How Much Money Do Tattoo Artists Make? - Calculate Your Potential Weekly Income

Use the calculator below to test how much a tattoo artists can make PER WEEK in your location. You can enter your drawing experience, how many hours are you willing to work per day (include all time invested in communicating with clients, drawing, tattooing and advertising your work online) and if you intend on doing social media marketing to promote your brand, include it.

Official Figures

In the USA, tattoo apprentices make between $25k and $50k per year (which is between 500$ and 1000$ per week). Once they become more experienced, it can go up to $100k per year.

The average hourly rate varies between 10$ and 50$. We know that a good realism artists who advertises their work on Instagram makes much more money than an artist who waits for walk-ins to do tribal tattoos, so the way you manage your career and your dedication to improving your art will 100% define how much your income will grow.

What you actually take home

Please take into account that you will need discount a big slice of your income. 

If you calculated that you'll receive 1000$ per week, also consider that you'll have to pay the studio you work in (often times they charge up to 50% of your income) and you'll also have to fulfill your tax duties, which in many countries implies paying up to 25% of your total income. 

So yeah, those 1000$ can quickly become a more modest amount after you account for all real life business, legal and operational costs.

How to Become a Tattooist

If you want to learn online, this is the best course on the market in 2023. Explore and decide the best way to get started.

We also prepared a guide to help you set up a tattoo career.

Increasing Your Income

We have several guides on how to become a tattoo artist, how much it costs to open a studio, how to take better photos of your tattoos,  and even a tattoo glossary for you to become acknowledged with all tattoo terms used in the industry.

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