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Karijn-s-Basement β Adoptables, Pricing
Published: 2012-06-21 19:25:00 +0000 UTC; Views: 49806; Favourites: 476; Downloads: 0
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Description
Many people have asked me about this subject and while I did write a small 'Pricing' section in Adoptables, Basics for Adoptables Artists , the requests have not decreased so I decided to do a Journal dedicated to it.Pricing is a tricky art because you need to balance three things, the Price/Effort ratio, the Price/Design ratio and the General Market Price.
Price/Effort RatioThis is what you think you deserve to earn and the price that you would put on your adoptable if you didn't take into account the other two aspects. This takes into account mainly two things:
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Time spent on the adoptableObviously, spending five hours on an adoptable instead of one makes the price rise. Many artists use a hourly wage to do their commission prices, so you should time yourself when you do an adoptable, at least the first few times, just to have an idea of your drawing speed. Your hourly wage should be linked to the quality of your art.
Quality of your artLet's be honest here, not everybody is an adoptables da Vinci. The better your art quality (shadows, clean lines, correct anatomy) the higher price you can ask. If your art quality is low, you should use a hourly wage wisely. Sadly, a buyer only sees the final result, and it doesn't matter to them that you spent 7 hours to do your adopt, if the result is an unsightly blob that is priced $10.
Price/Design RatioUgly fact of life, unless you have thousands of adoring watchers and you're an adoptable God, a black cat is a black cat. And no one will spend money on it simply because you used a nicer lineart or you'll give them a high resolution file. An adoptable is all about the design and a simplicistic design will not sell for a high price.
Elements to take into account for the P/D Ratio are:
Original Lineart/Base (+1) Original Species (+1) Design Originality (+3)How to tell that your design is original? Well, this is mostly left to the artist's insight, but be sure that if it's a feline/canine and it has a solid colour... It's not very original.
General Market PriceThis is the sworn enemy of the P/E Ratio and probably the element that drags down your adoptables' price like a stone. Because these days everyone and their best friend are doing adoptables. It's a good way to earn some extra points/cash, using your spare time to do the batches and avoiding the small hours to do commissions. And because there's a lot of competition, the prices are very low.
Your best bet is to browse through adoptables groups and find some characters that are close to yours, for Art Quality and Design, and look at the prices. Chances are they already did the pricing for you and you only need to adjust it a little, based on the differences between your P/E and P/D Ratios and theirs.
In the end, you get:
Final Price = (P/E Ratio + P/D Ratio + GMP)/3
What is written here is my own opinion and the result of my personal experience and should not be taken as The Law inscribed in Stone. (I have used an equation similar to this at the beginning of my Adoptables Account. Right now the GMP for original species has risen a little and my own P/D Ratio has slightly grown, so my prices would need a bit of re-handling. But I'm to lazy to do that right now.)
About asking me for an adopt price estimate: I am so very sorry, but I've had a change in my day job's shifts and my free time has been reduced by a lot, so I won't be able to give out price estimates anymore if I want to still have some free time to reply to other comments. I hope I managed to be helpful so far, you can still check out the older comments to see what price estimate I gave to every character I was shown.
Adoptables, Basics for Adopters
Adoptables, Basics for Adoptables Artists
Adoptables Tutorial
Adoptables, Writing an Artist's Description
Adoptables, Customs
Adoptables, Design Tutorial
Adoptables, Buying Adoptables
Adoptables, Pricing
Original Species Tutorial
The Purchase Button and P2U Deviations
Adoptables, Auctions
Adoptables, Original Species Confusion
Adoptables, I sold one, now what?
Adoptables, Doing It Traditional
Adoptables, Why are you so EXPENSIVE?
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Comments: 572
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Either through an in-site currency (dA has points but other sites may have other currencies) or with Paypal. Lately I've seen bases being sold on Gumroad, so really, in a variety of ways.
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The information you provide is so useful, thanks!
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I'm happy you think so.
