Framing and matting costs driving buyers away?

@Arty at ArtHelper You have the right idea but the sequence is backwards. List the fully framed, ready to hang option first with a solid price. Then take a few things away and display that next. Last is the unframed print. But the prices need to decrease only modestly. This helps the fully loaded price seem quite reasonable.

Behavioral science research proves that people are more reluctant to give things up than they are willing to add things. The highest priced, fully loaded option is the anchor.

A key factor for us to remember is that in most cases we pay retail when we buy frames and mats. This already high price only gets higher when we try to add a bit of profit to our price. I love the idea of buying frames at thrift stores, although telling the buyer you did that seems unnecessary. They're buying the whole product. If you must say something talk about it as responsible crecycling. Don't apologize.

I have been buying frames at Goodwill stores and reconditioning them. Many of them cost me $5 or less, are good old style quality, real wood, not particle board, look beautiful and don't take much to clean them, touch them up and present a nostalgic feel to my photos.

I do tell people that they are reclaimed or reconditioned, and some like the older patina, painted or barnwood style frames.

I have bought some decent looking frames from Amazon, Ebay, Etsy and locally made artisans so the shipping costs to me is next to nothing as well.

Being new to doing this, I don't have a lot of capital to have them professionally framed, considering the cost of the frame is so much more than the prints. If my print is $50, it becomes $175 to $250 with the frame, plus freight. I do offer print only at my shows, but most people want to take it home framed and hang it right away.

I try to offer my artwork with a framed or unframed option in my shop on on my website. Most of the work I have sold in person has been through a show or event, so the work was framed and ready to hang.

Out of the fistful of people who have ordered my artwork, it has been as a gift for a friend or family member, my customers requested the framed variant. For pricing, I try to incorporate framing into my pricing. I have a chart with a set amount for the gallery frames and mattes I use. I order gallery frames from Jerry's Artarama or use frames and mattes I find on Amazon. These are simple wood frames that I enjoy on my own work.

The prices I have set for framing are double the cost of materials to account for time to put the frame on and ship out the work.

I have a option for custom framing, which leaves the price open to add a custom frame rate for extra cost, determined by the framer I I chose to use. My two favorite are expensive.

It just seams wrong to me. Every person has their idea of the perfect frame and every city has a Frame Shop. So the collector purchases the Art and it’s sent to their Favorite Shop. You don’t make a profit on the frame because that’s s not your business an wasting time shopping for fames takes you away from creating Art.

I feel you; framing is so expensive right now.

My advice is to offer the highest price first then work backwards. Give at least three options, and the "middle" option should be the most appealing. This helps the price conversation because it helps people feel like they're making a reasonable choice.

That's sort of a psychological trick around talking about the price, but as far as keeping prices down it's definitely a challenge right now.

At Artstore Fronts, the client chooses for themselves the size, the quality, the support, and the type of framing. For direct sales you have to set a price with a frame and a price without a frame. During exhibitions I like to offer works already framed because, on the one hand, it is a finished product, ready to be taken away and installed on the client's wall. I want the client to be satisfied and for there to be no extra work for him. The selling price is by default higher as well, and we can make a larger margin, which makes the investment tied to the exhibition more profitable.

I would like Art Storefronts to give us the wholesale frame and mat prices at the various sizes, so we can figure out the profit margins on those items.

To display your works in any art gallery, all of them must be framed to be accepted and displayed on the walls of the gallery room. Except for the large paintings, they say there are no frames and the piece is stretched on a wooden support. Here is the catch of the gallery option. It is part of the formal or informal contractual terms.

I am incredibly lucky to have my wife as our in-house framer. She has spent 10 years in framing before I even picked up painting again. I use simple black frames to unify the visuals. This allows us to reduce costs by making our own mats, to offer a framed work ready to hang and to potentially offer the work unframed or with a special frame between two glass panes at a reasonable price by applying a 1.3x markup on materials.

And what a joy to discuss and have a direct, no-nonsense opinion on my works and exhibitions, even if sometimes the opinion is "never in my living room" 😁

When I was a professional photographer, I had acquired all the equipment to fabricate my frames and mats (pedal-operated moulding cutter, frame stapler, and mat cutter). It was a quick return on investment (very low material costs), and I offered prices that were much more affordable!

Here's one thing that you can do so you don't have these problems anymore:
You price with framing directly, then you "slide down the pole" when they ask if you can send it without the frame.

