When people imagine an art studio, they picture the creative side: paintings taking shape, new prints being released, and a smooth process of turning ideas into finished work. What rarely gets seen are the hidden costs that eat up time, money, and energy. These costs are not about paper or packaging. They are about the machinery that keeps the whole studio running.
Software, subscriptions, and the digital toolkit
Because I paint digitally, my entire creative process depends on a web of software and online tools. It starts with the obvious design programs, but quickly sprawls into a dozen others: color calibration software to keep prints accurate, cloud storage for backing up huge working files, and workflow tools for keeping everything organized. None of these are glamorous, but all of them are necessary.
Then there are the costs of running the storefront itself. Shopify charges its monthly fee, and every useful app on top of it adds its own price tag. Email marketing tools, analytics dashboards, and domain renewals stack up too. A single $20 or $30 subscription might not sound like much, but multiplied across ten or fifteen different services, it becomes a meaningful monthly bill.
And software is never “one and done.” Programs update. Plugins stop working. Licenses expire. I spend as much time keeping the tools alive as I do using them. The irony is that without this invisible scaffolding, the art would never make it to your wall.
Proofs, samples, and test runs
Every print you see available in the shop comes from a long chain of test runs. I rarely trust a single proof to be enough. The first one might come out with colors too muted, or paper texture that does not match the tone of the work. Then comes a second proof, sometimes a third, and occasionally even more. Each test costs money, and while none of them are ever sold, they are necessary to make sure the final edition is exactly what I want it to be.
It is not just color either. Different studios sometimes have subtle differences in ink saturation or trimming. If I switch a piece to a new printing partner, I go through another round of tests just to ensure consistency. The proofs pile up into neat stacks of “almost there” versions that never see the light of day.
Printer upkeep is another part of the hidden expense. Even though my main editions are produced by partner studios, I keep printers on hand for limited prints, test runs, mockups, and smaller projects. Ink cartridges are notoriously expensive, and maintenance like head cleaning, calibration, and replacing worn parts adds up over time. These costs never show up in the shop listings, but they are baked into the process of making sure each final edition meets the standard I want.
Even frames demand trials. A walnut frame might look stunning on one piece and completely wrong on another. So the proofs extend beyond paper into mockups, sample corners, and even half-finished frames. For more on how I think about this process, see Framing Matters: Choosing the Right Frame for Your Art. None of this is glamorous, but it is the foundation that ensures what you receive is polished, consistent, and lasting.
Transaction fees and currency games
A print listed for $100 does not mean $100 in the studio’s pocket. Credit card processors, PayPal, and Shopify each take their cut. Add to that the charges for international transactions, and the total can shrink quickly. The same is true for bank fees and exchange rates, which never seem to break in favor of small businesses.
Selling internationally also means living with currency swings. Some months, a sale in Europe looks fantastic when converted back into dollars. Other months, the same sale ends up less profitable than the identical order at home. Or vice versa. The unpredictability is itself a hidden cost, one that can only be managed, never eliminated. If you want to see the effect on actual shipping and tariffs, take a look at Shipping Update for Our U.S. Customers (Part 2: Tariff Boogaloo).
Customer service: the invisible giant
If there is one hidden cost that overshadows all others, it is customer service. Every single order creates a ripple of emails, messages, and follow-ups. People want to know how big a print will look on their wall, how to compare frame colors, whether shipping to their country is reliable, and how long delivery will take. None of these questions are unreasonable, but together they consume enormous amounts of time.
Lost packages generate their own trails of messages. A courier might mark something as delivered when it is nowhere to be found. Tracking might stall in one city for two weeks straight. Each of these situations means hours of correspondence, reaching out to printers, chasing couriers, reassuring the customer, and often absorbing the cost of a replacement.
Then there are the simple, everyday questions. Can I sign the print? Can I change my shipping address? Will this size work with IKEA frames? Each answer takes only a few minutes, but those minutes multiply. What should be a full day of painting turns into a day in the inbox.
The saving grace is the customers themselves. I cannot overstate how amazing they have been. Always polite, patient, and understanding. Even when something goes wrong in shipping, I am met with kindness rather than anger. I know not every artist can say this, which makes me feel incredibly lucky. It turns what could be a draining, thankless task into something more human, where the conversations remind me why I do this work in the first place. For anyone wondering how to display the art once it arrives, I put together Displaying Art 101: My Favorite Ways to Showcase Prints Without Damaging Walls.
Why I absorb it anyway
All of these things, the fees, the subscriptions, the proofs, and the endless emails, add up to a layer of hidden cost that most people never notice. Yet without them, there would be no independent art studio at all. They are the silent infrastructure that supports the visible side: the limited edition prints, the framed pieces, and the greeting cards. Supporting independent art is about more than buying a piece. It is about sustaining the hidden work that makes the art possible.
If you would like to see one of these finished pieces, take a look at Brunhilde the Cat Art Print. You can also browse all prints, or pick up a set of greeting cards for something smaller but just as thoughtful.