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Firstly, let me thank you for making this series - I started with the Basics for Adopters and have been going down the list (though I'm no stranger to Adopts from the buyers side, I figured it best to start there anyway just in case - I see you're very good at providing common sense without being condescending in tone).
I've been thinking for a while now about making adopts of my own, and while I'm not yet ready to actually start (too much prep stuff I'd like to do first, and I'm not exactly hard grinding it), I was wondering about an idea I had - making multiple different 'tiers' of adopts that tend to run different in price, so as to accommodate low-income buyers while also making some that I may get more out of. Specifically, I intend for the cheaper ones to be made on bases, and the more expensive ones to have unique lineart each time.
In your experience, would this be a sound idea? Should I make two different accounts (instead of just one new adopt account) to separate the different adopt tiers more fully, or just organize them as such in the gallery?
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Thank you so much for your kind words, I'm happy I was able to be helpful.
As for your question, I do agree with all you said, some based adopts at a lower price range and some higher priced adopts with original lineart, maybe throw in some raffle every once in a while, you're starting out in a good period for seasonal adopts, with Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year all after the other.
For the other part, I think that just one adoptables account will suffice, no need to do a separate account based on technique. This way you can get base-buyers interested in the higher priced designs and get original-lines-buyers to buy some cheaper adopts if they get inspired. Also this way you don't have to advertise one account through the other one and will just need to post everything in the same place. (I am a lazy butt and keeping an account on dA and one on FA is already too much for me, I don't know what I'd do with more than that. 
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Hello! I hope you are having a great day. I wanted to ask a few things,hope it doesn't bother you.Β
1- I started doing adopts a couple weeks ago,and I must say that it went pretty well,but for some reason,only 4 out of 6 adopts are sold. Might have a recommendation or tip on how to fix that?Β
2-I wonder if Im pricing my adopts too cheap.Β
Β I spent 13 hours doing all of these,taking the breaks out must be 10 to 11 hours. I sell them at 50 points for 1 and 80 points for two. For this ones,I felt like I was giving them for free because of how much I spent on them. Do you think that I should make higher the price?
3-Im pricing my adopts on how I see my art level,but I don't know if that is good bc I have always seen my art as bad and something that no one would buy. Do you think that I should make the price higher based on my art level or not? Is it good as it is? (The base I used is an original one,but I feel like is really simple)Β
Also,thanks! For the little that I have read,it has been really helpful! Thanks for doing this and helping a lot of people. Thanks for taking the time of reading everything and writing the journals β₯
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No problem at all, though I don't do estimates for prices anymore, so I'm ging to give you just general answers.
1 - You say it went pretty well, but then you say 'but only 4 out of 6 got sold'. For an adopt batch posted less than a day ago, I think that's a very good result. Keep in mind that sometimes adopts go unsold for years. Entire batches stay unadopted. So instead on focusing on 'what did I do wrong, they didn't sell', focus on 'I sold some, what did I do right with those?'. Also, adoptables take patience.
I suggest you read the last instalment of my series, Adoptables, Truth Pills
2 - Yes, I think you should. If you're just starting out, I realize that you might want to 'introduce' your prices slowly, but 50
Think about *why* you're doing adopts. If you just want to raise some points for a sub or to purchase some point commissions, there are easier ways that do not include spending all day on a design; browse dA for a good, and free, wolf/horse/cat lineart and focus on the coloring, make a ton of designs and sell them for 35-40 points each. I have an old shadow account where I did exactly that and raised around 2000
If you want to get better at designs and are really invested in this, then you should probably be ready for some disappointment and frustration, especially in the beginning. Also in the 'during' and 'after'.
I also think that sale offers (reduced price if you buy two) are only an advantage with higher priced adopts, under 15-20USD I would never consider it, because the amount of money you earn is sometimes barely enough to cover the time spent over them and doing a sale makes no sense.
