 10% | $164/hr | $189/hr | $151/hr |
The gap between $26.68 and $77 is not markup. It is the other half of Social Security and Medicare, health cover, a tablet and software that used to be on someone else's budget, and the hours spent on references, messages and revisions that no client pays for by name. An artist who quotes the employed median as a freelance rate is taking a pay cut of roughly two thirds and usually does not find out until tax season.
Art commission prices by type: an example price sheet
The hour ranges below are illustrative inputs, not survey data. Nobody publishes how long a half body takes across thousands of artists, and your own timed work should replace these numbers before you publish anything. What the table shows is the method: hours times rate, rounded to a clean number, at the employed median ($27), the freelance break-even ($77) and the top-tenth break-even ($164).
| Commission type | Hours (replace with yours) | At $27/hr | At $77/hr | At $164/hr |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sketch headshot | 1 to 2 | $25 to $55 | $75 to $155 | $165 to $330 |
| Chibi or icon | 1 to 3 | $25 to $80 | $75 to $230 | $165 to $490 |
| Flat-color half body | 3 to 5 | $80 to $135 | $230 to $385 | $490 to $820 |
| Fully rendered full body | 6 to 12 | $160 to $325 | $460 to $925 | $985 to $1,970 |
| Full body with background | 10 to 20 | $270 to $540 | $770 to $1,540 | $1,640 to $3,280 |
Read the $27 column and you will recognize most of the price sheets on DeviantArt, VGen and Twitter. A $30 headshot and a $120 rendered full body are exactly what the employed median produces when it is applied to a freelance business, and they are why so many full-time commission artists report earning far less than a salaried illustrator. The $77 column is what the same pieces cost when the artist is paid like one.
What are average digital art commission prices?
There is no reliable published average, and the number would mislead you if there were. A "$60 average for a half body" mixes a beginner in a country where $60 is a good day with a US artist whose rent is in dollars. The arithmetic is the useful part. At Upwork's $15 beginner rate, a four-hour flat-color piece is $60. At the $77 a US artist needs to clear the median wage, it is $310. Both prices are "average" somewhere. The question is which one pays your bills, and a four-hour piece sold at $60 pays $15 an hour before any fee and about $13.80 after an 8% platform takes its share.
If you sell on a site with a 20% cut the number is worse. The same $60 piece leaves $48, or $12 an hour, and the buyer on Fiverr paid $66.80 for it because of the 5.5% service fee and the $3.50 surcharge on orders under $200. The art commission sites compared by fee runs every major venue through the same $150 commission if you want the full table.
How much to charge for digital art commissions vs traditional?
Price the hours the same and add the materials and shipping to traditional work as separate lines. Digital commissions carry a tablet, a display and a software subscription that are paid once a year and spread across every piece, which the $6,000 expense line in the break-even already covers. A traditional piece adds paper or canvas, paint, framing if offered, packaging, postage and insurance, and those belong on the invoice as line items rather than hidden in the price, so that a client who wants the original understands why it costs more than the scan.
Keep every receipt for both. The tablet, the subscription, the canvas and the postage are all deductible against self-employment income, and an expense tracker that files them by category turns that into a five-minute job at year end instead of a shoebox.
What should an art commission price sheet include?
A sheet that only lists prices invites the two conversations that cost artists the most: "can you add a background for free" and "I thought that included commercial use". Put these on it.
- Tiers by coverage and finish. Headshot, half body, full body, crossed with sketch, flat color and fully rendered. Six to nine cells, each with a price and a rough turnaround.
- Extras with prices. Additional character, background, complex costume or armor, and rush delivery, each as a fixed add-on or a stated percentage of the base.
- Commercial use. Personal-use pricing assumes the client will not sell, print or use the piece for a business. State the multiple or the separate price for commercial rights, and say that streamer overlays, book covers and merch count as commercial.
- Revisions. How many rounds are included at the sketch stage and after rendering, and what a further round costs. Most disputes start at an undefined revision.
- Deposit and payment. Whether you take a deposit, how much, whether it is refundable after the sketch is approved, and when the balance is due.
- What the client sends. References, the character sheet, the pose, the resolution and file format wanted, and a deadline.
Put the terms into a short agreement the client signs before the deposit. Two paragraphs are enough, and a simple e-signature on the commission agreement settles the "I never agreed to that" argument before it starts.
How much do platform fees change your commission prices?
Enough that they belong in the price. On a $150 commission, fees read at source leave the artist $114.45 on DeviantArt without a Core membership, $120.00 on Fiverr (where the client actually pays $161.75), $135.30 on Etsy, $137.85 on VGen or free Ko-fi, $138.00 on our Starter plan, $142.50 on our Pro plan and $145.50 on our Studio plan. The spread from worst to best is $31.05, about a fifth of the piece. That is why the break-even rate is $77 an hour on an 8% platform and $88 on a 20% one: the artist on the expensive site has to charge 14% more for the same take-home, and their client pays a fee on top.
It also flips the usual advice about where to sell. A flat monthly plan such as Ko-fi Gold at $12 or a membership like DeviantArt Core only beats a percentage once you sell enough each month to cover it: Ko-fi Gold pays for itself above $240 of commissions a month at its 5% free rate. Below that volume the percentage is cheaper, and an art commission platform with fixed tiers, no client fee and a page that ranks for what you draw lets you publish the sheet above as Basic, Standard and Premium and take the order without a DM thread.
Character commission prices and the pieces that get underpriced
Character work carries the most predictable underpricing because the client sees one figure and the artist sees the costume. A character in plate armor with a weapon and a pet is not a "full body" at the full-body price; it is a full body plus two or three extras, and a sheet that prices extras explicitly is what lets you charge for them without a negotiation. The same applies to couples and groups (price per additional character, not a discount for volume), to backgrounds (a gradient and a painted environment are different products), and to reference sheets, which are several views of one character and should be priced as several pieces.
Chibis and icons are the other trap. They are fast to draw, so artists price them at $15 or $20, then discover that the messaging, the revision and the file delivery take as long as they do on a $300 piece. At the $77 floor a one-hour chibi is $75, and if that sounds high for the market you are selling in, the honest fix is to sell fewer of them to a market that pays, not to draw more of them at a loss.
The short version
Employed US artists earn $26.68 an hour at the median. A freelance commission artist needs about $77 an hour to match it on an 8% platform, $88 on a 20% one, and that rate times your real hours per piece is your price sheet: roughly $75 to $155 for a sketch headshot, $230 to $385 for a flat-color half body and $460 to $925 for a rendered full body at the median-wage rate. Write the hours, extras, commercial-use terms and revisions into the sheet, get it agreed before the deposit, and sell it from a page where the client picks a tier and pays without a fee of their own. The freelance fee calculator will show what each site takes from any price you settle on.