getting paid

hi im a new face painter about to start braching out passing out bussiness cards and trying to figure out my rates. i did a party of a friend and he gave me $40 ( i was going to do it free as a friend and stillwanting the practice) so i was happy with $40!! lol. i looked up some face painters in my area and they charge about $100-150 an hour with two hr min! i know this is the avg but it seems like alot! and i dont want the avg family decieding they dont want to book me after they hear that price, so i thought i would say for 12 kids or less id charge $100 a party up tp 20 for $150 and so on up like that depending on the kids it works out being pretty much the same but sounds nicer lol but was also wondering why do we get paid that much an hour!!!!

why?

materials, training, insurance, equipment, gas... your expenses will add up in a hurry when you do this more.

Shannon Fennell on here has a chart or something for figuring out your expenses I think.

I do indeed... click the link in my signature for my free resources page.

As to "why do we get paid that much an hour"...

Training (THOUSANDS of dollars worth)
Supplies and equipment (TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars worth)
Vehicle expenses (business registration, insurance, gas, maintenance)
Liability insurance, kit replacement insurance, medical insurance
SKILL AND TALENT
EXPERIENCE

I could go on but you should get the point...

As to whether "the average family" can afford you. Why worry about that? Face painting isn't medical care, it is a luxury item they add to their parties to make them special. Figure out what it costs YOU to paint, add in a reasonable wage for yourself, some profit on top for the business... and start there. Raise your rates to the level the market will bear.... that's business.

I am with Perry and Shannon, our expenses cost too!!, and most of the people prefer to hire an entertainment for their parties than to pay a place hundreds of dollars just for two hours, with facepaint everybody enjoy kids and adults and they always calls you back for sure!!!

my first response was that we get paid to get new arty cakes! my last order was about 200 bucks, LOL gotta find some way to feed my habit. =0)

lol yeah i just ordered my 1st set of tag paints spent $150 just got a few spilt ckaes and rainbow cakes plus white and black. right now i still have a ton of paints from tulip that my fiance bought at micheals they ok paints but cant wait to replace them with more tag!! cant do that til starting next month though. just got the ones i have now because i won $100 on a scratch off ticket!!!! as far as the insurance thing.. when do i need to start getting that atm im still only doing stuff for friends for practice but i have my bussiness cards in the mail gonna hand them out to the friends i have done stuff for becuase every party ive done so far there where lots of ppl asking for bussiness cards so the hosts said that when i get them they would hand them out to the ppl that wanted them for me. im a stay at home mom and dont wanna lose that i was just thinking of doing this once in a while on weekends or something just a few bday parties for now maybe in a year or so maybe branching out from there if i want more but for now just bday parties. did my prices sound reasonable?

heres some of my best work what do u guys think?
this was my very 1st ever!!!

It's difficult for us to say if your rates are reasonable. It really depends on what your area will respond to, and the amount of investment you have put in and intend to put in in the future.

There is a thread here somewhere about it, but a number of painters saw an increase in business after they raised their rates... so factor in perceived value as well.

In addition to what your regional area will support price wise, your rates should be in line and reflective of your current skillset. Someone just starting out is not gonna charge or shouldn't expect to be getting the same rate as another seasoned painter whose work is speedier and more superior in quality.

People in all things when making a purchase or buying a service want to feel confident that they are getting their monies worth. So if you know based on the quality and the speed of your work that you are not, just as an example a $100 /hr painter then you should be charging less.

Nothing makes a consumer more upset than feeling they have been short changed

on the subject of the insurance question, it is your own risk. I worked for a year at this before getting insurance. The risk lies in someone blaming you for staining their carpet or poking their kid in the eye or something. I think it also covers your equipment if it should be stolen or damaged, but I don't know that I would pay the deductible for that, only if someone was trying to sue me for a million dollars or something. Unless you register your business in such a way as to separate your business from your personal property and/or have insurance, you could find yourself homeless if someone tries to sue you.

im signing up asap for insurance. my insurance working actuary husband freaked when he found out i didnt have it yet. lol going through WCA, it seems like my best option.
i was going to wait until next spring when the rates start anew, plus ill be an official clown soon! I want that covered in my insurance to.

Constance, I'm practically in the same boat as you right now, just recently started painting and kind of tossing around the idea of advertising for parties--fliers, business cards, etc--wondering about insurance and how much to charge; so I'm loving this thread, lol. Can't really give you any pro-advice, but I wish you much luck in your venture.

Shannon Fennell wrote:I do indeed... click the link in my signature for my free resources page.

There is so much useful information here. Thanks for sharing it.

Regarding Rates, I have had difficulty this summer even finding jobs where the host was willing to let me come and sell the faces to the public. Most of the time they have wanted me to pay a vendor fee, even though I present myself as an entertainer. Private parties have been non-existent this year. I finally made arrangements with some of the places that charge for space, to pay them $1 for every face I paint. A few times this has still turned out to barely break even with my costs. How do you get past this stage?

