The median illustrator in the United States is paid $29.27 an hour (PayScale, March 2026, n=156), and almost nothing that decides an illustrator's income happens by the hour. It happens in the licence.
An illustration for a regional magazine's inside page and the same illustration on a national brand's packaging are the same afternoon of drawing and a different order of magnitude in price. Most quotes are written as if the afternoon were the product. The client, reasonably, agrees.
Where the image is allowed to go
Usage is the clause with no equivalent in a general contract, and its absence is the most expensive omission in this trade. Transferring the artwork outright hands over everything, everywhere, forever. Sometimes that is the deal. It should be a deal somebody chose.
Write the permitted use as a positive list: the cover of this title, print and digital, these territories, this many years. Broader use is a separate line with a separate number, and it belongs in the first quote, because the client who is going to want it on the tote bag is going to want it on the tote bag whether or not you priced it.
The email that says "can we also"
It arrives about six weeks after delivery. The piece has done well, someone in marketing loves it, and could they also use it on the packaging, or the trade-show wall, or the app. The request is friendly and the sender does not know it is a licensing question. If the original quote said where the image could go, the answer is a licence extension with a price, sent the same day. If it did not, you are explaining a concept in a reply to a compliment, which is the worst place to explain anything.
Killed after sketches
Editorial and commercial work both get killed: the story is pulled, the campaign changes direction, the product is delayed. A kill fee is what makes that survivable, and it has to be staged, because a job killed at sketches and a job killed at final art cost you different things. A share after sketches, a larger share after colour, the full fee once final art is delivered. The shares are yours to set. What matters is that they exist in the signed terms before the first sketch leaves your desk.
Revisions belong here too, in a flat sentence. Two rounds, with a round defined as one consolidated set of notes; changes to an approved sketch after colour has begun are a new round, at a stated price. Illustration attracts the request to "just tweak the expression" after the final, and a defined round is the only thing that makes the word "just" cost something.
Quoting the licence, with North
You paste the brief. North drafts the proposal as three options that differ in kind, which for illustration is usually breadth of use as much as amount of work: the same piece licensed for the site, then for site and print, then a broader licence covering packaging and paid media. Inside each option the scope is countable (one final illustration, two sketch directions, two rounds with a round defined) and the usage line is inside the option rather than in a footnote, so broad use is something the client buys on purpose. Next to each item is one sentence about what it is for, taken from the brief rather than invented.
The agreement is drafted alongside, from the same scope and terms, with your kill-fee stages in it if you put them there, and you review both together. The client reads the proposal in a private room, accepts an option, and is shown the agreement to sign; the signature is bound to an email address they have verified. After signing, the accepted option can become stages (sketches, colour, final art) with dates, which the client watches from the room; a deposit stage up front, billed on its own, is part of the paid plan, as is card payment on your own Stripe account. Finished work can be shown in the same room, and the client's note on it comes to you in full.
Invoices are drafted from the project and sent by you, and you see when the client opens one. The reminder, if it is needed, is drafted for you and sent when you say.
Where it stops
North does not register or track licences after the fact, and it will not tell you when the five years are up. It does not deliver files, manage a portfolio, or talk to the printer. And it does not know your style, which is the thing you are actually selling. It knows what a licence is, which is the thing most quotes forget to.
Common questions
- How do I write usage rights into an illustration quote?
- As a positive list, not a set of prohibitions: the book cover, in print and digital editions, in English-language territories, for five years. Anything past that list (merchandise, animation, a second title in the series) is a separate licence with a separate number. A list of permitted uses stays true as the client's business changes; a list of banned ones never does.
- What is a fair kill fee for editorial illustration?
- There is no published survey to lean on, and anyone quoting a percentage as a statistic is guessing. The ordinary practice is a staged fee: a share of the total if the job is killed after sketches, a larger share after colour, the full fee once final art is delivered. Write the stages and the shares into the terms before the sketches go out; a kill fee proposed after the kill is a request, not a term.
- Can a client use my illustration on packaging if they only paid for the website?
- Only if the licence says so, and if the quote never said where the image could go, you have probably transferred more than you meant to. The request itself is normal and usually friendly. The answer is a short licence extension with a price on it, sent the day the email arrives, which is a purchase the client can make rather than a favour you resent.