Howdy.

I was looking through the Job Offering section, and I came across a couple of posts in a thread suggesting that a client is not offering sufficient pay for what he/she is asking.

This, I thought, would make for an important discussion.
I'm sure there's not just one answer, but I don't really have a frame of reference; I've never taken a Pixel Art commission before. How do we price our work?

I'm not asking for YOUR rates, in particular, but I am curious as to where to start.

As an artist, I estimate the number of hours the work will take, and multiply it by an hourly rate. Pretty simple! If the work is so different from my previous experiences that I can't make an estimate, then chances are I shouldn't be taking that job at all because I'm not qualified for it. The solution to that is to try doing similar work on my own time, for practice.

The hourly rate can vary from artist to artist depending on their needs, and skill level/demand for their time. I think at a minimum it should be a living wage (US$15+*), but I think anyone good enough to get work in the first place can charge a bit more than that.

* This is a global market, so if you're in a position to get more value out of your work because you live in a place with a lower living wage - enjoy the extra money! Don't under-cut just because you can afford to, because that damages the market for everybody. It drives out skilled artists who can't compete because of higher living costs, and reduces the number of artists and range of styles available to job-givers.


As a job-giver who is not themselves an artist, it's often difficult to know how long the work you need will take just for a lack of experience. Plus, what's simple and familiar to one artist can be difficult and foreign to another, and you can't always expect to get the perfect artist for the job, so you should expect your artist to struggle at least a little.

I think ideally everybody should try their hand at various kinds of art to get a feel for what goes into it (and therefore for pricing it), but in reality most people don't have the time, tools, or inclination. In that case, I think it's important to listen to feedback from people. Make a rough estimate of the time it'll take, and include that and the list of work to be done in your job listing, along with the pay you expect to give for that time. If someone tells you that your time estimate is way off, listen to them!
I think too many job postings don't include enough information about the job, or make a posting before they even figure out what needs to be done, and that's how they end up underpaying, or just failing to attract any takers.

Unless you're super well-known for your previous paid work, just having a portfolio up will not get you jobs, you need to go after them!

Pixelation also has a job offer board that's fairly similar to this one. You can also often find pixel art jobs in communities for game creators, such as TIGSource. Lastly, check the jobs sections of game devs that make pixel art jobs, as those are usually not cross-posted.

Also, although there are a lot of artists, many job offers actually seem to go unanswered! Most pixel artists on PJ and Pixelation are hobbyists and/or have other jobs, so the number of artists seeking work isn't as high as you might think. More importantly, a lot of job posters don't do a good job of describing what they want or pay too little. If you're brave and want to coax information and proper pay out of those people, you can get a lot more jobs because almost everyone else (myself included) passes them over.