The idea of tracking time while you paint is exactly as unpleasant as it sounds. Glancing at a timer between brushstrokes, logging hours, writing down every tube of paint before you start... for most artists, this version of time tracking sounds like the fastest way to drain the thing that makes the work possible.

The good news is that you don't have to do it that way.

You don't need to time every brushstroke. Track a representative average of hours and materials per piece, and let the formula carry the rest. One honest measurement across a few similar pieces gives you more useful data than anxious per-piece logging forever.

That shift (from tracking everything to tracking enough) makes the whole system sustainable.

Why tracking matters for pricing at all

The time-plus-materials method is one of three methods covered in how to price your art. This article focuses on the input side: how to actually capture the numbers that formula needs.

The time-plus-materials method is the most honest formula available to you, because it's the only one that directly answers "did I actually make money on this piece?"

Square-inch and linear-inch pricing give you market-consistent numbers. But they don't tell you whether the hours you spent on that 16x20 canvas were covered by what you charged. A piece that takes 40 hours and prices at $600 under a square-inch formula tells you something important: either the formula rate needs to go up, or you're effectively working below minimum wage and calling it art income.

Tracking your time and materials is how you catch that gap. It's not about micromanaging your creative process. It's about knowing whether your pricing is actually working.

The representative average approach

Instead of timing every piece, pick a category of your work and track one honest example.

Step 1: Choose a representative piece. Pick something typical: a piece in your usual size and medium, working the way you normally work, not an exceptionally fast piece or a labored exception. This is the piece you'll track.

Step 2: Track it honestly. This means actual time spent on the piece from blank canvas to ready-to-ship. Include:

You don't have to be precise to the minute. A rough daily log ("worked on it for about 3 hours today") added up over the life of the piece gets you a number that's useful.

Step 3: Track materials costs. For the same piece, note what you used: canvas (or paper, or panel), paint colors, brushes or tools you wore out, any specialty materials. Don't try to calculate fractional tube costs in the moment... estimate the materials per piece based on what a typical piece consumes. If you go through two large tubes of a color per painting, look up what that costs you and use that number.

Step 4: Apply the average going forward. Once you have an honest representative number, use it as the baseline for all similar pieces. A 16x20 original in your usual medium takes you about 18 hours and uses about $65 in materials. That's the working average you plug into your time-plus-materials formula for every similar piece... until something meaningfully changes about how you work.

What goes into your materials number

Materials costs for the formula are your direct costs: the physical supplies consumed in making the piece. This typically includes:

It does not include studio overhead costs like rent, utilities, equipment, or subscriptions... those belong in a separate overhead calculation that gets added to the formula. The materials number is just the physical stuff that went into this specific piece.

What overhead actually is and why it belongs in your price

Overhead is the cost of having a practice at all, independent of any specific piece. Studio rent or a dedicated room at home that you'd rent out otherwise. Insurance. Art fair booth fees amortized across the year. Website costs. Gallery percentages averaged across your sales. Shipping supplies.

These costs are real and they're paid by your art income. If your pricing doesn't account for them, you're subsidizing them out of something else: a day job, savings, your partner's income. That might be the right arrangement, but it should be a choice, not an oversight.

The practical way to handle overhead in your formula: add up your annual overhead costs, divide by the number of pieces you sell in a year, and include that per-piece overhead as a line item alongside materials. Art Price Lab does this calculation for you when you enter your overhead costs.

The hourly rate question

Your hourly rate for the time-plus-materials formula should be grounded in what an hour of your labor is worth, which means starting from what you need to earn, not from what feels modest.

A common approach: take your target annual income from art (not your full income, just what you want art to contribute), divide by the number of hours per year you realistically work on art, and that's your starting hourly rate.

If that number seems high, good. It's supposed to reflect what your time is actually worth. Art Price Lab uses the wage target you set in your profile to anchor your hourly rate, which is a more defensible starting point than a number you picked from comfort.

Quick version

Art Price Lab puts your tracking data to work the moment you have it. Try it at artpricelab.com