The NEW #SmallWins by Art Storefronts!

A few people close to me recently mentioned that the prices on my paintings feel steep, and because of that they hesitate to send anyone to my site. That one stung a little.

I get that not every person in my circle is my buyer. But the idea that pricing could stop someone from even sharing my work with others caught me off guard. Part of me wonders if lowering prices early on would help build momentum and a following, then adjusting upward once people see the value. The other part of me knows that once you set a low anchor it can be really hard to raise it later, especially with acrylics where materials and time add up fast between all the layering and glazing passes a piece needs.

Have any of you dealt with friends or early supporters pushing back on your pricing? Did you hold firm, adjust, or find some middle ground like offering smaller canvases at a lower entry point? I would genuinely love to hear how you handled it.

I finally put together a small collection of finished illustrations I'm actually proud of, mostly character work and a couple environment pieces. Now I'm trying to figure out if paid ads on Facebook or Instagram are even worth it for someone at my stage.

Most of the success stories I see are from painters selling originals or big canvas prints, and I'm not sure how well that translates to digital art and prints. I don't have a massive following yet, so organic reach alone isn't really cutting it.

For those of you who've actually spent money on social ads, did you see real returns? Was one platform clearly better than the other? And honestly, is there a minimum budget where it even starts to make sense, or did you just end up burning cash early on? Would really appreciate hearing what worked and what didn't.

I've been offering lower prices on my night landscape prints as a way to build an audience, and now I'm wondering if it's time to stop.

The logic made sense early on. Lower the barrier, get work into people's hands, build some momentum. But at a certain point it starts to set expectations. Buyers who found you at the intro price can feel like a correction is a bait and switch, even if the original number was never meant to be permanent.

For those of you who've pulled the plug on introductory or promotional pricing, how did it go? Did you lose momentum, or did it actually help reframe the value of your work? Curious whether a clean cutoff or a gradual increase worked better.

Question for those of you that do other promotional activities along with painting and selling your artwork. Do you find your lessons, tutorials, classes, etc bring in more money than selling your prints and originals? I sell from my site, from ETSY (not much lately) and from showing in galleries. I’ve had completely dry months with no activity at all, and although I use Copilot to post continuous, I’ve noticed my numbers sliding on both IG and FB. I’m considering other outlets, but I am also busy all the time it feels. Any suggestions on how to continue to grow and sell without a tremendous amount of additional work?

Flat rate everything. That's what I keep coming back to when someone at a market or a fair asks me to mail them a print and I'm standing there trying to do tax math in my head.

I want one clean price list I can hand to offline buyers, something where shipping and tax are already folded into the number. No calculator, no "let me check what your region charges." But figuring out how to set those flat prices without shortchanging myself or overcharging people has me going in circles. I thought about placing test orders on my own site for every size just to see what the totals come out to, then averaging, but that sounds like an entire afternoon I'd rather spend editing.

Have any of you built a simplified offline price sheet like this? How did you land on your numbers, and do you just absorb the tax differences between customers?

I started posting my watercolors on Instagram back in the spring. Botanicals, some loose mountain landscapes from around here in Asheville. I put real thought into the photos, trying to capture how the pigment granulates on rough paper, that kind of thing. But I'm sitting at a tiny follower count and zero sales.

Part of me wonders if this is just the equivalent of that first year when every wash dried with a hard bloom I didn't want. You show up, you keep working, and eventually something shifts. But another part of me wonders if I'm missing something fundamental about how to actually get my paintings in front of people who might connect with them.

Did any of you go through a long stretch of posting into the void before things picked up? Or did you change your approach at some point that made a real difference? I'd genuinely appreciate hearing what that looked like for you.

A collector asked about a framed version of one of my prints last week, and when I worked out the total with mat and frame included, the price jumped so far beyond the print itself that I hesitated to even send the quote.

I sell mostly unframed work, but I know offering framed options could open things up for buyers who want something ready to hang. The problem is that once you add matting and a decent frame, the final number can feel disconnected from what someone expected to pay. I worry it scares people off before they even consider the photograph.

Has anyone found a way to keep framing and matting options affordable enough that buyers actually choose them? Do you absorb part of the cost, use simpler frame styles, or just skip offering framed pieces altogether? I would love to hear what has worked for you.

Maybe, I just don't get it. Other than being able to share ideas with other ASF members, what are the benefits of the Art helper social media platform? Had anyone made any sales as a result of being here? It all just seems like an echo chamber to me.

Every time I share a new print on social media, I get the same message: "How much?" I reply, they go quiet, or they tell me it's more than they expected. Rinse, repeat.

I've started wondering if just listing the price upfront would filter out the sticker shock before it becomes a conversation I have to manage. On the other hand, maybe that number sitting right there in the caption scares off someone who might have talked themselves into it once they saw the piece on their wall. Hard to know which direction loses fewer people.

For those of you who sell originals or prints, do you post prices publicly or keep them behind a question? Has one approach actually moved more work for you?

Ran a giveaway on my Instagram last week. I have a little over 2,500 followers, mostly people who found me through night sky and landscape work. Offered a signed print of one of my Milky Way core shots from Joshua Tree. Five signups. Five.

I thought the audience was there. These are people who already follow the work, who comment on posts, who seem genuinely interested in astrophotography. But when it came time to actually enter their email and sign up, almost nobody did.

