How to answer tattoo inquiries in your DMs

Reply short and friendly, and ask for the four things you need to quote and book: placement, size, references and dates. Once you have them, quote a range. My rule: send your open dates and the deposit link in the same message, and hold the date only when the deposit lands. Follow up once, then let it go.

It's 11pm. A screenshot from Pinterest, then "how much??", then nothing. You can spend twenty minutes asking the right questions one message at a time, or send one reply that does it for you. Most artists who've been doing this a while have that reply saved.

Keep it short and warm, and ask for what you need to price it. Artists who quote from the DMs nearly all ask for the same things:

Size is the one people get wrong. "Medium" means something different to everyone. Ask for inches, or for a photo of the spot with a dollar bill or a credit card next to it for scale.

Some artists skip the questions entirely and send a link to a request form. The form artists like it because nothing gets lost: DMs disappear, photos get buried, and you can't search a thread from four months ago. The DM artists say sending people away loses them, especially newer clients who want to talk to a person first. A middle path works for plenty of artists: chat a little about the idea and the size in the DMs, then send anyone who's serious to the form.

Either way, save the reply. A note on your phone you copy and paste, or a quick reply in Instagram, does the job. My view on the bots: a saved reply is fine, as long as you're the one sending it. Nothing should answer your clients but you.

Artists split two ways, and more of them land in the first camp.

The first camp puts the price where people can see it before they ask: your shop minimum, your hourly or day rate, and a flat price on every flash piece. Fewer "how much" DMs come in, and the ones that do can get a saved reply pointing at the numbers.

The second camp doesn't quote in DMs at all. They send everyone to a consult or the shop, on the grounds that you can't price custom work from a picture.

Either way, the photo-plus-"how much??" message gets your saved reply, not a long chat. If you quote in DMs, the reply asks for size, placement and references. If you don't, it says how you work and where to book. Both are in the box at the bottom of this piece. Flash is the easy case: it has a price, so say it.

Quote once you have size, placement and references, not before. For custom work that isn't drawn yet, give a range: $600 to $750, or your hourly rate times a rough number of hours. Flash and small pieces can take a fixed price.

Then add one line a lot of artists put on every quote: if you're working to a budget, we can split it into sessions so you pay as you go. It answers the money question before it turns into haggling.

My rule is that the quote comes with the next step attached: your open dates and the deposit link, in the same message. The date isn't held until the deposit lands, and nothing gets drawn until it does. Say that in the quote too, so nobody thinks a "sounds good!" booked them a Saturday. Some artists add a deadline: if the deposit isn't in by tomorrow evening, the date goes to the next person. There's more on how much the deposit should be.

If the budget doesn't fit, say the price once, offer a smaller version or more sessions, and stop explaining. Long explanations invite haggling.

Expect it. One artist said about three in ten of their form requests turn into bookings, and most artists expect many to go quiet. Many people who ask won't book, at least not now. Some come back months later.

Chasing a quote isn't common among the artists in these threads. My rule: follow up once, a few days later, short and with the dates in it. If that gets nothing, you're done. Have a stopping rule for the serial askers too, so you're not deciding every time: some artists stop answering price questions from the same person after five quotes that went nowhere.

When you do let go, keep the last message short or don't send one at all. Don't chase people cold months later with "want another tattoo?". Artists and clients both call that pushy. The way back in with past clients is a healing check-in on the piece you already did.

There's no agreed number, and artists don't seem to keep set DM hours. Slow can cost you, though: one artist who took two days to reply, from a hospital bed, lost the client. If you want the case for speed, it's in answer in an hour.

Say how you take bookings everywhere: your bio, your story highlights, a pinned post. If you move people from DMs to a form, do it once, at the start. Bouncing someone between Instagram, email and text halfway through a booking is how details get lost. And keep a record of every booking outside Instagram. Accounts get locked and messages vanish. When the DMs are gone, so is your record.

A Pinterest or AI image as the reference isn't a red flag on its own. Most artists redraw it in their own style, and most clients end up happier with the redraw.

A short, friendly reply asking for placement, size in inches, reference images and dates, or a link to your request form.

Post your minimum, your rate and your flash prices publicly, and for custom work ask for size, placement and references before giving a range.

Once, a few days later, with your open dates. If there's no answer after that, let it go.

When the deposit is paid. Send the deposit link with the quote, and hold the date only once it lands.

Checked October 2026. Based on artist threads on r/TattooArtists and r/TattooApprentice (2024 to 2026). Artists disagree on quoting in DMs, so the piece says where they split.

Gal, founder of Collabo.ink, the booking app for tattoo artists. For 15 years I booked sessions for dozens of artists, some of them among the best known in the world. Collabo.ink takes your bookings and deposits, so you can focus on what matters: tattooing.