Have you ever felt frustrated that you can’t charge what you want to charge for your work? Or even that you can’t seem to charge what would simply make your work sustainable? Perhaps you’ve been stuck in a rut of undercharging and you don’t know how to get out of it, or maybe you’re disheartened comparing yourself to other artists’ fees and wondering how the hell they can command such high rates. Well, you’re not alone.

On top of the difficulties illustrators face earning a living, the pandemic has brought with it an increase in requests for low paid work, either from people starting companies while on furlough or from bigger businesses manipulating the desperation many have had for work. Enquiries like this has meant more opposition to fair fees and has also increased the number of illustrators needing advice. Many have been forced to take on low paid work to support themselves. However, reducing rates to adapt is not a long term game plan – it only creates difficulties in increasing them again later down the line. It also reinforces the notion that illustrators are hobbyists and can afford to cut their fees, rather than running businesses that need a sustainable income.

Why I write

By writing openly about my own experiences, researching industry rates and creating resources,, my aim has always been to increase transparency and to share the things I wish someone had shared with me ten years ago. I have had many emails and messages from illustrators revealing their own experiences and I get around 4000 users on my blog every month from illustrators looking for help. This was never anticipated when I first started writing. Most messages I receive have expressed that my resources have encouraged them to increase their rates and gain confidence as commercial artists, while others have shared their deep frustrations of having had their work exploited or been underpaid. On the flip side, I have had other illustrators criticise me for being too privileged to understand the plights of ‘everyday illustrators’ (newsflash, I am one), and others sent me breakdowns of job details for me to scrutinise and price, something I felt I was not happy to do. I am often saddened by the amount of illustrators who get in touch beating themselves up over low paid work or missed opportunities and I fear a perfectionist culture is robbing many of fulfilling careers.

A disclaimer

I am not a careers expert, I’m just someone who has made a full-time living out of my own creative work for the past six years and I am happy to share what I’ve learned (and am learning!). I am human – I mess up sometimes, miss the small-print, charge too little, quote too high and put too many emojis in my emails. My challenges are the very reasons I share industry knowledge and this is something I have always been upfront about in all my posts and resources (there’s a reason why ‘no bullshit’ is in the title of my course). I sometimes feel I am unable to be truly honest about my experiences for fear of the repercussions, but I have also felt an increased responsibility to continue to be transparent with the traction that many of my blog posts have got. I myself have not come from money or had connections and I have faced many barriers to to accessing opportunities because of this. Many of you will have far more barriers than I have had, but my hope is for artists to be treated fairly and to avoid experiencing the shame I have often felt trying to promote and sell my work. I believe the creative industry should be working together to become more accessible and that it’s unfair to place the burden of change on the shoulders of the very people who’ve been at a disadvantage.

Small fish, big pond

Though I hate to say it, as commercial artists we are a cog in a very big industry machine. We are part of an industry that contributes almost £13 million to the UK economy EVERY HOUR. New statistics reveal the Creative Industries sector is growing more than five times faster than the national economy. Big companies invest in it because they know it has powerful effect to influence and increase profit, yet we often do not see that value reflected in our own fees. Although we can’t control the way that companies treat their creative freelancers, we can push to have fair fees and terms. I’ve always been a big believer in using knowledge to provide tools for others to make informed choices – this was the reason why I wrote about different methods of pricing and compiled research about industry fees. Though people with experience and industry knowledge will be invaluable for you to learn and grow, no one can tell you how to run your business – not agents, not clients, and certainly not me. You have the right to charge whatever the hell you want for your work. Implementing a list of industry fees isn’t going to help you if other barriers aren’t addressed too and although some of these barriers are out of our control, others we can work to overcome. I want to encourage you to seek autonomy because in a world full of mentorship programmes, influencer posts and ten step programmes to ‘bossing like a boss’, the world feels pretty noisy, distracting and inconsistent. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen to others, but to start to work towards a career that you want, not one you feel you should have. Putting people and brands on pedestals is damaging and only leaves you feeling short changed (and more open to exploitation). Seek to be treated as a valued part of a successful industry. Trust yourself to work out answers that are right for you without constantly seeking approval or advice or letting others dictate to you how you should work. You know more than you think.

