How to Sell Art Prints: What Working Artists Actually Do

Everything below comes from artists who sell prints consistently — photographers, painters, illustrators who've figured out the mechanics and the math. I'm not one of them. I talk to them, collect what they say, and write it up.

Decide what you're selling before you print anything

The artists who do this profitably start with product decisions, not printing decisions.

Open edition prints — unlimited supply, lower price point, usually sold unframed. These artists report selling most successfully at $0-100 per print, with 8x10, 11x14, and 16x20 as the most common sizes that move. Smaller prints sell at farmers markets and small fairs; larger ones sell better online where shipping cost matters less relative to print price.

Limited editions — numbered runs, higher price, signed. The trade-off: you cap your upside at whatever the edition size is, but scarcity gives you pricing power. Artists doing this successfully say they number their runs (25, 50, 100) based on how proven the image is, not arbitrary round numbers.

The original alongside prints — many artists sell open edition prints of an image while also offering the original painting or negative at a premium. This works particularly well on a website where you can show all options on one product page.

Can you sell groupings or multi-panel sets where each image is a different size because the aspect ratios differ? Yes. The presentation is what sells it, not uniform dimensions. But validate demand with your first grouping before creating size variants you're guessing people want.

Start with one sales channel and prove it works

The artists who are now selling across multiple channels all say the same thing: they started with one and got it working before adding the second.

Your own website — you control pricing, you own the customer relationship, you can bundle (book + print, framed + unframed). The cost: you drive your own traffic. No one visits a new site by accident.

Local retail or consignment — galleries, cafes, frame shops. Standard wholesale arrangement: you sell prints to the store at your price, they mark it up and resell. You place the orders yourself, deliver finished prints, and the store handles the customer transaction. The cost: lower margin and you're competing for wall space.

Art fairs and markets — direct contact, immediate payment, you see what people respond to. The cost: booth fees, setup time, weather risk, and you're burning a weekend per event. Artists who do shows regularly say to weight your inventory toward whatever price range your specific market actually buys at, not what you wish they'd spend. A craft-beer-and-food market is not the same buyer as a juried fine art fair.

Before you print anything for a new channel, ask artists in online communities who work that same circuit what sizes and price points move. Your local farmers market is not my local farmers market.

Pricing that actually moves product

Artists selling open editions consistently report these ranges:

• Small prints (5x7 to 8x10): $20-50

• Mid-size (11x14 to 16x20): $50-150

• Large (20x24 and up): $150-400

Unframed is the default. Framing triples your price and cuts your sales volume — some artists offer it, most don't until a customer asks.

The catch: these are prices that sell. They are not necessarily profitable after you pay for printing, packaging, your time, and platform fees. Artists who've survived long-term say they run the math per product and kill anything that doesn't clear at least 50% margin after all costs.

What doesn't work (according to people who tried it)

Creating a coffee table book and then immediately offering every image as a standalone print — multiple artists report this dilutes both products. Sell the book first, get 50-100 copies out, then email buyers and ask if they'd purchase prints of specific images to display alongside the book. Let real demand tell you what to print.

Offering six different size options for an image before you've sold the first one in any size — you're guessing. Print one size, sell ten, then expand.

Assuming "limited edition" automatically commands higher prices — it does, but only if the work is already proven and you've built an audience that trusts your taste. Numbering a print run of 25 when you've never sold a print before just means you have 25 expensive prints in a closet.

What I'm still trying to pin down

Do you sell single images as prints if they're part of a published coffee table book, or does that cheapen the book?

The artists doing both say bundling works (book + one metal print), but I haven't confirmed whether offering the images separately at a lower price point hurts book sales. If you've tested this, I'd like to know what happened.