I bear in mind the evening the penny dropped. It was 2am, I used to be hunched over a dodgy Chromebook in a humid little flat, wrestling with three spreadsheets to trace my freelance jobs. A consumer nonetheless hadn’t paid after six months, and I realised I used to be spending extra time chasing cash than creating content material.
And that is when it hit me. Being good at your craft is barely half the job. The remaining is working the enterprise aspect… with out shedding your marbles.
Quick-forward to 2025, and we’re dwelling within the age of the creativepreneur: the inventive particular person who combines expertise with enterprise acumen to construct one thing sustainable. However bear in mind: if it is not simple for individuals to pay you, it would not matter how good your work is.
To discover this matter, we have teamed up with SumUp, which helps you receives a commission rapidly and easily. Their pocket-sized card readers allow you to simply accept contactless funds anyplace, whereas QR codes and cost hyperlinks simplify on-line gross sales. Add in skilled invoicing and instantaneous receipts, and you have got the instruments to run an operation that is as slick as your portfolio.
So, what precisely goes into the Creativepreneur Starter Pack? Let’s begin with the thorny topic of pricing.
How one can value your work
The most important mistake we creatives make is charging too little. I as soon as quoted £200 for work that took me 20 hours, as I did not need to scare the consumer off. By no means once more.
The trick is to work backwards from the earnings you purpose to earn in a 12 months, making an allowance for holidays, sick days, and the hours you will spend on workplace admin. In case you’ve come from a salaried job, rule of thumb is to purpose for roughly two and a half occasions your previous day by day wage.
For initiatives with clear deliverables, resembling logos, web site builds, or wedding ceremony shoots, packages are more practical than hourly charges. Shoppers like figuring out precisely what they’re paying for, and also you cease short-changing your self for all these additional hours.
As soon as you have received some stable outcomes below your belt, value-based pricing turns into the dream. In spite of everything, in case your redesign helps a consumer make an additional £50,000 in gross sales each year, charging £10,000 out of the blue would not look grasping, it simply appears truthful.
How one can receives a commission promptly
After all, good pricing solely works if individuals really pay you. Again in my spreadsheet days, I might wait months for cash to seem. Now, because of SumUp, the method is staggeringly simple.
At markets or pop-ups, you hand somebody a SumUp card reader, resembling Air or SumUp Terminal, they faucet their cellphone or card, and also you’re accomplished. No rummaging for change, no “sorry, I do not carry money”.
Elsewhere, QR codes have develop into tiny enterprise heroes. Stick them in your posters, enterprise playing cards, your stall signal, and prospects pays you, ebook you and even tip you with a single scan. For on-line gross sales (digital downloads, one-off workshops, customized commissions), cost hyperlinks are the best choice. Ship the hyperlink, get the cash, bosh.
And in relation to invoices? Presentation issues. Clear, branded invoices with clear phrases and automated reminders not solely look skilled but in addition minimize down the time you spend awkwardly chasing funds. The golden rule is that this: the better you make it, the faster individuals cough up.
The place to promote your work
Subsequent, there’s the thorny query of the place to promote. Counting on one channel is dangerous, and the strongest inventive companies combine it up.
With regards to bodily artwork and merchandise, markets and pop-ups are good for fast suggestions and private connections. There’s nothing like seeing somebody’s face gentle up after they uncover your work in particular person. They’re additionally good for promotional content material: behind-the-scenes photographs of your stall or setup do wonders on socials.
In the meantime, a web-based store makes cash for you when you sleep. Your web site may very well be promoting your prints to somebody in Sydney when you’re making toast in Peckham. And if individuals are already following you on Instagram or TikTok, do not make them depart the app to buy; built-in procuring options imply they’ll go from “like” to “purchase” in seconds.
How one can construct credibility quick
Simply beginning out? Then you definately face the difficulty of credibility. This usually looks like a chicken-and-egg downside: you want testimonials to draw shoppers, however you want shoppers to get testimonials.
Start near dwelling. That emblem you whipped up in your mate’s pub? Get a evaluate. The portraits you took in your cousin’s Christmas card? Ask for a testimonial. Even when they’re unpaid jobs, these little nuggets of suggestions add weight to your portfolio.
Talking of portfolios, be strategic. Do not simply present every little thing you have ever accomplished; curate it to mirror the type of work you really need to do. If which means mocking up your dream ebook cowl designs or creating pattern menus for an imaginary restaurant, so be it. Shoppers care extra about seeing what’s doable than the place it got here from.
Additionally, do not simply present the shiny completed product: present your course of. Time-lapse movies of a portray coming to life, sketchbooks, and before-and-after photographs of a redesign all assist to construct belief in your abilities and merchandise.
How one can keep stress-free
Nobody units out on a inventive profession as a result of they’re enthusiastic about tax returns, however ignoring the admin will solely make it worse. So begin easy. Preserve digital receipts for each expense, together with paintbrushes, Adobe subscriptions, and journey prices. Cost programs like Sumup will do that for you routinely.
Do not overcomplicate your bookkeeping, both. A fundamental software that syncs along with your cost system will save hours of double-entry. And for the sake of sanity, separate your small business and private funds as quickly as doable. When tax season rolls round, you will thank your self.
The actual game-changer in 2026 is mobility. You possibly can run virtually every little thing out of your cellphone. Your card reader lives in your bag, your invoices are despatched by way of an app, and your portfolio’s within the cloud.
Meaning you’ll be able to whip out your cellphone at a networking occasion, present your work, and take a deposit on the spot. You possibly can launch a brand new product line within the time it takes for the kettle to boil. You possibly can even run a workshop out of your front room with nothing greater than a half-decent web connection.
Conclusion
As we head into 2026, the inventive economic system is buzzing but in addition extra aggressive than ever. The creatives who thrive would be the ones who excel at each features of the job: producing good work and sustaining clean enterprise programs. They will value with confidence, make it easy to pay, and hold their admin so gentle it barely looks like work.
Expertise will get you observed, but it surely’s the appropriate toolkit that’ll take you additional. And with SumUp in your pocket, you will spend much less time chasing cash and extra time doing what you really love—creating.
So the one query left is: are you able to run your inventive enterprise like a professional in 2026?
