AuthorTopic: How much do you pixel art people charge?  (Read 5153 times)

Offline CodeGeorge

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How much do you pixel art people charge?

on: November 22, 2009, 09:12:13 am
For sprites and stuff...  Being someone who's new to the idea of charging I R confused.  lol I have no idea what's fair.  I mean realistically no matter how much I charge it wouldn't be enough to live  :P.  

How much do you guys that charge get done compared to the pay?  There's three tiers I can see.  Time invested, quality and pay.  Time invested means nothing without a certain level of quality.  Some quality takes more time invested then most are willing to pay.  Etc etc etc...  

I've asked before elsewhere and have been told vastly different things.  For example I asked how much people might expect to pay for Snorlax here (which I did for free for someone):


The answers I got were on average $5-20.  Yeah there's a big gap there.  The thing took me several hours too (I don't think I'm the fastest spriter out there :-[).

I mean I'm a n00b at asking for money and so far people have asked for quotes a lot.  I just don't know what to say.  Usually they ask for a quote per 32x32 or something like that (32x32 seems popular  ::)). 


Your thoughts?
« Last Edit: November 22, 2009, 09:13:50 am by CodeGeorge »
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Offline junkboy

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Re: How much do you pixel art people charge?

Reply #1 on: November 22, 2009, 09:32:34 am
Charge by the hour. If you estimate that something takes you X hours to complete, then you ask for X times your hourly fee (+ taxes). Exactly what your hourly fee is, is usually determined by your skill level, professionalism, how prolific you are and how much you are in demand. If someone wants to pay for your services though, don't sell yourself short.

Having said that, when it comes to pixel art, the clients are usually willing to pay either very little (hobby developers) or a lot (big companies) relatively. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground really, so that might be worth keeping in mind. Different quotes for different folks.

Offline CodeGeorge

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Re: How much do you pixel art people charge?

Reply #2 on: December 02, 2009, 12:56:19 am
Boy, this seems to be an unpopular subject.

I'm finding that realistically I'll charge like 1/4th or less then what I probably should.  However if I tried to raise the price it would be prohibitive to most potential clients.  

EDIT: Also what payment method do you guys mostly use?  I'm leaning towards Paypal. 
« Last Edit: December 02, 2009, 01:24:56 am by CodeGeorge »
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Offline JJ Naas

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Re: How much do you pixel art people charge?

Reply #3 on: December 02, 2009, 05:18:01 pm
Having said that, when it comes to pixel art, the clients are usually willing to pay either very little (hobby developers) or a lot (big companies) relatively.

Do big companies even use freelancers? I'd imagine big (mobile/DS/MMO/browser) game companies have hired artists with a regular monthly fee.

Offline Gil

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Re: How much do you pixel art people charge?

Reply #4 on: December 02, 2009, 08:29:39 pm
Do big companies even use freelancers? I'd imagine big (mobile/DS/MMO/browser) game companies have hired artists with a regular monthly fee.

I depends really. A friend of mine used to do a lot of freelance work for big companies like Disney. Eventually he got a steady contract, which came with a relocation of course.

Usually they work with inhouse artists with steady positions and freelancers working at home doing per contract stuff.

Offline Elk

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Re: How much do you pixel art people charge?

Reply #5 on: December 02, 2009, 09:09:38 pm
3 Factors for me that I keep in mind

the Clients budget, the quality, and the time I spend on something...very imporant for me
If the client isn't asking for something that is long termed, I usually charge way less, because stuff that requires alot of work is very exhausting on a longer time scale, hence I charge more

junkboy really got it to the point imo though.

Method is paypal, always, mostly

And that Snorlax would be around 20 $ yeah, it would take me around half - 45 minutes to make that, maybe less

But my average is around 30-40$ per hour

(considering I'm european and still accepting the dollar, that is quite cheap for my expensive standards)
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