Quote for artists/galleries

[the framing lady]

Does anyone have guidelines or pointers to quote for framing for local artists and galleries?

[Jonny2morsos]

I think you need to be more specific about what you might be quoting for. For instance the volume of business and what services you are quoting for.

Some artists will be happy to buy a frame with mount, glass and backing board and assemble themselves whereas others wiill want to drop off their work and collect it ready to hang. Materials involved also come into play, are the mouldings ones you hold stock of or are you going to have to order each time they want a job doing.

[prospero]

If they are a bona fide professional artist, then treat them as trade customers. There are certain economies that can be gained by establishing a theme to the frames.
Will they want the same sort of moulding, etc on a repeat basis?
Are they easy to deal with?
Do they pay up quickly?
There can be many factors. Keeping to a set of sizes helps in many cases. I did 5 small watercolours recently. About 8x6" size. I say 'about' because they all varied 10mm or so in both directions. If they had all been the same size, I maybe could have shaved a tenner off the bill.
The easier they make supplying frames to them, the easier you can go.
Once you get a feeling for their likes and dislikes it cuts down on design time. If they ring up and order "another of the goldy ones I had last time", then it makes life easier. If they want to agonise for hours on the choice of every individual frame (and bring their mother for a second opinion) then you have to charge accordingly.

There is no real difference between trade and retail when it comes to pricing. It still has to be worth your while. Don't automatically give a set discount. My philosophy with trade customers is to charge as little as you can.
Retail - as much as you can get away with.

[Gesso&Bole]

Typically the right price to charge professional artists is somewhere between 'more than they want to pay', and 'less than you would like to charge'.

Seriously the way to deal with professional artists, is to work with them to find a good value for money presentation for their work. Both in terms of encouraging them to work to economical sizes, (ie 4 out of a sheet of mountboard with no wastage) and in terms of steering them on to value for money mouldings, and if you have a CMC using a v groove istead of a double mount. If you are clever at coming up with a creative presentation using value for money materials, and you can get them to order a few at a time, and possibly even do the time-consuming parts like cleaning the glass and sealing up themselves - then you should be able to charge your full price for the work you are doing, AND provide an excellent price for the artist. Most PROFESSIONAL artists will be delighted with this sort of approach to selling and branding their 'product'. Everyone's a winner!

BTW beware of non professional artists, who want one or 2 framed, and want to spend hours choosing and negotiating a discount. This extra time taken is exactly what your full prices are designed to cover. Do not discount in these instances.

[Graysalchemy]

I agree with all everyone has said above. One thing I do to see if they are going to be a worthwhile proffesional artist is to ggogle them and see how well they are represented in galleries and how much they sell their work for. If you get a lot of hits and especially ones where the work listed is sold then they are obviously going to be a good bet but if they are only represented on their own website and perhaps a few local ones then they probably aren't going to be big volume buyers and probably won't spend a lot of money.

I always tell people when they come in looking for discount is that I am giving them a good price anyway and perhaps revue it when they have proven their commitment to you.

Alistair

[the framing lady]

Thank you for the valuable feedback.
A gallery approached me and asked to do the framing for them. It is a quint gallery with a huge selection of local artists. I think there is only one published artists among them all.
Depending on volume and the other pointers you have given, I think I would still charge a reasonable amount and explain the benefits of it. If we can arrange a "value for money" design, then it is as you say, a win win situation for both.

Thanks so much