3 - That you can charge more if you improve is an absolute fact but you should practice and aim to better your art indipendently from the money you might earn. This being said, I already said that I think you're underpricing yourself. However you can keep on underpricing and practice more so when you feel more comfortable in yourself and your art, you'll raise your prices because you feel you deserve the raise (you *do* deserve it but I understand self-doubt and hyper-criticism), or you can start slowly raising them now and find the balance between a good selling rate and a good price.
Hope I managed to help you out a little bit, stay strong and believe more in yourself.
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Thanks so much! Im going to read all the journals. Thanks for taking the time to answer me! This is very helpful
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No problem at all, and good luck for any future designs.
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Aah, this helped so much! I'm currently working on an adoptable and this helped SO SO much!
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I'm happy to hear that, good luck with the sale.
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Hey, if anyone would be so kind, I got a buyer waiting on this guy:Β toyhou.se/2179169.neptune and I have NO clue how to price him. Any suggestions a price for him, because I'm struggling.
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You could potentially sum all the expenses you went through to commission the pieces. So original purchase price + commissioned prices + your commission prices if some pieces were done by you.
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So the problem is that I didn't really buy him for money, I paid using CS pets a while ago. Plus most of the art was either in an art trade/done by my friends for free. Thank you for responding though, not sure if we were allowed to do this kinda thing on your post or not.
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I don't do pricing anymore, but I can still give a tip or two.
You can check what your friends'commissions cost and then move along that line but do remember that you have multiple art pieces there, so if someone for example offers you 15USD for it, they're offering you 3USD for each drawing. Which could be acceptable for the one done on the base (could be), but for the painted portrait? Haha, lol no. That's worth more than 20USD in my opinion.
Then again it depends on how much you need the money/want the character you're being offered in trade.
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Okay, thank you so so much!
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You're very welcome.
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I know you will probably be busy and all but I am genuinely curious on another persons opinion on what my 'adoptable' would cost as I am unsure myself. (spent around two and a half hours)
or it could be too complex for all I know and nobody would want it.
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this creature is cool, just thought you'd want to know
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thanks I appreciate that
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Unfortunately I am a bit too busy for a search to compare prices, but I can tell you that it's not too complex, so that's not going to be an issue. However, I feel that the background is a bit too strong, and it doesn't let the attention of the viewer focus on the design itself. I'd lower the opacity a bit (at least 60%) so it doesn't take too much from the design.
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This is very helpful, but i'm wondering as to what MYΒ "adoptable" would cost.
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Or maybe it wouldn't cost anythingΒ Β Β
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I honestly would have some difficulties pricing your design. About the presentation, maybe take a look at this Tutorial: Adoptables, Doing It Traditional
This was done on lined paper and the photo has been taken with odd shadows, not the best way to present an adoptable.
About the design... It's pretty simple, plus it's a solid color, which means that, to sell it/increase the price, the art needs to be of good quality and/or presented well (see the tutorial above). Basically if you have a simple design, you need to do an awesome rendition/presentation, if your design is more interesting/captivating, then you can forgive the presentation.
Example, if I wanted to sell a rabbit adoptable, my drawing better look like this: fineartamerica.com/featured/haβ¦
If I want to sell an Original Design/Species, then it can look like this:Β OC Development - Mana
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Do I have to price my adoptables? Or can I just give them away for free?
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Nope, you can give them away for free, ask for a picture in exchange... They are your adopts, you can give them out however you want.
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Okay, great, thanks : )
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I have a question about the general market price thing. I've recently gotten into pixel art and decided to make some Chibi Pixel Adopts. Now the problem is, while chibis run rampid on DA, Pixel style adopts (Chibi or not) are very uncommon.
I've only been able to find 3 other people making Pixel Chibi Adopts. They sell theirs for around $20-$40, however I do not believe that this would be my GMP as their adopts are more complex and these deviants all have 500+ watchers. So my question is how would I decide on a GMP for my adopts? Should I just use their price OR cut their price in half or do a 1/5th percentage based on my watchers vs. theirs? What would you suggested?
