Buyer's Guide · No. 10

How Much Does a Custom Oil Painting Cost? An Honest Buyer's Guide

By Dafen Art Hub · Updated September 2026 · 9 min read

It is the first question almost every buyer asks, and the one most art websites dodge: how much does a custom oil painting actually cost? The answer is not a number — it is a range, because two people asking for "a 60 × 90 cm painting" can end up with quotes that differ by four times. This guide explains exactly what moves that number, gives you honest market ranges for context, and shows you what a quote should contain so you can compare offers properly.

Why There Is No Single Price for a Custom Oil Painting

A printed canvas is a product: one file, one machine, one cost, thousands of identical units. A hand-painted canvas is a commission. It is a specific artist's time, on a specific piece of linen or cotton duck, in a specific style, for a specific wall. That is why the honest answer to "how much" is always "tell me what you need first".

Anyone who quotes you a fixed price before knowing your size, subject count and style is either guessing, or planning to make up the difference later.

The Six Things That Actually Drive the Price

1. Canvas size

Size is the single biggest lever. A painting is priced broadly by surface area, not by its longest edge — so doubling one dimension roughly doubles the work, and doubling both roughly quadruples it. A 40 × 50 cm portrait and a 100 × 130 cm statement piece are not the same job with a bigger canvas; the larger one needs more paint, more drying cycles, a heavier stretcher frame and a crate to ship it in.

2. Number of subjects

A single-subject portrait is one face, one set of hands, one outfit. A five-person family portrait is five of each — plus the composition work to arrange everyone naturally on one canvas with consistent lighting and scale. Adding a pet adds fur, which is slow, detailed work. Adding a third or fourth subject adds more cost than most buyers expect, because the artist is not repeating a stamp; every face needs its own resolution.

3. Level of detail and style

The same size painting can take wildly different time depending on the style:

• Loose impressionist or abstract — fast, expressive, fewer decision points. The most economical style per square metre.
• Painterly realism — controlled but visible brushwork. The most popular range for portraits and landscapes.
• Photorealistic or classical academic — the slowest. Fine glazing, subtle skin transitions, realistic fabric and jewellery. A photorealistic portrait can take several times the hours of an impressionist painting of the same size.

Backgrounds matter too. A plain or softly blurred background costs far less than a detailed street scene, interior or group of buildings behind the subject.

4. Framing

Unframed canvas rolled in a tube is the cheapest way to ship. Stretched on wooden bars costs more (materials plus crate). A finished frame — gold leaf, dark wood, champagne, custom moulding matched to your interior — adds the frame cost plus the labour of fitting. Framing is usually quoted as a separate line, which is exactly how it should be.

5. Turnaround time

Oil paint needs to dry between layers. A realistic portrait takes days of drying, not hours. If you need a painting in half the normal time, the studio has to reorganise its queue around your piece — that is what a rush fee pays for. If your deadline is flexible, you do not pay it.

6. Quantity

Custom work is priced per piece, but ordering in volume genuinely lowers the per-painting cost: canvas preparation, priming, packing and shipping are batched, and the artist settles into a rhythm. This is why galleries, hotels and interior designers can buy hand-painted originals at prices a one-off retail buyer cannot reach.

Typical Market Ranges for Hand-Painted Work

The table below gives broad international market ranges so you can sanity-check any quote you receive. These are context, not our prices — treat them as the width of the market rather than a target.

Figures reflect observed ranges across the hand-painted market and vary with style, detail, framing, timeline and quantity. They are not a quotation.

Why We Don't Publish Fixed Prices

It is a reasonable thing to find frustrating: you want a number, and there is a text box instead. Here is the logic.

A 60 × 90 cm painting of a single person, painted loosely, with a plain background, unframed, on a relaxed timeline, is one job. A 60 × 90 cm painting of the same person with a detailed interior behind them, photorealistic finish, gold frame and a ten-day deadline is a completely different job. Any single published number would overcharge the first customer or force us to cut corners on the second.

What we can promise is speed and transparency instead of a misleading list price: send a photo, a rough size and a deadline, and you get an itemised quote — usually within a working day, with no obligation to proceed.

