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Once, many years ago, I priced portraits only by size. The first client I got asked me to create their portrait at a quarter of the size I would have normally used and therefore paid only a quarter of my normal fee. (A tiny head and shoulders can often be MORE work than a life size head and shoulders, since there's much less room for error. A discrepancy of a millimeter in the positioning of an eye can look way off when the portrait is too small.) I also would rather not be asked to try and cram four full length figures of a client's family into a 24x30" canvas. That's why I price by complexity now.
Some portrait artists who want to give clients an idea of the size that their canvas might be sometimes show both factors on their websites. For example, they might say that a head and shoulders portrait is $4,000 and would typically be around 16x20" in size.
I think Richard's numbers are still very useful, though. I look at the size of canvas I would normally use for a typical 3/4 portrait and can see where my prices stand compared to his figures.
Enzie, you mentioned that people are often surprised at how "high" your prices are. This can happen sometimes with clients who have no experience buying original fine art and may be comparing a painted portrait to a studio photograph.
There was a recent post by the very experienced professional, Joy Thomas, on this subject. She said she would often start off by showing examples of the work of other artists whose work she felt was similar in quality to her own, along with their prices. Then she would show the client her more modest prices as a point of comparison. Doing something like that might help you.
You can also explain how a painted portrait is made to last for centuries, becomes a treasured family heirloom and (in the case of slow artists like me!) can take over a hundred hours to create.
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