Now... you know they like the price (directly) and if they want it without frame... you both know it will be less. What do you think?

@Linnie Schneider I would tell them upfront that the cost of framing and shipping will likely shock them, and recommend that they have it done near where they live. A lot of people won't care about the cost so don't feel guilty about it. Take the actual cost, and double it to make it worth your while doing the work. But get them committed to the photograph before you even start talking about framing. HTH.

I agree! Sure brings the end price up! But, it’s ready to hang!

I have reused frames I have older paintings in. The art piece is taken out of frame and can be wrapped and sold as loose and matted. I have a new mat made for new painting and put new painting in frame that had an older painting. The new arrangement is in a show ready to hang. I am talking about watercolor paintings. I also attach and frame watercolors on cradle boards. I have a supply of different sizes of cradleboards. I don’t think cradle boards could be used with photography.

This is a tricky one and I don't sell framed work myself, but I ran into a similar cost stacking problem when I started offering matted drawings. What helped me was digging into the actual pricing guidelines from the organizations and groups that support artists in my area. Portland has a few artist resource centers and co op framing setups that publish recommended markup structures, and just reading through those gave me a much clearer sense of what's reasonable to pass along versus what to absorb. It might be worth looking into whether any professional artist support organizations you belong to have published recommendations on how to handle framing markups specifically. Sometimes the answer is already sitting in a resource library somewhere, just waiting to be found.

I mat and frame my originals. I have checked out the framing options online and have the same concern you have - seems overpriced. I will say that I went to two different framers withthesame piece - one was $125, the 2nd $500. Of course I went with the lower cost - otherwise I’d really have to up my prices on framed originals as I always factor that cost in when determining the price of a piece.

Hi! The fact that you hesitated before sending that quote tells me your instinct is good here. The framing cost itself isn't the problem. The way the price lands on the buyer is.

A few moves that fix this without cutting your margins:

- List the unframed print as your default price, then offer "ready to hang" as a visible upgrade option. Buyers who see "$120 print / $285 framed and ready to hang" process it differently than a single $285 quote with no anchor. The base price sets the expectation, the framed version feels like a choice rather than a surprise.

- Add a matted-only middle tier. A mat with a backing board and sleeve runs a fraction of a full frame job, and it gives buyers a "more than a bare print, less than the full framed piece" option. That middle step converts people who want something gift-ready but flinch at custom framing prices.

- Show the framed version in a room mockup right next to the unframed version. Canva or Placeit can do this in about ten minutes. When someone sees the piece on a wall above a couch, the framed price stops feeling abstract and starts feeling like furniture. That visual context closes the gap between "print price" and "finished piece price" faster than any explanation.

- Quote framing as "includes professional matting, UV-protective glass, and hanging hardware" instead of just "framed." Itemizing what's in the frame cost makes the jump feel justified rather than arbitrary. Buyers don't know what goes into framing unless you tell them.

The collector who asked is already interested. Send the quote with the unframed price first, the framed price second with the materials listed out, and a room mockup attached. That's a very different experience than a single number with no context.

Want help writing the actual pricing breakdown to send that collector? I can draft it for you

Other resources you might find helpful:

- First time pricing a custom commission piece — Learn concrete pricing strategies for custom commissions including per-square-inch rates, hourly estimation, and how to separate framing costs as line items.

- First commission request and I have no idea what to price it — Learn how to structure commission pricing by separating creative/scouting fees from base print costs to capture the additional work buyers request.

- Adding a low-price entry point to commissions — smart or risky? — Real data on whether low-price entry commissions build collector bases or just fill schedules with low-margin work.

Arty is our artist super-assistant. Trained on all things related to art business & marketing. use @arty in a post or comment to ask Arty directly. upvote & downvote to provide feedback.

When I started looking into offering framed prints, I got stuck on the same thing. The frame cost felt like it was doubling the price and making the whole thing awkward to present. What helped me was thinking about it less as "cost of print plus cost of frame" and more as pricing the finished piece as its own product with a healthy markup built in from the start. So instead of just tacking on what the frame costs me, I set a percentage based markup for the framed version that accounts for my time, the presentation value, and some breathing room. It made the final number feel more intentional and less like sticker shock. I'm still figuring out the exact sweet spot, but approaching it as a separate product with its own margin instead of an add on changed how I felt about quoting it.