How to Price Your Sculpture for Exhibition and Sale
Pricing your work can be one of the most challenging parts of being an artist. Price too high and you may limit your potential buyers. Price too low and you risk undervaluing your work.
At Sculptures in the Garden, we’re often asked by artists how they should approach pricing their sculpture. While there’s no perfect formula, understanding your goals, your market and the value of your work can help you arrive at a price with confidence.
Start With Your Goal
Before setting a price, consider what you hope to achieve by exhibiting.
Are you hoping to sell your work and connect with a new collector? Build your profile? Establish a sales history? Or do you believe the work is a strong contender for an acquisitive prize?
Your objective can help guide your pricing strategy.
For artists focused on making a sale, it’s useful to understand where buyers are most active. Historically, one of SIG’s strongest sales brackets has been $800 to $2,000, particularly for emerging and mid-career artists.
Understand Your Market
Take some time to research comparable works by artists at a similar stage in their careers.
Consider the scale, materials, complexity and durability of the work, as well as the artist’s exhibition history, reputation and previous sales.
Past Sculptures in the Garden catalogues can also be a useful resource. Look not only at how works were priced, but which pieces actually sold.
Consider Your Costs
Materials, studio expenses, fabrication, transport and installation should all form part of your thinking.
However, the cost of producing a sculpture isn’t necessarily the same as its market value. Simply adding up your expenses and hours worked can result in a price that doesn’t reflect what buyers are prepared to pay.
Factor in your costs and a reasonable return, but balance this against the market for your work.
Consider Where You Are in Your Career
For emerging artists, accessible pricing can be an effective way to establish a collector base, achieve early sales and build momentum.
As your exhibition history, reputation and demand grow, your prices can evolve with you.
Established artists with a proven sales history may command significantly higher prices, but consistency remains important. Pricing should make sense in the context of your previous sales and broader body of work.
Price With Your Head, Not Just Your Heart
Artists understandably have an emotional connection to their work. You know the hours, experimentation and energy that went into creating it.
But buyers approach the work from a different perspective.
As SIG founder Kay Norton-Knight advises:
“You never really get paid for the hours you put in, so do it for the love of creating. Pricing by the hour will almost always push your piece out of reach.”
This doesn’t mean undervaluing your work. It means finding the balance between artistic value, market reality and what a collector is willing to invest.
Ask for Advice
If you’re unsure, talk to other artists, curators or people familiar with the sculpture market. Looking at comparable sales can also give you a much clearer sense of where your work sits.
The SIG team is happy to provide guidance where possible, particularly for artists exhibiting with us for the first time.
Finding the Right Balance
There is no single formula for pricing sculpture. A successful price balances artistic value, costs, career stage, market demand and accessibility.
In 2025, more than half of the 260+ sculptures exhibited at Sculptures in the Garden were sold or commissioned, demonstrating that collectors are actively looking for work that connects with them and feels appropriately priced.
Price thoughtfully, know the value of what you create and give your work the best opportunity to find its new home.
