Guides · Price survey · Updated July 2026
What does commission miniature painting cost?
Nobody publishes a straight answer to this, so we went and collected one. We checked the public pricing of 42 commission studios — 27 publish real numbers, the rest quote per project — and normalised everything to a price per standard infantry model. Here is what the market actually charges.
The short answer, per model
Prices below are per standard 28–32mm infantry model (think one Space Marine). Vehicles and monsters typically cost 6–10× an infantry model; characters 2–4×.
| Quality band | Low | Median | High | Studios |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Tabletop Battle-ready: clean base colours, shading, simple basing. Looks great at arm's length. | £2.7$3.5 | £11.8$15.3 | £27$35 | 20 |
High / Parade Parade standard: layered highlights, detail work, finished bases. Holds up in hand. | £4$5.2 | £25$32.5 | £50$65 | 17 |
Display Showcase: competition-level blending, freehand, scenic basing. Cabinet pieces. | £5.4$7 | £52$67.5 | £96$125 | 13 |
What a whole army costs
Painting only — assembly, basing upgrades and shipping come on top. Ranges assume a typical mix of infantry, vehicles and characters for the points level.
| Project | Band | GBP | USD |
|---|---|---|---|
| Combat Patrol (~20 models) | Tabletop | £90–350 | $120–455 |
| Combat Patrol (~20 models) | High / Parade | £150–900 | $195–1,170 |
| Combat Patrol (~20 models) | Display | £450–1,900 | $585–2,470 |
| 1,000 points (~35 infantry + 2 vehicles) | Tabletop | £250–750 | $325–975 |
| 1,000 points (~35 infantry + 2 vehicles) | High / Parade | £550–1,500 | $715–1,950 |
| 1,000 points (~35 infantry + 2 vehicles) | Display | £1,200–3,500 | $1,560–4,550 |
| 2,000 points (~70 infantry + 4 vehicles + 2 characters) | Tabletop | £550–1,600 | $700–2,100 |
| 2,000 points (~70 infantry + 4 vehicles + 2 characters) | High / Parade | £1,200–3,300 | $1,550–4,300 |
| 2,000 points (~70 infantry + 4 vehicles + 2 characters) | Display | £2,600–8,000 | $3,400–10,400 |
Estimate your project
Rough numbers from the surveyed rates. Every studio prices the actual models and scheme, so treat this as the start of a conversation, not a quote.
£189 – £1,890
Painting only, from surveyed studio rates. Assembly, basing upgrades, shipping and insurance come on top — and a quote for your actual models is the only number that counts.
How studios actually charge
Per-model price lists are only one of the pricing models in the wild. Knowing which one a studio uses makes their quote much easier to compare.
Per model, by quality tier
The classic rate card: a price per infantry model that steps up with the finish level, with vehicles, monsters and characters priced as multiples. Glorious Miniatures: Battle Ready from £12/model, Regiment Ready from £21. Paintedfigs: a Space Marine at $5.54 standard, with Showcase at 1.5× and Exhibition at 2×.
Day rate
A flat fee per studio working day with a stated throughput — easy to sanity-check by dividing into models per day, and often discounted for multi-day bookings. The Unrelenting Brush: £175/day covering roughly 20 pre-built infantry (~£8.75/model implied), with 5 days discounted to £795.
Hourly rate
Quotes built from an hourly rate, sometimes sold as prepaid blocks that get cheaper at volume. Pandaemonium Miniatures from £25/hour including basic materials; White Metal Games sells hour blocks from $65/hr (5 hours) down to $45/hr (40 hours).
Multiple of retail price
The painting fee expressed as a multiple of the kit's RRP — on a £37.50 ten-model box that's £3.75, £7.50 or £11.25 per model depending on tier. The Vanus Temple: Tabletop = 1× RRP, Above Tabletop = 2×, Professional = 3×, building and cleaning +30% of RRP.
Flat army package
A fixed all-in price per points bracket, including assembly, painting, basing and shipping (miniatures excluded) — common among eBay commission sellers. Recurring eBay rates (2024–25): 500pts £300, 1,000pts £500, 2,000pts £850 fully assembled, painted and based.
Quote-only, with minimums
No published rates at all — bespoke per-project quotes gated by minimum order values. The norm at the premium end of the market. Den of Imagination minimum $1,000+; Art W Studio minimum €1,000 + VAT (a single mini from €250); Siege Studios minimum 10 infantry or 1 character.
Numbers worth knowing
A few concrete datapoints from the survey that anchor the ranges above.
- Fernando Enterprises (Sri Lanka) is the published floor of the market: $2.00 per 28mm foot figure at Collector quality — including cleaning, assembly and varnish.
- Steve Dean Painting charges a flat £50 per 28mm foot figure — a single-tier veteran painter at 10× the budget-studio floor, and clients queue anyway.
- Minis For War quotes a 40k Combat Patrol from $1,150 at High level, assembly and custom bases included.
- Lil'Legend Studio publishes a fully public premium price list: a Space Marine from £25, an infantry character from £100, a Primarch from £500.
- Art W Studio's rate card shows what whole projects cost: 40 mixed-level minis for €1,900; 93 display-level minis for €15,400.
- White Metal Games prices an Imperial Knight at roughly $1,100 and a single hero at ~$325 via its hourly blocks.
- eBay commission sellers converge on £850 for a fully assembled, painted and based 2,000-point army — inside this survey's tabletop-band estimate.
- Brushforhire starts 32mm display singles at $125 and explicitly refuses army commissions.
Questions people actually ask
How much does it cost to get a Warhammer army painted?
From our survey of 42 studios: a 2,000-point army at tabletop standard typically runs £550–1,600 ($700–2,100) for painting alone. Higher quality bands multiply that — display-level armies routinely reach several thousand pounds.
Why don't most studios publish prices?
Of the 42 studios we checked, only 27 publish concrete numbers — the rest quote per project. That's not evasion: the same 60 models can vary hugely in work depending on the sculpts, the scheme and the finish level, so studios price the actual job.
What affects the price most?
Quality band first — moving from tabletop to display standard can triple or quintuple the per-model rate. Then model count and size, whether assembly and basing are included, the complexity of the scheme (freehand, NMM and custom conversions cost more), and your deadline.
Is commission painting worth it?
It depends what your hobby time is worth. A 2,000-point army is 100–200 hours of painting for most hobbyists. If you love painting, that's the hobby; if you love playing and collecting, a commission turns a two-year backlog into a finished army this season.
Methodology
We reviewed the public pricing pages of 42 commission painting studios in July 2026. 27 publish concrete rates; 15are quote-only. Day rates and RRP-multiple pricing were converted to per-model equivalents using the studios' own stated output. Currency conversion at roughly £1 = $1.30. Caveats: Only 27 of the 42 studios publish any usable number, and several publish only 'from' floors — real invoices skew higher than the low ends shown. The premium end is under-represented: most top-reputation studios are strictly quote-only, so the display-band median is likely conservative. Quality bands are our normalisation — studios name and cut their tiers differently. Currency converted at roughly £1 = $1.30; studios' own multi-currency tables drift ±10% from spot rates. Estimates cover painting only — assembly, basing, model supply and shipping can add 10–30% or more to a real invoice.
Commissioning
When you're ready for real numbers, describe your project and we'll match you with two or three vetted studios in your budget — or browse the directory and judge the portfolios yourself.