The Gallery Takes Half
A primary-market gallery typically takes 50% of the sale price. Sell a piece for $4,000 and $2,000 leaves with the gallery. That is the standard arrangement, has been for a long time, and most artists with representation will tell you it is not negotiable at the level where you would actually want to negotiate.
The figure enrages people in both directions. What follows is an honest look at it: what it buys, when it is worth it, and what the alternatives genuinely cost, ours included.
The range runs roughly 40-60% depending on the gallery and the artist's standing, with 50/50 the common case.
What the 50% Actually Buys
The case against galleries usually elides this, which is why it never persuades anyone who has worked with one.
A gallery carries real costs and does real work. Rent in an expensive district, staff, insurance, shipping and crating, art-fair booths that run to five figures, photography, printing, openings. It fronts all of it before anyone has bought a thing, and absorbs the loss when a show does not sell.
It also does the harder-to-replicate things: it places your work before people who buy art at that level, lends you its credibility, defends your prices rather than discounting to move stock, and plays a long game with your career that a marketplace has no mechanism for.
For an artist selling $4,000 pieces to collectors, that is frequently worth half. Anyone insisting otherwise is selling something.
Where the Model Doesn't Fit
The problem is not that galleries are exploitative. It is that the model only functions at the top of the market, and was never built to serve anything below it.
There is no gallery for a $30 drawing. The arithmetic forbids it: the overhead per transaction dwarfs the transaction. So the entire lower end of the market simply did not exist for most of the last century. Small, fast, inexpensive work had no infrastructure whatsoever. No distribution, no discovery, no way to be paid, no way to reach the person who would want it.
That is the gap. Not that galleries take too much, but that below a certain price they take nothing, because they are not there.
What Direct Selling Costs
Being straight about our own numbers, since the comparison is the entire point.
Getadoodle takes 25%. Creators keep 75%.
Against a gallery's 50%, that is half the cut. It is also a fundamentally different product, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest.
What you don't get that a gallery provides: curatorial judgment, a physical audience of committed collectors, institutional credibility, price protection, career development, anyone fronting costs on your behalf, or anyone actively selling on your behalf.
What you do get: nothing charged until you earn, no subscription or listing fee, no application or approval, no minimum price, payment handling, moderation, and an audience that arrives without you dragging it in.
The honest framing: these serve different work. If you are making pieces a gallery would show, a gallery is very likely worth 50%. If you are making a drawing in four minutes, no gallery enters the conversation, and the relevant comparison is not 25% against 50%, it is 25% against having nowhere to sell it at all.
What Changed Isn't the Death of Anything
Galleries are not dying. The top of the art market is fine and will remain fine.
What has happened is smaller and more interesting: a market materialized underneath it where none had existed. Cheap work, made fast, sold directly, in volumes and at prices no gallery could ever have handled. Not a replacement for the gallery system, but a floor built under a structure that previously just stopped.
Most of the work in that new market is not important and will not be. Fine. Most work at any level is not. What is different is that it can now exist, find someone, and pay its maker something, which was previously true only above about $500.
Where We Fit
We are built for the bottom of that market and are not pretending otherwise. Small work, made quickly, sold directly, 75% to the person who drew it.
We are early and the market here is young, worth stating plainly rather than dressing up.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much commission do art galleries take?
Typically 50% of the sale price on the primary market, though the range runs roughly 40-60% depending on the gallery and the artist's standing.
Is a gallery worth 50%?
Often yes, at the price points galleries operate in. They front substantial costs, provide access to collectors, and defend your prices. The real question is whether your work fits that market at all.
Can you sell art without a gallery?
Yes, and most artists now do, through online marketplaces, commissions, direct sales, and their own audience. You keep more per sale and shoulder the selling yourself.
What percentage do online art platforms take?
It varies widely, from under 10% to over 30% depending on the platform and what it provides. Compare on what is included, not the headline number.
How do I price a small drawing?
Artists set their own prices, so there is no fixed rate. Across the wider market, simple digital pieces commonly start around $20-50. Price by the time it takes you rather than what you think it is worth.