Launch deal: $18 for your first month, until Dec 5.
Log inGet started

Less admin, more sketching.

Take each illustration commission from brief to payment. The brief, the roughs, the finals and the usage terms, with each commission's art director, kill fee and invoice in one place.

Get startedRequest a demo

Free to start. No card needed.

Open calls, fairs and grants for illustration

An editorial commission is a project with its brief, roughs and finals as tasks. Its invoice carries the fee and the usage written out on its own line: how the art is used, where and for how long.

The admin that comes with commissioned illustration

Most of an illustration fee pays for use: where the art runs, in which territory and for how long. Then it's paid on the client's clock, net 30 or net 60, sometimes counted from publication, or as a kill fee when the story is cut.

  • The cover quoted by the hour

    The usual advice is to charge for usage. A cover for one issue and a cover that runs on every ad for a year are different jobs, even when the drawing took the same week.

  • The job killed after roughs

    The art director loved the sketches, then the story was cut. Whether you see half the fee depends on whether the kill fee was written down.

  • The invoice that went quiet

    The finals went in two months ago. The invoice is on net 60, or due when the issue comes out, and nobody has said which.

  • The art director list in a spreadsheet

    Names, publications and the date of the last postcard, in a sheet that stopped being current two mailers ago.

At the drawing table

Know which plate is due next

A book of plates is a project with a task for each step: roughs, inks, scans. Today lists what's due across every job, so plate 12 gets inked beside this week's editorial spot, and the finals invoice goes out from the same project.

A hand inking a botanical drawing with a dip pen

Bill the kill fee when a job is cut

Write your kill fee into the project's description: a quarter before roughs, half after roughs, all of it after finals. When a story is cut, move the project to Cut and it fades back with the rest of the canceled work. The kill fee goes out as an invoice on the same project, paid online to your own Stripe or marked paid when the check arrives.

How invoices work

Keep your art director list current

Each art director is a contact at their publication in Network, on an Art directors pipeline with stages you name. When the postcards go out, log a follow-up on each card with the next date three months away, so the Follow-ups view brings them back for the next mailer. The ones who write back move to Replied.

How outreach works

Tools for the full illustrator's year

Conferences, annuals, mailers and entry deadlines come around every year. Each one has a place in Plya.

  1. January to February

    The winter conference

    Art directors, editors and agents from the winter portfolio showcases go in Network, each linked to their publication or agency.

  2. March to April

    The annuals and Bologna

    American Illustration closes in March and the Bologna Children's Book Fair runs in April. Awards and open calls are listed in Opportunities with their deadlines and entry fees.

  3. May to June

    The summer mailer

    The postcard goes out before July 1. Log it on each art director's card on your pipeline, with the next follow-up dated for the fall.

  4. July to August

    Portfolio reviews

    Critiques from the summer conferences go in a note linked to the reviewer, so the advice is there when you rework the portfolio.

  5. September to October

    Entry week

    Bologna's Illustrators Exhibition closes in late October, and the Society of Illustrators Annual around the same time. Picking five images, exporting and uploading are tasks dated before each deadline.

  6. November to December

    The year's invoices

    Before clients close their books, Finance shows what's outstanding and what's been collected this year, invoice by invoice.

Date the invoice to the issue

When a magazine pays on publication, set the invoice's due date to the day the issue comes out and say so in its notes. It stays open in Finance until then, and if the payment hasn't come by the day after, it shows as Overdue with the days counted.

Sample quotes

“The timer and the invoice talk to each other, so I stopped undercharging.”
Sam WhitakerIllustrator

Made for every kind of studio

Plya for every craft and practice

Spend more time drawing

The briefs, the usage and the invoices go in Plya, where you can find them.

Get started