To price illustration commissions, use one formula: estimated hours × your hourly rate × licensing multiplier + add-on fees. Hours set your cost floor, the licensing multiplier reflects how widely the client will use the artwork, and add-ons cover extra revisions, rush turnaround, and special file deliverables. Single illustrations commonly land between US$100 and US$1,000 depending on scope and licensing — but that range is only a sanity check. What matters is being able to show a client exactly how your number was built.
This guide walks through all of it: the three variables behind every quote, the formula itself, a reference rate table, the six charges freelancers most often forget, and the fields your quote document must include. Most new illustrators do not undercharge because their work is weak — they undercharge because nobody ever showed them how the number is calculated.
The Three Variables Behind Every Quote
Two artists can quote wildly different prices for the same half-body character piece. The gap usually is not skill — it is how these three variables were weighed.
- Workload: complexity, number of characters, background or none, level of finish, and whether original design work is included (designing a character costs far more than rendering a supplied one).
- Licensing scope: where the art will appear, for how long, and whether it can be modified. Personal use, merchandise, and brand key visuals differ by multiples, not percentages.
- Risk and time cost: revision rounds, deadline pressure, communication quality, NDAs, and payment terms. This is the invisible column where freelancers quietly lose money.
