Starving Artist

The Starving Artist

This topic is about rates and wages that an artist should start to consider when taking on a new job. This is my advice, so take this as advice.

So let’s begin. As an artist you  should know right away that you are valuable. You can recreate people’s imagination and ideas into reality. You are the one who brings people together to be able to all see the vision for the final product. This is valuable. Keep this in mind when you take new jobs. Think about how many hours you plan on slaving over iteration after iteration. Because even though you may have a voice, if you agree to whatever the arrangement are, you must live up to their standards. So make sure you are paid well.

Imagine a client asks you to do 50 hours of work for only $500 dollars. That’s $10 an hour. That is not enough. You can go get a job that could pay you as much if not more, without being an artist. I’ve seen people’s salaries as low as 30k a year. This is not acceptable especially if they graduated from a college that costs them 90k in loans.

I suggest the following to all my fellow artists, that the minimum for your time should at least be $30 an hour. I have seen people make as much as $200-500 an hour to give you some perspective. Now that may seem like a lot but some of these artists deserve it, but some don’t. Either way the flux in income needs to be equalized so we all benefit from this, especially artists who are just starting out. It’s not fair that people get paid dimes and nickels for stuff that actually has tons of value.

If you have quality work, I’d highly recommend charging in the $75-$150 an hour, Novices $40-$60 an hour, and beginners no lower than $30 an hour. I hope this guide helps you and informs you of your worth. Your time and skills are valuable, don’t lose sight of that.

Good Luck,
AJ

And to give you guys some more perspective. I never go below $100 an hour for freelance gigs.

Also some images for a comic I'm putting together of many. Sneak peek