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 studio fall between £220 and £550. Ours start at £220 for a 12 × 16″ canvas and top out at £549 for 36 × 48″, with worldwide delivery included and each additional person or pet from £35. A portrait from a photo takes about three to four weeks to paint, plus delivery. 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.

Every size and subject — pets, families, weddings, memorials — is priced out line by line in our oil painting commission prices guide. This piece is about why the figures are what they are.

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 canvas, shipped rolled in a tube ready for a framer to stretch and frame, delivered worldwide, and matches the pricing page exactly. One subject is included; extra people or pets are from £35 each, by canvas size.

Canvas	Metric	Price	Suits
12 × 16″	30 × 40 cm	£220	A shelf, a desk, a hallway nook, one head and shoulders
16 × 20″	40 × 50 cm	£275	The most-ordered size — one pet or one person, reads well from 2 m
20 × 24″	50 × 60 cm	£330	Two subjects, or one subject with real background
24 × 36″	60 × 90 cm	£449	Above a fireplace or a sofa; a family of three or four
30 × 40″	75 × 100 cm	£489	A statement wall in a room you actually sit in
36 × 48″	90 × 120 cm	£549	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 £35 on the three smaller canvases, rising to £55, £69 and £79 as the canvas grows, because a bigger face is more paint and more hours. 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 £165, so £614.

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 the finished painting rolled in a tube, unframed, because a decent bespoke frame is £80 to £250 and depends entirely on the wall it is going on — your framer stretches it onto bars and frames it in one job. 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, wherever you're having it delivered. A canvas costs a few pounds to send and it is a strange thing to nickel-and-dime at the end.
• Approval before anything ships. You should see the finished painting — a photograph of it, not a sketch — and be able to say "her chin is wrong" before it goes anywhere. Any studio confident in its work builds that into the process rather than treating changes as extras.
• A photo check with a refund behind it. Someone should look at your photograph and tell you honestly whether it will work, and if it won't, you should get every penny back. A studio that checks the photo and refunds in full when it can't be painted well has more at stake than one that paints whatever it is sent.

You pay when you order, at the price shown for your size. We check the photograph within hours, 9am to 5pm Monday to Saturday (UK time), and if it won't make a good painting you can send another or have a full refund. Before the painting ships we send a photograph of the finished piece, and we keep painting until it's right.

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, and not one we sell. Elsewhere, textured giclée prints with a hand-finished varnish start around £79 and look genuinely good on a wall, and AI-generated canvas prints start near £39 and ship in days. We make a computer-generated portrait ourselves — the Sitting Room paints your dog or cat into a Tudor or Regency picture in a few minutes, free — and we call it what it is: a picture for your phone, not a painting for your wall. How to tell the two apart is worth five minutes before you buy either.

What they are not is paint. A print has no layers of oil colour, 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 high-volume 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, approved by you before it ships, 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. The cheap end now also includes AI-generated images printed on canvas, which can pass from across a room; here is how to tell.

Do I pay more for a larger group?

Only per subject, not per person on the canvas twice over. Each extra face is charged once, at the rate for that canvas, so a couple on a 16 × 20″ is £275 + £35 = £310. There is no group surcharge on top.

Can I spread the cost?

Yes, if you choose Klarna at checkout: they let you spread the cost, and show you their terms before you commit. We don't take deposits or stage payments ourselves — you pay once, when you order. If you're commissioning an anniversary present months in advance, put the date in the notes: three to four weeks of painting fits comfortably inside that, and it will be ready well before the day.

Does the price change if my photo is poor?

No. If a photograph genuinely cannot be worked from we tell you and refund you in full, rather than charging extra to compensate. In practice most photos people apologise for turn out to be fine.