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Pixel adopts are uncommon, I agree with you on that. 
People have their preferences and if one person is following you for your pixel art, they will be more interested in that and disregard the rest (not always true, but oftentimes it is). If you have many options in your gallery, chances are that your watchers's interests are distributed among those, however, if you concentrate on one thing, you'll have just one kind of watcher. So you could potentially have less watchers than someone else, but all of them are interested in pixels, so you have more potential buyers than one with more watchers.
Anyway, changing subject completely, my tip for you would be to look into commissioned art. Pixel, of course. More variety of people who do that kind of art, so more chances for you to find a style that is closer to yours. That or, if you don't find anything even there, would be to price them at the price you'd ask a person if that was a commission and not an adopt, and then take off a little percentage. That way you have both your adopt prices and your commission prices already decided.
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Hmm, yeah that makes a lot of since. I've never thought of it quite that way, that people could have different kinds of watchers and it depends on what they're into... I just always thought of it as, more popular = more sales... but that's probably not always true.
And thanks for the advice. I had thought about looking at pixel commissions but wasn't sure if that'd be a good idea. I'll look into them ^_^
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those tutorials are so helpful, thank you! i'm gonna re-read those when i've made my mind abt doing adopts!
but i was here alone thinking about the topic and i have some questions, you don't need to rush to answer them tho!! i speak a lot and i know you've got a job and a life outside dA, so just take your time!
β’ about prices, since i'm a minor i can't have a paypal. so i'm thinking abt making my adopts being sold by points, but do you think that is good? bc i might convert it into money when i turn 18 (i'm 17), so i'm afraid i don't make the prices fair... like, maybe my adopts will be worth $20, but what if the equivalent of it is a really high amount of points? people won't buy them (and i totally understand!). so do you think it's worth to sell them by points, in this case? is it better to sell by cash or points?
β’ and well, idk how to categorise it, but i'm really afraid of getting too attached to my adopts and feeling guilty to sell them! do you have any advice to avoid it happening?
again, thank you about the tutorials and sorry abt the long text! i'm kind of an overthinker so usually i get lots of questions about everything ejskdjw thank you for the attention you're giving to everyone even if it's a lot of people. that's really kind and rare so i admire your attitude ^_^
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Haha, thank you so much for your kind words, and really, in a community people help each other and hoarding knowledge makes no sense, the more the merrier and if we can manage to be organized in he meantime, that's less headaches for everyone.
This being said, let's answer your two questions.
First, about the points VS money question (which is longer to answer), the difference is in your target audience and your plans in the long run. Points are fine if you stay within a limit; people have always had a skewed opinion on how many points make a dollar and in the beginning it was one of the reasons of adopts underpricing. Now the idea of how much points are worth has changed, but it's still very rare to see higher priced adopts go for points. When I say 'higher' priced I mean anything around and over 20-25USD. This because the people using points are mainly underage deviants who have earned them by commissions or because someone (usually a parent) has bought them from dA.
Having both points and money as your currencies helps you get a wider audience, both younger artists who still use points and older ones who can already use Paypal. Also, I think you should price your adopts for what is fair for the work and effort you put into them and accept nothing less. What you can accept are mixed payments of cash and points, or payment plans. Be flexible while still getting what you ask for and remember that as an artist you are your own boss and no one is going to look out for you but you, so do not underestimate or undervalue yourself.
About the more technical 'hows', there is more info about this in my 'P2U Button Journal' (it's linked at the bottom of this journal here), but accepting points and then converting them to money yourself is NOT possible, so be careful about that. The only way you can turn points into money is if the person buying from you uses the Purchase Button (See the P2U Button or any dA official article about Premium Content) and their points get transformed in money for you. Where's the catch? dA takes 20% of the total income, makes you wait 14 days before allowing you the change of transfer to Paypal AND you have to have at least 5USD to make the transfer. (Also, I think there's a 1USD fee per transfer if you're not a premium member but rules could have changed.)
