How much should a tattoo deposit be, and what should the policy say?

Every artist who has been ghosted on a Saturday afternoon knows why deposits exist. The client was excited in the DMs, the drawing took two evenings, and then nothing. A deposit does not stop that from happening, but it makes it cost the client something instead of only you.

What a deposit is for

A deposit does three jobs at once:

1. It holds the date. The client is paying for the certainty that the chair is theirs.
2. It pays for the drawing. If you draw before the session, the deposit is the only money that covers that time when a client walks.
3. It filters. People who will not send fifty dollars will not show up for a four-hour session either. Better to find out now.

It comes off the final price. That is the part clients most often misunderstand, so say it every time.

How much

Most independent artists land in one of these patterns:

• A flat amount for small work: $50 to $100 for anything under two hours. Simple, and the client does not need a quote first.
• A share of the quote for larger pieces: 20 to 30 percent. On an $800 half-day that is $160 to $240, which is enough that a no-show hurts them too.
• A day rate deposit for multi-session projects: one session's worth, rolled forward from session to session and applied to the last one.

Whatever you pick, put it on the booking form before the client fills anything in. A deposit that surprises people after they have described their dream piece gets argued with. One they saw at the top of the form does not.

What the policy has to cover

You need four sentences, not four pages.

• Non-refundable. Say it plainly. If you make exceptions, make them privately, not in the policy.
• Reschedules. How much notice moves the deposit to a new date. Forty-eight hours is common; a week for full-day sessions.
• No-shows and late arrivals. After how many minutes the session is forfeit. Thirty is typical.
• Design changes. A tweak is included. A different idea is a new deposit.

Then the practical bit: how you take it and how long the client has to send it. A held time that is not paid for within a day or two should go back on the calendar, and the client should be told that up front.

Saying it without sounding cold

The policy reads better when it sounds like you. Compare:

Deposits are non-refundable and will be forfeited in the event of a no-show or cancellation with less than 48 hours' notice.

with

Your deposit holds your date and comes off the final price. If you need to move it, give me two days' notice and it moves with you. No-shows keep the deposit.

Same rules. The second one gets fewer "just checking, is this refundable?" messages.

Where the money goes

Most independent artists in the US take deposits by Zelle, Venmo, or Cash App because there is no fee and it lands the same day. The risk is the handoff: a client screenshots a payment they never sent, or sends it to the wrong handle because a fake account gave them one. The fix is a paper trail the client can see. When the deposit request and the confirmation live on one page the client can come back to, the "did you get it?" thread disappears.

That is how Etchra handles it. The client's link shows the amount and your handles, they tap "I've sent it," and you confirm from the request. Nothing about the deposit itself changes. It just stops living in your DMs.