Sundry Works Help · Pricing

How to price a painting consistently

Work out a consistent price for the open painting.

What it's for

The Pricing tab gives you a simple, repeatable formula for pricing paintings so your prices stay consistent across the whole catalog. It calculates a suggested price from the painting's size, then lets you apply it to the painting's record with one click.

The formula

You set what a small, a medium and a large painting are worth. Every other size is read off the straight line drawn through those three, so the value per square inch rises with size on its own. A single rate per square inch charged a small piece at a large piece's rate, which read too high, and kept a small piece and a large one in step by hand.

On top of that base:

• Prices by size - the three anchors. Pick a canvas size for each and type what that painting is worth. Between them the price is interpolated; past either end the line simply carries on.
• Complex-work markup - a percentage added for paintings you mark as complex (detailed work, many figures, intricate backgrounds).
• Minimum price - no painting will be priced below this, regardless of size. Keep it below your small anchor, or it quietly lifts small pieces back up and the small anchor stops meaning anything.
• Age discount - a percentage a year off, up to a cap. A painting with no readable four-digit year takes no discount at all rather than a discount of nothing.

Age adjustment

Older paintings can be discounted based on the year they were signed. Set the discount per year of age and a maximum discount cap. The app works out how old the painting is from its signed year on the Paintings tab.

A note under the two figures says what they come to for the painting you have open. If it has no signed year there is nothing to work from, so no discount applies and the note says so - fill in Signed on the Paintings tab and it starts working. The note also says when the maximum has been reached, which is the other reason the discount can stop responding: past that point raising the per-year figure changes nothing, and you have to raise the maximum instead.

Venue commissions

Galleries and shows typically take 30-60%. Add your venues here (name and commission percentage) to see the impact on your take-home price. A "Direct sale" row always appears for comparison.

The price calculator

The breakdown for the open painting shows a thumbnail of the piece beside its details so you can see what you're pricing: its area in square inches, whether it's marked as standard or complex, any age discount, and the suggested price rounded to the nearest $50.

Underneath the suggested price is the painting's actual price, in a box you can type in. That is the price itself, not a copy of it - the one that prints on a card, a label and the price list at the foot of this tab. Type a figure and press Tab or Enter and it is saved. The two sit together because seeing the gap between what a painting is worth and what it is priced at, and closing it, are the same thought.

Below that, "Use the suggested" fills the box in for you and saves it. It is the shortcut, not a second way of doing it - press it and the box changes to match.

A price from an older version that was never a number - a "price on request", say - leaves the box empty rather than being guessed at, and says underneath what used to be there so you can retype it or leave it alone.

Reference price table

Below the calculator is a table of common canvas sizes with their standard and complex prices under your current formula, so you can see at a glance how your pricing scales. If the open painting matches one of those sizes, its row is highlighted.

Gallery price list

At the foot of the tab is a Gallery price list - a clean, printable list of your work to hand to a gallery or a buyer, or to paste into an email. Unlike the calculator above it, this reads your whole catalogue rather than the one open painting, so you don't need anything open to use it.

Choose "For sale only" or "Everything", narrow it to one category if you like, and it lays out a table of each piece's title, medium, size, year and price, with a count and a running total of the priced work. Pieces marked Sold or Not for sale show that in place of a price when you list everything.

• Print or save as PDF - opens the list as a headed document under your business name and today's date, with your website and email along the foot. From the print dialog you can send it to a printer or save it as a PDF. A long list simply flows onto more pages.
• Copy - puts the same list on the clipboard as plain text, one painting a line, ready to paste straight into an email.

The heading and footer come from your Business tab, so fill in your name, website and email there and every price list carries them.

The painting needs a size set on the Paintings tab (like "16 × 20") before the calculator can work. If the size field is empty you'll see a note instead of the breakdown - but the price box is still there, so a painting you have not measured can still be priced by hand.

The rest of the Help

Start here

• Getting started with Sundry Works - What Sundry Works does and how the tabs fit together.
• Using Sundry Works on your phone - Setting up the phone, whether or not there is a computer as well.

Your catalogue

• What's due and what's unfinished - The first tab: what's coming up, what's still to do, what's unfinished.
• Cataloguing your paintings - Your catalog - add paintings and open the one you're working on.
• Reviewing everything one painting makes - Everything the open painting makes, on one page, with the one decision each needs.
• How to price a painting consistently - Work out a consistent price for the open painting.
• Tracking what sold and who bought it - What sold, who took it home, and what it brought in.
• Printing show labels and a portfolio - More than one at a time: a whole show's labels, or a portfolio to send.

Making things from a painting

• Writing a story for a painting - Generate a written story for the painting and keep the best one.
• Making a printed card for a painting - Lay out the printed card for the painting.
• How to make a certificate of authenticity - A painting's two printed documents: its certificate, and the label for its back.
• Web-sized copies of a painting's photo - Export web-sized copies of the painting's photo.
• Branded posts of your paintings - Branded static posts for Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.
• Making a reel of a painting - Build the vertical reel frame and video for social media.
• Designing an artist's business card - The card you hand out, laid out down to the last millimetre.

Running the business

• Setting up your artist brand - Set up once: your identity, brand assets, colours, and AI key.
• An address book for galleries and collectors - A simple address book for galleries, collectors, suppliers, and more.
• Checklists for shows and studio jobs - Reusable checklists for shows, errands, and anything you repeat.
• A calendar for shows and deadlines - Shows, deadlines, and events, with a countdown to each one.
• All your post comments in one list - What people said on your posts, from every platform, in one list.

Connections and setup

• Posting to Instagram and Facebook - Connect your accounts so you can post directly from Sundry Works.
• Posting your paintings to Threads - A second Meta connection, separate from Instagram and Facebook.
• Posting your paintings to Bluesky - The easiest connection of the four - a handle and an app password.
• Scheduling posts to go out later - Line a post up now and let it go out later, with the computer off.
• Configuring Sundry Works - Where everything plugs in: your social accounts, your website, your AI service, and where the catalogue lives.