Pricing as a Declaration
Sales may be slowly stirring again, but for many of us, the past few months have asked heavier questions of our work. With materials rising, shipping biting, and energy stretched thin, pricing has become more than numbers on a tag—it’s become a mirror. What do we believe our work is worth?
Inside the Slowmade Collective, I recently revisited a piece I wrote about pricing last year, and it feels even more relevant now. Because pricing isn’t just math. It’s identity. It’s how we choose to value the stories stitched into our craft.
We all know you can buy jewelry at Target or Zales. One is twenty dollars, the other two thousand—but both customers believe they’re getting something of value. That has less to do with raw materials and everything to do with perceived value, trust, story. People don’t just pay for gold, they pay for meaning.
It’s the same with art. At Ikea, a $40 framed print fills a wall, but it doesn’t ask much of you. Step into a gallery and find a $4,000 original painting—suddenly, you’re not paying for pigment and canvas. You’re paying for vision, voice, the existence of something that has no twin. Many painters even price by the square inch, fully anchored in worth rather than cost.
So why, as jewelry artists, do we still hesitate to do the same?
Most of us start with formulas—materials + time + overhead—hoping to justify our prices. Formulas are helpful, but they are a beginning, not a boundary. Our collectors (and yes, I will always call them collectors) aren’t buying earrings to accessorize. They’re buying talismans. Invitations. Memory. They could find something pretty anywhere… but they come to us because they want something irreplaceable.
And in this climate—when silver climbs and stones spike—it’s more important than ever to remember:
We are not competing with Zales. We are not Ikea. We are the gallery.
Your work is original art. Your pricing is not an apology.
It is a declaration.
If this conversation stirs something in you and you want a place where we talk honestly about the business side of art—without losing the soul of it—you’re welcome inside the Slowmade Collective. We’re navigating this together, slowly, steadily, as artists do.