What Business Overhead Really Is

Overhead is the cost of running your practice, separate from what any individual piece requires.

Your paint and canvas are materials. Those go in the Materials field when you run a calculation. Overhead is everything else: your studio rent, utilities, software subscriptions, marketing costs, website, shipping supplies, insurance, professional fees, art fair fees averaged monthly.

These costs exist whether or not you sell anything in a given month. They are the cost of being in business as an artist. If you do not account for them in your pricing, every sale is subsidizing the practice instead of sustaining it. You are working for less than you think.

Art Price Lab includes a share of your monthly overhead in every time plus materials calculation. Enter your overhead in Settings, and the app distributes a piece of it across the number of pieces you expect to sell. Every piece you sell contributes to covering those costs.

See How to Calculate Your Monthly Overhead to figure out your number.