On charging properly
I charged thirty euro for a full body piece for longer than I want to admit. Not because I thought that was fair, but because raising it felt like a claim I had not earned yet.
The reasoning went: I am not that good, people are doing me a favour by commissioning at all, and if I raise prices they will go elsewhere. Every part of that is wrong in a way that took a long time to see.
What thirty euro actually buys
A full body piece takes me somewhere between eight and fourteen hours across brief, sketch, revision, line, flats and rendering. Call it ten. At thirty euro that is three euro an hour before tax, before the tablet, before the software, before the hours spent on the four thumbnails that did not survive the silhouette test.
At that rate the work is subsidised by something else — a day job, savings, a partner. Which is fine as a temporary arrangement and corrosive as a permanent one, because the subsidy runs out and what runs out with it is the drawing.
What happened
I doubled everything overnight. Not gradually, not with an apology post explaining myself. New price list, effective immediately, existing queue honoured at the old rate.
Two people left. Both of them had been the most demanding clients I had — the ones who wanted a fourth revision after lines, who went quiet for a week and then asked why it was late. That correlation was not a coincidence and it is the part nobody warns you about.
Everyone else stayed. Several said some version of "about time." One said they had assumed the low price meant I was not taking it seriously, which was uncomfortable to hear because it was accurate.
Price is information. A number that is too low says something about the work that you did not intend to say.
What I got wrong about the objection
The fear was losing people who genuinely could not afford more. That does happen and it is a real loss. But the fix for that is not charging everyone too little — it is charging properly and occasionally deciding, case by case, to do something for less because you want to.
A discount you choose to give is a gift. A rate that is permanently too low is just a slow leak, and it leaks from the same place the enthusiasm comes from.
The part I still get wrong
Quoting complex pieces. I still anchor to the simple version and then feel obliged to honour it when the brief turns out to involve armour, three accessories and a lighting setup I have never attempted.
The fix is structural rather than psychological: quote after the brief is fully written down, never during the conversation, and put the number in writing before any work starts. I know this. I have known it for two years. I still occasionally say a number out loud in a chat window because the silence felt awkward, and I am always wrong when I do.