What a Proper Quote Should Contain

Comparing quotes is only meaningful when they describe the same work. Any credible quote should state all of the following:

• Canvas size in both centimetres and inches
• Subjects — how many people, pets or objects are included
• Style — realistic, painterly, impressionist, abstract or a named reference
• Medium — hand-painted oil on canvas, stated explicitly
• Framing — included, optional, or excluded
• Lead time — painting days plus shipping days, separately
• Shipping method and cost — express courier, rolled or crated, DDP or not
• Payment terms — deposit amount and when the balance falls due

If a quote is missing the size, is vague about whether it is hand-painted, or hides the shipping cost until checkout, those are the things to press on before paying anything.

How to Get the Best Result on Any Budget

1. Choose the right size, not the biggest one. A well-proportioned 50 × 70 cm painting on the right wall beats an oversized canvas that crowds the room. Our painting size guide has a sofa-to-canvas chart.
2. Simplify the background. A plain, softly graded or neutral background is both cheaper and, in most modern interiors, a better choice than a busy scene.
3. Send one great photo per subject. Sharp, eye-level, natural light, no filters. Good source material reduces the back-and-forth that stretches a project. See our step-by-step custom painting guide.
4. Be flexible on the deadline. Non-rush work avoids rush fees and often gives the artist time to do the finer glazing passes properly.
5. Order unframed if you have a local framer. Rolled canvas in a tube is the cheapest and safest way to ship; local framing is often cheaper than shipping a framed piece across borders.
6. Combine pieces into one order. Two or three paintings ordered together share preparation and shipping costs.

The Cheap Painting Trap: Prints and AI Sold as Hand-Painted

The reason the price question matters so much is that the market is full of canvases that look painted in a phone photo. Printed canvas with a brushed gel overlay, and more recently AI-generated artwork output onto canvas, are routinely sold as hand-painted. They cost a fraction to produce and are usually priced just low enough to feel like a bargain.

Two practical checks before you pay:

• The surface test. Real oil has physical texture — ridges you can see raking light across, brushmarks that change as you move. A print has a flat, uniform surface with a repeating dot or line pattern under magnification.
• The story test. Ask what size the original was, how long the artist spent, and whether they can tell you anything about the piece beyond its title. Prints and AI output have no such history.

Our guide to telling hand-painted from print walks through the full set of tests.

How to Get Your Quote in 24 Hours

The fastest route to a real number is a short message containing four things:

1. The photo (or photos) you want painted
2. The approximate size — or a photo of the wall with the furniture in shot, and we will suggest one
3. The style you have in mind, or a reference image
4. Your deadline, and whether framing is needed

With those four items we can quote precisely instead of guessing — and if your budget is fixed, say so up front. There is usually a size or style adjustment that gets you a genuinely good painting inside it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a custom oil painting cost?

Most hand-painted commissions land between roughly US$100 and US$1,500, with large multi-subject or oversized statement pieces going higher. Size, subject count, style detail, framing, timeline and quantity all move the number, which is why the only accurate answer is a quote against your specific brief.

Why don't you publish prices on the website?

Because two requests for the same canvas size can differ by four times in the work involved. One number would either overcharge the simple job or undercharge the complex one. A short message gets you an exact, itemised figure instead.

Is a hand-painted oil painting more expensive than a print?

Yes, and it should be — a print takes seconds to produce; an oil painting is hours or days of an artist's time plus materials. What matters is not paying hand-painted prices for a print. Our comparison guide covers the tests.

Does ordering more than one painting reduce the price?

Yes. Volume lets us batch canvas preparation, priming and shipping. Wholesale and multi-unit projects — hotel art programs, gallery stock, interior design schemes — are quoted individually against the size mix and schedule. See our trade guide for interior designers.

What is included in a quote?

Canvas size in cm and inches, subjects, style, medium, framing, painting lead time, shipping method and cost, and payment terms. If something on that list is missing, ask before paying a deposit.

How do I pay, and when is the balance due?

Bank transfer, PayPal, credit card and Wise. Custom orders run on a 70% deposit to start the painting, with the balance due before shipment.