I started at $60/hr and just recently went to $80/hr (pricing in my area is appx $120) I raised my prices once I thought my work/speed improved enough to do so. My kit is pretty compact compared to some though, so my expenses aren't as high.

I too struggle with my rates. A ppf is easy to price, but hourly is killing me. I decided to go with "package pricing" for now and Bday parties by #  of kids and am only booking one per day. I just had a request for a corporate event.

ahhh. On my phone and hit post accidentally - it won't let me edit and I'm still in bed :-)

As I was saying (before I so rudely interrupted myself)  I am struggling with my corporate rate and the non profit discount - and it is driving me nuts, so I feel your pain.

I'm about to offer packages now.
I'm gonna print off a sheet of ten designs each, and charge $100 an hour for either princess, birthday, pirate, clown, boy and girl packages.
at the party, I will offer only those faces for the first hour, then switch to my regular rate and all requests for additional time.

Nothing but time will get you past the value assessment bump. Every pro I know had to go through it. It took about 6 months for me to realize my true value and bring my rates up from $75/hr where they started...once I stopped choking when I'd tell people my rate and gained confidence in my abilities and worth, it because a LOT easier. I do know that the farther you are away from what the median rate is for your area, the harder the battle to get up there will be. Just don't allow yourself to be discouraged by the "no"... I like to think that the foundation of every successful painter is resting on a foot of compressed rejection...it builds character...and the more you hear it...the less you are afraid of it. Now I get to be the person to say "No"...and I do.

And in answer to the OP. We charge what we charge because we are providing a service that we paid (and continue to pay) thousands of dollars to perform. It's not my job to make sure that every family can afford my services, it's my job to make sure that I knock the socks off of every client who decides to put me in their budget and to establish a perceived value for my craft (as opposed to decreasing it). I do paperwork for each gig and after you factor in the preparation time for each gig, equipment costs, travel time/cost and the basic business costs related to website maintenance, advertising, marketing, insurance, training, ect... I need to be charging $175/hr! instead of $125!

Every time I read this kind of thing I feel guilty for paying for a table occassionally at an event. Is it bad to do that?

Why would that be bad? It's a chance to meet people, showcase your talent and market yourself in your community.  I'm doing a booth in two weeks at a prim and proper charter school and I don't see any problem with paying for the opportunity to put myself out there and gain a chance in meeting someone willing to pay to have your wonderful self at their party

don't think of it as paying for a table.

it's investing in your business.



p.s.lady jayde has it right.when you sell yourself, let the client know they will be getting their money worth and more. invest in your presentation, show them that you deserve that rate because your costs are higher, because you put more work into running this business...contracts are not cheap to send and print....just making that preparatory effort is worth the higher rate.

I know this is an old thread, resurrected and all that, but...

I'm in the UK, and there isn't the market here (for most of us) for very high hourly fees.  I charge about average for my area, but even then I've sometimes had friends raise their eyebrows and say "Wow, you get paid that much?  I'm in the wrong job!" or similar.

I've generally explained it this way:

Yes, as someone said above, we have high professional expenses that don't apply to, say, the average office job.  Kit expenses, travel, insurance, marketing, training and so on.  But even if we forget those large outlays for now, let's look at the hourly rate.

If someone works in an office (and I'm talking a fairly standard office job here, not CEO or other such after-hours-heavy posts), they probably travel there, get there, and can immediately sit down and start working.  At the end of the day, they go home and stop working.  Even if you factor in commuting time as work time, so that it brings down the actual, pratical hourly rate slightly,....it's probably still close to what their salary says.  If their advertised salary amounts to, say, $30 per hour, they probably actually earn around that for the hours that they spend working or traveling.

Now look at the average, professional face painter.  We go to the actual gig, for which we get paid a reasonable hourly rate.

Then we go home.  On top of all those expenses listed in previous posts, we then have to:

Practice:  for each face I paint at a gig, I've painted several designs during practice time.  Those are hours I'm not directly paid for, but the party host (or whatever) certainly benefits from them.

Training:  I take classes, network with other painters, attend jams, attend conventions for professional training.  Ignoring the already-mentioned financial impact that this education has on my costs, it's many hours for which I'm not being paid.

Marketing, phone calls, kit cleaning, setting up, breaking down:  These are all substantial amounts of time I spend, essential to the smooth and professional running of a gig, for which I don't get directly paid.

The hourly rate a face painter is paid for gigging is, in effect, paying for many more hours than s/he actually spends painting at that party, corporate event, festival or whatever.

If we don't value ourselves, who will?

Kammy x

P.S.  I may not be coming across very clearly, I'm still slightly sedated after a routine medical thing yesterday!  Wooooooooo.......

P.P.S.  I initially typed "giggling" instead of "gigging".  I don't get paid for that, but I consider it essential to the job, too.