How do we come up with the prices?
Like, what do the different prices mean?
So the first part is, what is the minimum charge? Most shops you go to will have a minimum amount. The minimum cost varies from shop to shop. Sometimes it might be £40, and I’ve worked in shops where it was £50. There are shops where it’s £100, like, it’s just as long as a piece of string? And what the minimum charge means is that it is the cheapest you can get a tattoo.
So to go in there and to get an artist to unwrap a needle, get out the ink, set up their machine, set up their station, and actually a tattoo, you will cost a minimum charge. Now, that could be a dot, just the minimum charge. The smallest amount for the most petite tattoo they will do. The smallest tattoo they will do is utterly dependent on the shop.
You would have to ask them. If I’m doing something minimum charge, that would be a very small initial, a small symbol, a bit of dot work, something minimal and simple. Now, why is there a minimum charge?
We do a minimum charge because every time we do a tattoo, it costs us money. Needles, ink, sterilizing the machines, sterilizing the equipment, all the stuff like cling film and vaseline, setting the station up, and our time.
The part that you’re there for is that in the case of a tiny tattoo, it would be the ten minutes that you put the needle onto the skin and do the tattoo. But there could be 20 minutes before setting up and 20 minutes afterward, packing everything down and sterilizing all the equipment. So that’s what the minimum charge is going towards. Covering tattoos gets cheaper as they get bigger, and the minimum cost is expensive, considering it’s such a tiny thing.
Why would the minimum charge or the charge per tattoo be one price at one shop and another at another? Like every now and again, when you’re pricing a tattoo, the person will say to you, oh, well, I can get that done for £20 at another shop down the road if you know someone that can do it for cheaper and you can’t see the difference in quality, then you might as well save yourself the money.
The reason why you get more expensive tattoo shops and less expensive tattoo shops; there’s a various myriad of reasons. It might be because one shop is more established for years, and the artist could have more experience, in which case they would charge more because you’re not just setting them for the half an hour, let’s say, that they’re tattooing you for, you’re paying them for the years of expertise that they have.
All the tattoos they’ve done in the past have got them to the point where they are now. Artists can understand that they will do yours flawlessly, and the reference artist you offer, who is cheaper, will ruin your tattoo. They will even enjoy seeing those results.
So that’s what you’re paying for when getting a more expensive tattoo. Everybody’s seen that meme that goes around the tiger tattoo.
So it’s like a $30 tattoo, a $300 tattoo, and then a $50,000 tattoo. And all tigers or lions or whatever it is, but they’re all different. And obviously, that’s the reason for that part of what you’re spending your money on, that artist’s expertise and skill.
They might have better quality equipment, all of that stuff, all of that goes into it. You don’t go into I’m trying to think of a nice restaurant, but I don’t know. You don’t go into a nice restaurant and then go all eggy and be like, oh, well, I can get my dinner in Nando’s for cheaper.
Of course, you can get your dinners in Nando’s for cheaper because they are not as good or the ingredients aren’t as good, or do you know what I mean?
You expect only some shops on the high street to have clothes for the same price. So, yeah, that’s why you’re getting better-quality components. And that is the reason why it might be a bit more expensive.
I wanted to touch on one last thing because I got asked about the difference between the peace and hourly rates.
The easiest way to explain this is peace rate is a set price. If an artist is quoting on a tattoo and they give you a peace rate, that means that when you turn up, bring that amount of money with you, and that is how much the tattoo will cost. It’s a flat cost, that’s how much it costs. Hourly rate is how much you’re spending per hour with your skill set.
So an artist will have an hourly cost, and every hour you’re with them, that’s how much it costs. How people do. Hourly rate is different for everybody, and you’d have to ask the artist when you are requesting artist what their hourly cost is because I get asked this a lot, like a message that says watch your hourly rate.
It’s redundant because you must know how fast the person will work. To best in tattooing you must have at least 10 years of experience.For me personally, I work really fast. In the years I’ve done hundreds of roses, texts and butterflies, it is all in my muscle memory now.
Everything is piece rate just because it makes the whole system easy. You know exactly how much money to bring, and it’s friendly and easy, and there are no surprises.
That’s the other side of if you’re doing something. I know that when I charge an hourly rate for a tattoo, it’s because maybe it’s a big piece or I don’t know precisely how long it’s going to take because when you’re doing bigger and bigger pieces, you can guarantee with less and less certainty exactly how long it’s going to take to do it.
People sometimes want me to give an exact price on how much a back piece or a sleeve will be, which is problematic because it just takes as long as it takes. I think it’s one of the things you have to accept when you’re getting tattooed that tattoos take as long as they take. And if you really want the work of the artist you’ve chosen, that is just how much it will cost.
We are all self-employed and don’t all work by this one, like the tattoo artist charter we all follow. Everybody does stuff differently. When you go see them and charge hourly, some artists will set you like session time. So as long as you are with them, they charge you hourly, including free-handing designs on other artists who might charge you for the time the machine touches you. Do you know what I mean?
So they won’t charge you for drawing stenciling. Everybody’s different, and all artists work with what they feel comfortable with. And what one artist does not necessarily reflect what the next artist does. So if you need clarification, it’s always best to ask the person tattooing me.
Tattooing me. Tattooing you? Ask the person tattooing you, then ask me because I don’t know. Yeah, so ask the person tattooing you, and they should be able to tell you. So that goes a little to demystifying, like tattoo pricing and how it works.
