Arceo Studio Collective · The Portrait Incentive
Your buyer does not need a discount. They need the day to feel like something.
A commissioned portrait program for businesses that sell at a high ticket. A portrait session with a fine art studio, included at a purchase threshold you set, and delivered to your buyer as part of the sale.
Your salesperson holds the price. The buyer gets the thing they will still have when the object is old.
For businesses only · Paid on redemption · No retainer · One seller per market
The proposition
Something to add, instead of something to take off.
When someone is deciding on a purchase at this level, price is rarely the real hesitation. The hesitation is whether it is worth it. A discount answers that question badly. It says the number was soft, and it says so permanently.
The Portrait Incentive answers it with a commissioned portrait, unlocked at a threshold you choose, so the sale closes at full price and the day is remembered.
Who it is built for
Any business where the average sale is large, the decision is emotional, and the purchase marks something. If a customer would frame the day they bought from you, this works.
Business portraits
The tiers
Choose the tier that matches your ticket.
You set the purchase threshold that unlocks it. Each tier carries a fixed fee, shared on the first call and paid on redemption. Nothing is owed on a sale that does not reach the threshold, and nothing is owed on a voucher that goes unused.
$25,000 and above
- Private session on location, unhurried and fully directed
- Professional lighting, wardrobe guidance, and posing
- The purchase itself photographed properly alongside them
- A curated gallery of finished portraits
- One archival 8×10 print, presented in a folio
$75,000 and above
- Everything in Tier I
- Two settings or two looks in one sitting
- Family or partners included at no additional cost
- All full size digital files, released for personal use
- One framed archival 16×20, ready to hang
- A private viewing appointment to choose the final image
$250,000 and above
- Everything in Tier II
- We travel to them, anywhere in the continental United States
- The session built around their setting, home, or property
- A framed archival 24×30, hand delivered and hung
- Editioned prints for immediate family
- A written portrait of the occasion, printed and bound with the work
Tier IV · The highest tier we offer
The Legacy
For the sale that will be talked about in that family for fifty years. Not a photo shoot with extras attached: a commissioned work, made once, that outlives everyone involved in the transaction.
- A 20×24 heirloom painting by the studio's portrait painter, made from the sitting, framed and presented as a commissioned portrait
- All full size digital files, every frame, released in full
- A signed archival edition for each member of the immediate family
- Presentation, delivery, and installation handled personally
- We fly to them, anywhere, and stay as long as the work requires
- Multiple settings across a day, at their home, property, or wherever the purchase lives
- Family, generations, and the object itself, photographed together
- You are welcome at the presentation, if you want to be
Why paying this makes sense
Your cost is fixed. What it moves is not.
That gap is the whole reason this works, and it widens as your ticket rises. One buyer who was going to land just under your threshold, and instead reaches it, covers the fee many times over. We will work the numbers for your own average sale on the first call.
of what a discount costs. The fee is a small, fixed share of the sale that triggers it, well below what most sellers at this level give away when pressed.
Nothing comes off the number. Your list price stays true, which protects every sale after this one.
No retainer, no monthly minimum, no cost on sales below threshold. You pay when a buyer redeems, and not before.
How your accountant will treat it
An inducement to buy, documented as one.
Structured correctly, the program is a marketing and promotional expense, invoiced and documented. Because the portrait is advertised as an included benefit of a purchase above a stated threshold, rather than handed over afterward as a gratuity, it is an inducement to buy rather than a business gift.
We supply the invoice, the program terms, and the printed materials that establish the threshold, which is the documentation your accountant will ask for. A discount, by comparison, is not an expense at all. It is revenue you never collect.
We are photographers, not tax advisors. Have your own advisor confirm the treatment for your entity before you rely on it.
The money that comes back to you
Built to send your buyer back through your door.
Handing a buyer to another business usually means losing them. When a client commissions additional work from us after their session, a painting, a wall collection, a second sitting, we buy a gift certificate from you at face value and present it to them as part of that commission.
A buyer reaches your threshold and receives the commissioned portrait.
The session happens and the finished work is presented to your buyer.
Many want a painting, a larger piece, or portraits of the whole family.
We purchase a certificate from you at face value and give it to them. They return to redeem it.
Ten percent of what they commission, spent in your business, at your margins.
This is not a referral fee, and none is owed in either direction. We are simply your customer. If a certificate does not suit your business, we arrange the return in a form that does.
The division of labor
Four things for you. Everything else for us.
- Set your tier and your threshold
- Present the commission at the point of sale
- Pay the fee when a client redeems
- Honor the certificates we purchase from you
- Every conversation with the client, from first contact to final delivery
- Scheduling, location, travel, and the session itself
- Editing, printing, framing, and hand delivery
- Presentation materials for your team, printed and ready
- Licensed images of your product, released for your own use with the client's signed release
- Insurance, releases, and everything on paper
Beginning a program
A limited number of sellers, and one per market.
The right way to start is a conversation about what you sell and where your average sits. The tier follows from that, and so does the threshold.
A note from Julian
"I would rather show you the work than describe it."
Julian Arceo, Founder, Arceo Studio Collective