Pricing Help!!!

Ok So here it goes! I have been face painting for about a year now and I done several small festivals last summer. With that said...

I have a few large festivals coming up at the end of this month and the start of next month and I think I need to raise my prices. I have always done my PPF events for $5 a face (half or full or really whatever they wanted!!) and I think I want to start charging more but I don't want to over charge. I have also since last summer added glitter tattoos (which I think I am going to charge $5 for) & airbrush face art and tattoos. I just invested an arm and a leg in my airbrush equipment but as of right now I am not really sure what to charge for that. I will be doing the "stencil eyes" and also smaller airbrush tattoos. Do any of you have any advice on what to charge?? Please Please Please (in my begging voice) help! LOL

I don't do airbrush, so I have no idea what to do with that, but for regular face painting, I usually do either $5 and $8 or $5 and $10 (depending on how much the booth cost to be there).

I offer face painting and glitter tattoos. I normally charge $3, $5 and $7 for my face painting designs. The festival I do is huge and there are other face painters there, but plenty of business to go around. I generally have a pretty steady line. I also offer glitter tattoos for $5. Sorry, no advice for the airbrush since I don't do that.

Sorry - I'm confused - How are you doing the airbrush face painting AND the airbrush tattoo? These need two different types of inks, so you couldn't offer both at the same time without having two different systems no?

I gotta say I usualy do $5 for everything... it's just easier, but I have done $8 for face painting and $5-$10 for airbrush Tattoos depending on size, and my line was just as long. I did get ONE comment about the price at $8.
But when I'm charging $5, people expect to pay $10 all the time.
So I guess I wouldn't go over $10 as a rule, I know some charge up to $20, and if I'm painting adults I do charge $25 per face but not in a festival environment... only for private parties and such.
I would love to jut charge $10 for everything and see if it works.... I just feel like if you have three kids ( and a lot of families do here) it becomes a little unaffordable..... guess it depends how you look at it.
If they charge me a large booth fee I need to up my prices to balance that out.

Thanks for the input!! That was fast! LOL =)

Tash wrote:Sorry - I'm confused - How are you doing the airbrush face painting AND the airbrush tattoo? These need two different types of inks, so you couldn't offer both at the same time without having two different systems no?

Well I bought a system that can hook up over 12 airbrushes. The system came with 6 airbrushes and a 6 port manifold to hook them up together. I already had 2 so all I need to get is another manifold so I can hook up both manifolds at once (it has 2 hook ups) and I should be good to go. But I do have a small compessor (that I had before I bought the large Iwata one) and I was thinking of just using that compressor for the temporary tattoos just because I don't think that will be as much of a "hit" as the stencil eyes and airbrush art. I don't know!! I am getting all stressed about this whole thing. I think becasue I have never had to have a really big setup like this. So I am kinda confused about the setup and how to make everything flow in my booth. But I guess I will figure it out! LOL I know I can't do faces for $10.

This is what I have in mind- Face Painting $5: cheek art, eye designs(1 eye), and half face stuff $8 full faces Glitter Tattoos $5 Airbrush: Stencil Eyes & full faces $8 Small Stencils & small temp tattoos $5

Does this sound OK?? Again remeber I am kinda lost! Sorry?

Remeber that you will be taking the money and giving the change ( unless you have aline manager) so try and keep it as simple as possible....
When I offer face painting and airbrush tattoos my man does all the airbrushing and I just paint.
I think your prices make sense... anything small $5 anything that takes a little longer or uses more product is $8. That's very reasonable....
I'm in Sydney Australia so your demographic will differ, and it's good to remeber you can always drop your prices but you can't suddenly put them up if you are getting slammed... so better to satrt high and if your getting no-one bring it down.
Don't freak out - you'll be fine - although it does sound like you will need five hands and three brains just to work out all your guns, lines and inks!
Good luck! And let us know how you go.

Thanks! =) I will only be painting and doing the glitter tattoos. I have someone that will be doing the airbrushing and my husband will be taking the money and "trying" to manage the line! So once I get all of my stuff figured put the day of stuff should run pretty smoothly! And if it doesnt I will just be freaking out all day!

That's a lot of options in one tent! I have a hard enough time displaying for my painting and my partners services (airbrush and henna) and it not looking cluttered. I find that often what holds us up is that people have too many options and can't decide what they want, (or else can't articulate it and want to pull you out to the display to show you. errg! Think I need to work on labeling...) Anyway, for airbrush tattoos we charge $5 for a small design (about 2inch diameter) and $7 for arm bands or larger.

FOr face painting I used to do $5 across the board, but recently bumped it to $7. I was also concerned about pricing people out, so I just bumped it up a little. Wow did that two dollars make a difference in my profits at the end of the day! AND I started getting tips too! Now, mind you, nothing else changed but my pricing. To make things easy for making change, I paperclip all of my ones into $3 bundles.

I do $5, $10 and $15 for larger festivals, and have never had a problem. People will drop $15 for a nice full face at a busy fest without blinking an eye. At small fests sometimes I just charge $5 and $10. Keeping it in five dollar increments really helps with giving change, too.