How Much Does a Commissioned Oil Painting Cost in the UK?

Last updated: September 2026

How much does a commissioned oil painting cost in the UK?

Quick answer: Most hand-painted commissions from a working UK studio fall between £220 and £550. Ours start at £220 for a 12 × 16″ canvas and top out at £549 for 36 × 48″, with UK delivery included and each additional person or pet £59. A portrait from a photo takes four to six weeks from the day you send the image. Above that band you are into gallery-represented artists, where £1,500 to £8,000 is normal; below it you are almost always buying a print rather than paint.

What you are actually paying for

An oil portrait is one of the few things left where the price is mostly labour. A 20 × 24″ canvas takes an experienced painter somewhere between 25 and 40 hours of actual work, spread over several weeks because oil paint has to dry between layers. You cannot rush that part — an underpainting that has not cured properly will drag and muddy everything laid on top of it.

The materials matter less than people expect. Artist-grade oils, a stretched cotton or linen canvas and decent brushes come to perhaps £25 to £60 for a mid-sized piece. So when you compare two quotes, you are mostly comparing how many hours the painter is putting in and how much they value them.

That is the honest reason the commissioned oil painting cost you see quoted varies so widely. A student painting evenings for portfolio work can charge £120 and be pleased. A painter with twenty years behind them, a waiting list and a reputation to protect cannot.

Prices by canvas size

Everything below is oil on stretched canvas, unframed, delivered anywhere in the UK, and matches the pricing page exactly. One subject is included; extra people or pets are £59 each.

Canvas	Metric	Price	With WELCOME20	Suits
12 × 16″	30 × 40 cm	£220	£176	A shelf, a desk, a hallway nook, one head and shoulders
16 × 20″	40 × 50 cm	£275	£220	The most-ordered size — one pet or one person, reads well from 2 m
20 × 24″	50 × 60 cm	£330	£264	Two subjects, or one subject with real background
24 × 36″	60 × 90 cm	£449	£359	Above a fireplace or a sofa; a family of three or four
30 × 40″	75 × 100 cm	£489	£391	A statement wall in a room you actually sit in
36 × 48″	90 × 120 cm	£549	£439	Full-length figures, or a group of five plus

If you are unsure which row you want, the honest rule is that almost everyone under-buys. A 12 × 16″ looks generous flat on a table and small once it is on a wall two metres away. Our size guide has the measuring method, but the shortcut is: pick the size that feels slightly too big.

What moves the price up, and what shouldn't

Number of subjects

Each additional face is £59. That is not arbitrary — a second dog or a third child is genuinely another set of features to get right, and getting one face wrong ruins the whole painting regardless of how good the rest is. A family portrait with four people on a 24 × 36″ canvas comes to £449 plus £177, so £626 before any discount.

Size

Price does not scale with area, and you should be suspicious of any studio where it does. Doubling the canvas does not double the hours; a lot of the work — getting the likeness, mixing the skin tones, resolving the eyes — is the same job at any scale. That is why our 36 × 48″ is £549 rather than four times the 12 × 16″ price.

Complexity of the photo

A well-lit head-and-shoulders shot and a dim phone photo of a black dog take very different amounts of time. Most studios absorb that rather than charging for it, but it is the main reason a good reference is worth ten minutes of your effort. If your only photo is soft or old, that is usually still workable — it is a question of what can be reconstructed honestly, not of price.

Framing

Framing should be a separate decision, not a hidden line on an invoice. We ship unframed on a stretched canvas because a decent bespoke frame is £80 to £250 and depends entirely on the wall it is going on. A studio that "includes" framing has either priced it in or is fitting a cheap one.

The three things that shouldn't be extras

There is a version of the commissioned oil painting cost question that is really about which quotes are trustworthy. Three tells:

• Delivery. Should be included for UK addresses. A canvas costs a few pounds to send and it is a strange thing to nickel-and-dime at the end.
• Revisions. You should see the painting before it ships and be able to say "her chin is wrong". Any studio confident in its work builds a preview into the process rather than charging for changes.
• Paying in full up front. A deposit is entirely reasonable. Full payment before you have seen anything is not.

We send a free digital preview once the painting is done, and nothing ships until you have approved it. If you look at it and it is not right, we change it or you do not pay.

Where cheaper options actually sit

If £220 is above what you want to spend, the honest alternative is not a cheaper oil painting — it is a different product. Textured giclée prints with a hand-finished varnish start around £79 and look genuinely good on a wall. AI-generated canvas prints start near £39 and ship in days.

What they are not is paint. A print has no impasto, no brush direction catching the light, and no evidence of a person having spent a month looking at your photograph. Whether that matters is a real question with a real answer either way, and the differences are worth understanding before you choose. For a memorial piece most people find it matters a great deal. For a spare-room decoration it may not.

The UK market, roughly

For context, here is where the commissioned oil painting cost tends to land across the market:

• £80–£150 — students, hobbyists and overseas painting mills. Sometimes excellent, frequently a print sold as a painting, rarely any recourse if it goes wrong.
• £220–£600 — established studios working from photographs. Hand-painted, previewed, guaranteed. This is where the great majority of UK commissions actually happen.
• £700–£1,500 — a named painter working from sittings rather than photos, or unusually large canvases.
• £1,500–£8,000+ — gallery-represented portrait artists, often with a waiting list measured in months. You are buying the name as much as the hours.

Nothing about the top band is dishonest; it is simply a different purchase. Very little of what makes a portrait of your grandmother worth having is available only above £1,000.

Frequently asked

Is a commissioned oil painting worth the money?

It depends what you compare it to. Against another piece of homeware, £330 is a lot. Against the twenty-year life of the thing — a painting of a pet that stays on the wall long after the dog is gone — it works out at pennies a week. The useful test is whether you would still want it in ten years. Most people know the answer immediately.

Why do some studios charge £99 for an "oil painting"?

Because at that price, after materials and shipping, there is roughly two hours of labour left. That buys a printed canvas with some varnish brushed over it, or a fast studio copy with the likeness only approximately right. It is not fraud in every case, but read the product description carefully and look for the words hand-painted and original.

Do I pay more for a larger group?

Only per subject, not per person on the canvas twice over. Each extra face is £59 flat regardless of size, so a couple on a 16 × 20″ is £275 + £59 = £334. There is no group surcharge on top.

Can I spread the cost?

Most UK studios take a deposit with the balance due before dispatch, which naturally splits the payment across the four to six weeks of work. If you are commissioning an anniversary present months in advance, that is worth knowing — you can start it now and settle the rest nearer the date.

Does the price change if my photo is poor?

No. If a photograph genuinely cannot be worked from we will say so before you pay anything, rather than charging extra to compensate. In practice most photos people apologise for turn out to be fine.