I'm trying to figure out where the disconnect was. Was it the entry mechanism? The way I framed the offer? Maybe the post just didn't reach enough of my followers algorithmically. Or maybe a giveaway isn't the right approach for this kind of niche work.

Anyone else run into this kind of gap between follower engagement and actual conversion? What changed the outcome for you?

I pulled up my pricing sheet this morning and nearly spilled my tea. The numbers looked so much higher than I expected, and my first instinct was to slash everything so galleries and shops would say yes faster.

But then I sat with it. I paint a lot (too much, honestly), and every piece still takes real time, real materials, real attention to getting that spring light right. Undercutting myself just to move inventory feels like it would catch up with me eventually. At the same time, I'm newer to the wholesale side of things, and I genuinely don't know if my markups are in line with what's normal or if I've priced myself into a corner.

For those of you who sell wholesale regularly and actually make a living from your work: did you go through a phase where your own prices felt too high? Did you lower them, hold firm, or find some middle ground? I'd love to hear how you settled into numbers you could believe in.

I think I will be able to produce enough content now to really get some eyeballs on my art. I finally got a repeatable system that will end up with 173 pieces of content, across FB, IG, Pinterest, X, Bluesky, and email. I have created a system for creating the art, generating the marketing pieces, and scheduling as much of it ahead of time as I can. June's focus was "coastal," July was "America the Wild - an America250 celebration of our wild spaces." August is going to be Winter in August. Since I have July pre-loaded for the most part, I can start gathering the August marketing assets.

I'm using Co-Pilot to post daily on FB, which is easy, but I notice that when I do these posts get absolutely no comments/ likes etc. At the top it says 'Published by Art Storefronts' so is this being blocking my interaction in someway by FB and could this reference be taken off?

Someone reached out recently wanting me to photograph something that isn't architecture. They like my eye, they like my compositions, and they want to hire me for a session that's well outside what I normally shoot.

I said yes, because the work sounded interesting. But now I'm sitting here realizing I have no real framework for pricing this kind of job. My usual calculus is based on editions, print sizes, licensing. A commissioned session for someone is a completely different structure, and I don't want to just pull a number out of the air.

For those of you who've taken on work outside your core genre, how did you land on a price? Did you research local rates for that type of shoot, base it on your hourly value, or just go with what felt right? Genuinely curious how others have navigated this.

Last month I posted a little gouache sketch of a café doorway from a trip to Porto and it got way more attention than anything I've posted before. Lots of likes, a handful of really thoughtful comments, even some shares. And I just… sat there looking at it, not knowing what to do next.

I've been posting my travel sketches pretty regularly and the engagement has slowly been growing, but I realize I have no actual plan for turning that into anything. I'm working toward releasing prints, so in theory this audience could matter a lot. But I don't want to be that person who immediately pivots to "buy my stuff" the second someone likes a post.

For those of you who've figured out how to bridge the gap between social media engagement and actual sales or email signups or whatever comes next, what did that look like for you? I'd love to hear what worked, especially from anyone selling prints or smaller work.

Most of my work ends up as prints, but I've been prepping a small run of mounted metallic prints on rigid substrates and hit a decision point on depth. Thicker panels look finished on the wall without a frame. Thinner ones give the buyer the option to drop them into a float frame if that fits their space better.

I keep going back and forth. A slim mount feels more flexible, but there's something about a deeper edge that reads as "this is the final presentation" and removes a step for the buyer. For anyone selling originals or physical pieces, I'm curious what depth or profile you've settled on and whether your collectors have a preference. Does the option to frame later actually matter to them, or do most people just want something ready to hang?

It's Boost Day! Here's how it works:

• drop a link to your latest social post, and the community will show up with likes and comments.

• Then return the favor – visit a few links in this thread and do the same for others.

Why this works: receiving engagement (ie: likes and comments) on your social post tells the social algorithm that it's valuable and entertaining content – making it more likely that the post is then shown to your own followers and art fans outside of your network.

So by helping each other “get the ball rolling” with engagement, we all grow! The system only works when we all contribute though – so be sure to give back as part of participating in this weekly thread.

Hi people in Europe, I need some help/ideas to resolve my website issues. I am based in the Netherlands and my website asks customers to select EU or International upfront because any order originating the EU orders go to a printer in the Netherlands. This is confusing and causes them to loose the ability to preview what they are ordering. In other words they cannot try a tote bag with 4 different paintings before choosing which one they want. Please let me know how you solved this issue.

I wanted to create this abstract art as a painting that immortalises the penguin, offering a departure from the traditional depictions of the South Pole’s most beloved animal... I work in mixed-media relief on wood panels, combining copper and metallic finishes with textured grounds.

I've been staring at a batch of metal prints I'm getting ready for a local shop and caught myself wondering if I should slip a small QR code somewhere on the piece that links back to my website.

On one hand, every print that hangs in someone's house is basically a tiny billboard for a year or more. A visitor sees it, scans the code, maybe finds my portfolio. On the other hand, I'd personally feel weird seeing a QR code on a piece of wall art I just bought. It might cheapen the whole thing. For something like a calendar or a coaster, it feels less intrusive, but on a framed landscape print? I'm not so sure.

I'm genuinely torn on where the line is. Are there certain product types where adding a QR code (or even a small URL) feels acceptable, and others where it crosses into territory that would put off a buyer? Would love to hear how others think about this.