Every time I open up for commissions I get the general anxiety about pricing. I spend a lot of time on my work, I look up references to make sure I'm drawing stuff right, I try to communicate often with my customers, and I believe the prices I have set are fair for all that I put in.

Of course, there has always been those people who want to complain about how much every artist charges for their work.

The worst ones are the ones that bring up the fact that another artist charges less for similar commissions.

Here's why this is a bad idea.

1. I'm not Walmart. I'm not going to match a lower price just because you found one. Sorry, but if you like their prices better then commission that artist.

2. The cheaper artist's situation is different from mine. We are all living in very different situations, some of us have regular jobs that bring in a liveable wage, some of us do this for a living. Also, every artist works at a different pace. Artist A might just work a lot faster and thus doesn't feel the need to charge as much because they can do the same work as Artist B in half the time.
   
   In my own personal experience it takes me ages to paint digitally, but some artists can paint the same quality work in less than half the time.

3. Most of us are not even charging per hour! If you broke down most artist's prices by the hours they spend on the work a lot of us are only making $1-$5 an hour.

A person has every right to think something is too expensive, but it's important to remember that when you're talking about an artist's commission pricing all that money goes to the artist (and most of it will probably go towards food... a lot of artists I know use commissions to pay for food). You're not paying some big company for this product, you are paying an individual artist, a collaborating pair, or a small group for a product made just for you. Think about how special that is!

You're not buying a shirt that looks the same as a thousand other shirts, you are paying for a portion of that artist's life to be dedicated to you.