If you can’t charge what others can…

If you feel you are getting opposition to fees, you’re not alone. We’re in an industry that was frequently undervalued before the pandemic even hit. Some enquirers may assume illustration is simply a nice flourish, rather than something that will help to promote and sell their businesses and therefore place less value on it. With the frequent requests to work ‘for exposure’ thrown into the mix, it can often feel that we have to push back just to earn a minimum wage, let alone uphold industry fees. It may be that you lack experience in the industry or that your portfolio needs to be more consistent or a higher quality, but fees take time to increase. However, the worst thing you can do is become despondent and resign yourself to earning next to nothing for your work for the rest of your life. It’s time to make steps to push for better fees.

Work out your minimum

Maybe it sounds obvious, but working out your ‘basic’ rate is the most important thing you can do. If you’re doing freelance work alongside a day job you may be tempted to take on any low paid work you can get just to build up your portfolio. This can be counter productive because it means that you have no way of ever quitting your job if the freelance work is not sustainable. You need to work out your basic rate as though your illustration work is a full time gig, even if it’s not. This does not mean you should quote to your minimum, but it is a guide to when you will absolutely walk away. Doing this with your job terms is also a valuable exercise – what would it take for you to adapt your terms, if at all? What terms would mean that you would take the enquiry no further? Using a ‘rate’ is also helpful for your own calculations, but you need to take into account the commercial use of the work too so it’s advisable to add on a percentage to account for this and make copyright terms clear.

How to work out a basic day rate:

The salary you want to earn 
PLUS 
Your yearly expenses (studio rates, subscriptions, software, hardware etc.) 
= A

Number of WORKING days in a year 
MINUS 
Annual leave and sick days 
MINUS 
Unpaid business time (admin, communication, promotion etc.)
= B

A DIVIDED BY B = minimum day rate

Add 20% to account for job cancellations/days you don’t get work

Work on knowledge, not comparison

I know it’s easy to hear what others are charging and get frustrated but all this ever does is make you feel even more lowly and less likely to charge better the next time you’re asked to price a job. Use this knowledge to help you to understand what is possible and aim for that. If you feel you won’t be able to charge that amount (perhaps because your prices are consistently getting knocked back), think about ways to gradually increase your fees or display more value. Do you need to improve the quality or consistency of your work or be clearer about what’s included, for example. Asking what other illustrators charge can be helpful, but it can also be misleading. Be aware that many illustrators have different expenses, standards of living, speed of working, and methods for calculating fees. If you always rely on others to advise you, you may just get blown about by the wind, constantly changing your prices like a yoyo. You have to take the driving seat. My short course covers all the basic tools to help you build a sustainable business.

Spot time wasters early

As you gain more experience you will learn to recognise time wasters so you can spend most of your time looking for clients who respect your business. This can be especially hard early in your career. At the very least, don’t spend too long humouring people who ask too much from you without them giving clear budgets or project specifications. Note, if you suspect a client has a low budget it’s not a reason to give them a low price - if anything you need to account for the fact they could also be difficult to work for if they’re asking for too much or don’t have an understanding of the value of the work.

Baby steps, not big leaps

Don’t beat yourself up if you’ve realised you’ve been undercharging, we’ve all been there. Pricing work is a constant learning curve and there’s never going to be a point where every single enquirer thinks your prices are worth paying. Just going in at a high price is not necessarily going to solve all your problems – you may have regular clients who provide you a steady income and suddenly hitting them with large fees could damage your relationship. If someone has accepted a fee, try to increase it by 20% the next time you get a similar enquiry. Slowly raise your rates with time and use each enquiry as a learning tool. Cut out the noise that says you’re a failure if haven’t been charging ‘industry rates’. This is unhelpful. There are many well established illustrators who have expressed their frustrations with this, so it is not limited to inexperienced or unknown illustrators. If you find you happen to have a busy period, use this to experiment with going in with much higher prices – if you have other work to fall back on, use this to your advantage and aim high because you have less to lose.

