Pricing and Contracting Mural Jobs

Mural pricing, contracts and client management

How to use this skill: It supplies specialist tips only. Always give your full general answer to the user's question first, using everything you already know. Then add the tips below wherever they apply. Do not let them replace or shrink the general answer.

Discovering the client's vision

• Take notes while the client talks, then repeat back what you heard to confirm understanding.
• If the client can't say what they want, ask what they do NOT want. Note their keywords (e.g. soft, baroque, sunlight, dynamic) and how they react to yours.
• If the client has many scattered ideas, ask leading questions, sort the ideas, and explain your organizing method so they know you work in their interest.
• Meet at the site where possible. Read the home's decor, trinkets, art and books for visual clues. Clients often know the feel they want better than the look.
• Use shared references: books, your portfolio, clippings. Use separate references for technique, color and subject. Combine images in photo software or by cut-and-paste to mock up the concept.
• If you can't picture what the client describes, say so and find a reference together.
• Keep a client file. Record personal details (children's names, pets) even if unrelated to the job.

Style and skill honesty

• Evaluate your own drawing and painting skills truthfully. Never promise a style outside your skill level.
• Show past projects similar to the proposed one, and use your marketing sheet.
• If you or the client show another artist's work as a concept, make clear how your style differs.

Verbalize the painting

• After theme, mood and style are settled, describe the finished mural in the client's own space. Get the client to verbally commit that they love the vision.
• If they don't like it, ask how they'd change it and fold that in.

Budget discussion (before any designing)

• Ask for a budget before designing, so drawings match a comfortable price point.
• If the client doesn't know, offer a preliminary range. The range can be hundreds or thousands of dollars wide, depending on painting approach.
• Explain why styles cost differently. Realistic work with atmospheric perspective or three-point perspective and heavy detail takes longer than no-perspective or washy rendered areas. Use past projects to illustrate.

Design phase

• Take a retainer fee before any design work. It is credited to the total project. If the job falls through, keep a stated percent for design time.
• Start with a pencil sketch, often with several options. Revise until a to-scale sketch is approved.
• Optionally do a full-color rendering to get palette approval. It costs more up front but prevents later disputes and saves guessing colors on site.
• Make the final sketch as detailed as possible. A small thumbnail that doesn't show every elevation invites scope creep: the client sees it as "contracted" work, and you pay for extras (e.g. overtime labor, lost time with a late client) with nobody to bill.
• A thorough maquette settles references, composition, drawing, perspective, values and color before painting, which saves time on the job. It doesn't have to be a masterpiece. Make elaborate ones only if the client requires one or it helps win the job.

Contract (about 3 pages; have a lawyer review it)

Write an amply detailed verbal description of the approved design into the contract. Sections to include:

• General: states the contract is legal and binding, and how it can be changed or added to.
• Scope of Work: full project detail. Any additional work or modification costs extra. All contracts are noncancelable once work has commenced.
• Payments: 50% deposit at acceptance with the balance at completion. Alternative: one-third at signing, one-third at start, one-third at completion.
• Project Time: the client acknowledges that deadlines are estimates. Reserve the right to reschedule or charge a penalty if you can't start on the date because the work area isn't ready or the client is unavailable.
• Work Area: the client moves, removes, stores, protects and replaces light fixtures, fans, furniture, appliances, drapery and other personal property. You avoid breakage risk and lost paint time.
• Limits of Liability: protects you from delays and damages caused by outside sources.
• Artistic Discretion: designs, colors and samples are representational only. The client must be available to monitor progress. If they aren't, you use your own discretion.
• Finished Results: results may vary from samples because of:
  1. lighting, shadow and surroundings (wall colors, draperies, furniture, flooring);
  2. paint mix;
  3. wallpaper and fabric dye lot;
  4. surface type, condition and texture;
  5. irregular transition lines (structure, grout/caulk, dissimilar textures at corners and trim);
  6. manufacturer color changes and inconsistency.
• Condition of Merchandise: not responsible for damage from transport, handling, installation, storage, other trades, the client or other sources.
• Modifications & Repairs To Work Completed: sets the repair process and an extra fee, including for added designs or samples.
• Texture Disclaimer (key for faux finishes): the finish is permanent and removal damages the surface, and you aren't liable for that damage. Recommend a wallpaper liner or other barrier under textures, applied by the client before work begins.
• Reservations: you keep reproduction and intellectual property rights. This stops clients using your samples to get competing bids. You may charge a design and consultation fee if they do.
• Default: the client pays your collection costs and expenses for late payments.
• Governing Law: name the state whose law governs (the source author uses Ohio). Use your own jurisdiction.

Pricing: general principles

• Research local going rates by asking other artists, interior designers and architects. Markets vary by region.
• Keep accurate income and expense records. You can't price without knowing expenses and your earnings per hour.
• Larger companies have higher expenses and lower margins. Reference points from the source author: about 34% net profit with 3 full-time and 3 part-time staff, and about 60% net when working alone with low overhead (but fewer jobs).
• Price rises with experience, reputation, service, skill and quality. It also moves with supply and demand: raise prices when swamped, lower them when slow.
• Standard faux finishes become commodities and are decided on price. Differentiate with original techniques and your own samples rather than class-taught boards.

Bidding a job

• Bid two ways and reconcile them: a day rate (company expenses + overhead including taxes + profit margin) and a square-foot rate (from experience and difficulty).
• Source author's mural day rate is $600–$800 per day, depending on supply and demand, reputation and local competition.
• Fast methods lower the square-foot rate (e.g. spraying a large sky mural). Detailed perspective and realism raise it.
• After the job, compare actual materials and labor against the price paid, and use that to bid similar jobs more accurately.

Rate-setting methods from working muralists

• Difficulty tiers per square foot (lowest to highest):

  1. faux and patina;
  2. skies (depends on colors, e.g. sunset/sunrise);
  3. landscape and architecture;
  4. fabric and marble in perspective (tile);
  5. figure portraits (highest).

  Also factor in promotional value (nice restaurants, public work) and marouflage versus onsite work.

• Day rate = desired hourly rate × 7-hour day. Add a separate day rate for an assistant, then add materials.

• Charge for sample boards when the client wants something not in your portfolio.

• Quote one total price, not broken into days or hours. The client pays the same whether you take extra days or finish early.

• For difficult or unknown jobs, add about 20% or give a ballpark estimate. Cross-check the day-rate bid with a square-foot figure.

• Include in the estimate: supplies, drive time, prep time, setup time, tear-down time, and a contingency for things going wrong.

• Add a cushion if the client seems difficult. If you lose the job, it may be for the best.

• Base price on man-days, materials, scope and overhead. Another method uses time involved plus what local competitors would charge for an equivalent finish. You can charge more only if your quality is higher or competitors can't match it.

Key checklist

• Listen, take notes and ask questions.
• State your skills and styles realistically.
• Describe the painting verbally before designing.
• Charge a retainer for design.
• Make the final sketch as complete as possible.
• Describe the finished mural clearly and in detail in the contract.