Hopefully, you may have read Part 1 about this all-important topic in the world of art (if you haven’t, you can find it here!). Because let’s face it: understanding how best to value your art for selling isn’t an easy business. We asked this question in Part 1 and we will ask it again: how do you feel when the question arises: how do I price my art?
This is a question which the Quarantine Events team has been asked. A lot. So often, in fact, that the team felt the need to sit down, gather their combined expertise, and truly answer this question. In Part 1 of How to price your art: no-nonsense advice from Quarantine Events, we delved into the all-important angle pertaining to your mindset – because your mindset is a fundamental core which affects everything.
If you’ve read Part 1 then you have the tools to understand the mindset – you can feel and think clearly. You know which soldiers you need to have inside your horse. Hopefully, you are feeling more confident.
Now, we get into the practical side of things.
Welcome to: “How to Price Your Art”: Getting practical. Stage 1: The System
First: calibration.
You need to pick an initial price. Do it in three steps:
Step one: look at the piece and capture your immediate reaction. Does it land?
Step two: without overthinking, say out loud a number you can hold with conviction. Remember: you’re valuing the clarity of your vision and its impact – not your hours, virtuosity, or effort.
Step three: add twenty percent to that figure and use it as your opening price – make sure it’s slightly uncomfortable. That cushion corrects the typical urge to lowball when fear, over- caution, and impostor syndrome show up.
Second: the ladder
Next, decide how and when you’ll raise prices. Now, your opening price is tested in the real market, and increases will no longer depend on your mood. To do this, define the rung rule in advance.
“Here’s an example.” Shares Carles Gomila, Founder of Quarantine Events. “If the number you can set with your head high is, let’s say €1,000, you add 20% and your opening price lands at a slightly uncomfortable €1,200.
“If and when you sell three pieces at €1,200, you climb a rung. Apply another increase – say another 20% – round as needed, and the new tier sits at around €1,500. So €1,000 becomes €1,200. Sell three pieces, move to €1,500. Sell three more, go to €1,800. Three more, you’re at €2,100, and so on.
“This logic is steady and easy to follow. More sales at a confidently held price reinforce your confidence, and that confidence often translates into work that’s more self-assured – feeding into a virtuous circle. When the tier stabilizes, you stabilize the price. Hitting a stable phase means that to keep climbing, you’ll need to raise the power and reach of your work.
“And when you feel a real jump in clarity, ambition, or artistic certainty, adjust the system and keep scaling with sound judgement.”
Stage 2: Adapt the system to your output
According to the Quarantine Events team, this varies with how much you produce: adapt accordingly.
As Carles explains: “If you make 2–5 pieces a year (low output), two sales per rung are enough, and jumps can be larger – perhaps 25–30%.
“If you make 6–12 pieces a year (most common), the standard balance works well: three sales per rung, 20% increases.
“If you make 13–20 pieces a year (medium-high volume), you need four to five sales per rung with more gradual climbs: – 15–20%.
“If you make 20+ pieces a year (high volume), you need five to seven sales per rung with tighter increments – around 15%.”
These numbers are guidelines. What matters is that your rule is clear, steady, makes sense to you, and lets you see progress without depending on your mood.
Understanding the market’s signals
Rules to avoid self- devaluation
This is flexible and intuitive, but one universal rule must always hold: NEVER. LOWER. PRICES.
It’s better not to sell than to drop your price. If you need to lower, make it a pricing “change”, not a price “cut”. Keep prices of existing work stable and adjust with a new series, format, or approach.
A lower price needs a visible reason in the work, because it’s only accepted when the perception of value also shifts. If it’s cheaper, it can’t be because “it didn’t sell”, but instead because you’re now working smaller sizes – or from some different angle.
Ask yourself: is your ladder based on the horse – or on the soldiers inside?
(If this makes no sense, you need to read Part 1!)
Money loves certainty
In art, money moves toward visions that are clear, coherent, and intense – and away from doubt, neediness, and fear. The mechanism is invisible; the effects are clear as day. Your relationship with money leaks into your work, into how you present it, and into the value you ask for it.
People catch this in a snap. They can smell it. And you can smell it in others too, right?
When you paint unclenched, without tension, your work breathes.
When you sell unclenched, without tension, your price breathes.
They are one and the same, born from the same flow state where clarity, confidence, and direction meet. Creating freely and selling freely share the same mechanism.
“Recognizing this is beautiful because when the market validates your vision, your confidence grows. As confidence grows, your vision sharpens – and that assurance attracts even more support, building a virtuous circle far healthier than the vicious cycle of polishing technique out of inadequacy. Ultimately: you are enough as you are.”
If you want honey, don’t kick the hive
“At some point, the artist gets it: the muses arrive on a whim and leave without leaving a phone number. And just then, you realize it’s better to stop chasing them and start preparing the terrain to make them want to return.
“Money works the same way. Chase it anxiously, take it too seriously, and it ghosts you. Treat it like your muses – with space, playfulness, direction – and it shows up with far less friction.
“The click happens when you stop forcing it and quit trying to “fit.” From there, you hold your vision with conviction, clarity, joy, intensity, and authenticity. Only then does the market stop reading your price as payment for effort and start reading it as a portal – an extraordinary passage to another world.”
“On the flip side,” says Carles Gomila, “an overblown sense of justice is poison. Living convinced the universe should behave differently breeds rigidity and resentment – zero allure. If you carry that poison, drop it fast so you can approach the market with the detachment and openness it requires.”
Do you have soldiers – or just a horse?
If, after this, you realize the issue isn’t the horse’s price but something about your soldiers, consider coming to Quarantine.
Quarantine Events is a purgatory for artists on a real quarantine island. It is a place where you will discover which emotions your work carries, and how to douse them in the conviction the market ultimately rewards.
They unlock artists – and they are alarmingly good at it.
Their next experiment is in April 2026: Tears in Rain – and places are going fast. Mentors include Yulia Bas, Phil Hale, Adam Miller, Sean Layh, Mu Pan, Yuko Shimizu, and Martin Wittfooth. Don’t be shy: come see how they can help you. If you want to learn more, you can check out our other blogs on Quarantine Events below!
Quarantine Social Media Accounts + additional blogs
Website | Instagram |Artist tips on emotional technique | How an Art Retreat Becomes a Social Experiment | Quarantine Events Brutally Honest Oracle
Feature image by upcoming mentor Martin Wittfooth: “Aspects of Winter”.