Very important info: If you buy points from dA, you get 80 points for every dollar you spend. But if you use the Purchase Button to convert points to money, 80 points only equal 80 cents. So to get one dollar, you need to ask for 100 points.
So when you say that your adopt is worth 20USD, if you wanted to get them from points, it would be 2000 points, which basically means that you charge your buyer the 20% that dA takes off the conversion. I did a poll back in the day, asking if people would accept the overcharge if it meant they could use points and the answer was positive. Nowadays it's kind of accepted that 100 points = 1USD, so you're fine on that aspect, but I still wanted to point it out, in case you were wondering on how to do the double currency system.
But you're underage. About this I think you should ask dA's staff if there's a time limit to withdraw your earnings. From what I have seen, once the points are converted to money and the 14 days of wait have passed, the money just sits there doing nothing (I had 6USD just there for about a month and nothing happened) so you could potentially use dA as your 'bank' to hold it until you're able to make a Paypal account and transfer the funds. Still, be sure about this because I wouldn't want you to accumulate and accumulate only for dA to do something strange to your earnings.
Yeesh, that was long. Second question now.
Hahahahahahaahahahahahahah. *cries*
(This could probably sum up my thoughts and most of the other designers'.)
More seriously, everyone deals with this problem in their own way because nobody gets attached to designs in a similar way. One falls in love with the aesthetic (I do for almost every white based character I draw), one with the personality quirks they infuse in the design while drawing and another one because the design is inspired by a loved place or a loved event.
There is nothing wrong with keeping a character for yourself and then trade or sell them later on because you realize you don't really use them for anything. What I usually do with the designs I love is keep them and do not post them for about a week (but look at them everyday) and then try to draw them in another pose. If it works, I keep them, if not I sell them. This because I know myself and I know I am a lazy person with a very short interest span, so what I do is wait and see if I truly enjoy the design after a while and if I can ever be bothered to draw them again.
So my tip is, know yourself (the ancient Greeks were on to something here), this way you can recognize what draws you to a specific design and what does a design need to be to truly become one of your loved OCs. And don't ever feel bad either about keeping a design or selling one. A designer puts love in each and every one of their creations, some of them simply resonate more with what interests us, and that's normal.
I hope I managed to answer your questions in an understandable way. I seem to remember you writing that you 'speak a lot'. Speak-a-lot, meet WALL-OF-TEXT.
I have no shame.
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i understand better now! tho i think it's better for me to turn 18 anyways :'-) it would be better for me if i could convert it into money someday or directly being paid in cash, bc i won't really use a high amount of points for anything so... yea... and i don't think my effort is worth some dA points too gdjgjdfg
again, thank you! i don't mind the long wall of text but seems like i've found someone who talks more than me! oh boy fshjgfd
anyways, i will use your advices when i start to do things like adopts n pixel comms and learn by them, they were already so useful! thank you so much for the dedication, attention and the fast reply! you're so sweet!Β Β
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Haha, you're very welcome and good luck with your business.
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Hey, I want to try making some adoptables that I actually sell instead of just giving them awayΒ them for free. I'm going to use bases, but it's a very basic one that you have to change around quite a bit in order to make it an actual adoptable.
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These kinds of things. What would you say is a good idea for working with these, assuming I do my best to make clean lines and original designs? I know it's a base, but I'd be changing around more than just the colors.
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Using bases is not a bad thing, either your own or borrowed from someone else (people put them online to be used, after all), so much luck with designing, I hope they'll sell well.
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Thank you so much! I posted my first one, and I'm hoping it works out. Thank you!!!
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My guess would be reserve price, but I could be wrong. I admit I've never seen it before, if you could link me the description where it's written, I could try to check.
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I think he's referring to the typo in the Price/Design section where it says P/R instead of P/D like it should ^^
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Oooooops, thank you for telling me.
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