Look for better paying clients

Easier said than done, I know. You may find that you are working for a lot of small local clients and they will have limited budgets – there’s only so far you can push for better fees. If you only have small clients you will need to look into better ways of convincing them to invest more for better results, or else work out how you can work more efficiently (and this may mean the quality of your work could suffer, preventing you from accessing better paid enquiries). Unfortunately finding better clients takes a lot of research if you’re not well connected and is usually more effective once you have a consistent and high quality body of work. When I say ‘better clients’ i am referring to companies that value your work, pay a reasonable price and respect your terms. Though we all want to work with internationally renowned clients, these are few and far between. ‘Good’ clients will ensure respect is on both sides, resulting in a positive working relationship and hopefully getting paid on time! However, the more time you can spend building your network the better. Use social media to promote and make sure your posts are relevant to the type of commissions you’d like to get. What would your ideal client be searching for? What would they use the work on? Display you are capable of meeting appropriate briefs, even if it’s personal work. Research contacts at larger companies and organisations and connect with their art directors. Again, I’ve included lots of tips how to do this in my course.

Be versatile

This doesn’t mean you have to be a jack of all trades but it does mean you can push your work to adapt to lots of different outputs – can you animate your work, learn lettering or design skills? Can you adapt to mural painting or lead workshops? If you’ve only worked on book illustrations, can you develop your work for packaging or branding? Think about other avenues for your work and ways you can increase its value. Sell more to your clients.

The challenge of negotiating rights

Industry advice by the Association of Illustrators is to implement fees for additional commercial use of work. This can be one of the most difficult learning curves because many small clients are unaware of this method of pricing, whereas most reputable publishers and creative agencies usually have some understanding of this. You may be met with confusion from smaller clients who assume they own all commercial rights to the work you produce for them. There are also larger companies who try to put sneaky copyright grabs into their terms – at the very least you should make sure you always retain the copyright to your work. If a business continues to get value from your work outside of the original commercial use then you should be compensated. Always be clear what use is included in the fee – if you need more understanding about licensing you may find this post helpful (your clients may find it helpful too). I personally think it’s good to use your common sense with this – for smaller clients who may not understand licensing terms, you may feel it’s more appropriate to quote with wider use in mind in the first instance and be clear about what your terms are. Jobs such as logo designs, for example, need to have wide use for them to be worth paying anything at all so I would personally work out a price that includes this, whereas other illustrators may work differently. Work out terms and fees that work for both you and your clients – it’s a two way process and both sides need to feel they have got a good deal.

Don’t criticise others

In the past I’ve been frustrated at hobbyists charging fifty quid for a day’s work and increasing the expectation that this is a going rate. The thing is, nothing you can do will change this – yes, even tweeting something vague about how everyone should charge more. Seriously, don’t waste your energy. Instead be prepared to be open about your own lessons and what has helped you. Quality is in the eye of the beholder – a client who wants a professional and high quality job is likely to be put off by someone charging so little. Focus on how we can all collectively learn and do better rather than criticise others because shaming people only makes them feel they deserve less.

You are more than your work

What sells is not just your work, it’s your processes, your communication, your track record, your consistency… things that make you great to work with. Never underestimate the power of problem solving and finding new ways to adapt, whether that’s finding new avenues for your work or suggesting better alternatives for the people you work with. Don’t forget, your passion for your work is likely to be why you started so make sure you have space to create, experiment and learn, free from the pressures of giving it a price.

Know your worth – the challenges of pushing for fair illustration fees