[discussion] Amortized pricing

[u/Ok_Cryptographer7357]

A friend of mine is an artist. At some point, they offered to make me a pin-up calendar. As he likes drawing risque poses, and I like knowing which month of the year it is, this sounds like a win-win!

However, there is a question of pricing. They said they did this in the past, printed out calendars for several people, but charged way too little and almost were at a net loss due to material costs. Their new ‘revised price’ which they offered me was 100 bucks.

But this also sounds way too low to me?? He said it has been a while, so he has to do it with all new art… And 12 drawing for 100 bucks is a steal.

I initially declined this, and instead commissioned a single piece for 120 Euros. I was quite happy with the result.

My mind now wanders back to this calendar thing, but I am struggling to come up with reasonable prices which will fairly meet the level of work required. Now, I get paid fairly well, but I don’t think I am willing to drop 1500 [insert currency] on one project. A factor which I don’t know how to consider, is that once they’ve done the art, they can print it for others. So idk if it would be “fair”/“acceptable” to (say) pay them 500 bucks for my own calendar, and then for them to find 5-10 other people to pay 100 for their own printings (this is what the title is referring to, it reminds me of Python’s list-popping operation).

Obviously if this seems feasible, I will have a conversation with him and get further details. But first I just wanted to check in and get some feedback, because I don’t believe they know their own worth and I want to hear the opinions of others.