What a deposit is and why artists take one
A deposit does two jobs. It reserves your spot in a calendar that might be booked out for months, and it pays for the design work that happens before you ever sit down. When you pay a deposit, the artist starts drawing for you. That time is real work whether or not you show up.
It also filters out the people who book four artists for the same idea and ghost three of them. No-shows are the single biggest cost in tattooing: an artist with an empty chair still pays rent on it. The deposit is how professionals protect a day of income, and paying one is how you signal you're serious.
The deposit is not an extra fee. It comes off the final price of the tattoo. If the piece is $600 and you paid a $150 deposit, you pay $450 on the day. For multi-session work, most artists hold the deposit against the final session.
What a normal deposit looks like in Australia
For small, single-session pieces, $50 to $100 is standard. For larger custom work, sleeves, or day-rate sessions, expect $100 to $200, and occasionally more for a full-day booking with an in-demand artist. A common rule of thumb is that the deposit roughly covers the artist's first hour.
Be wary of the extremes. A deposit far above the likely cost of the whole tattoo is a red flag, and so is an artist who asks for nothing at all on a large custom piece; it usually means a loose booking system, and loose booking systems produce cancelled appointments in both directions.
How you actually pay it
Three ways are common: bank transfer to the artist or studio, a card payment link sent after they accept your booking, or cash in person at a consult. Payment links have quietly become the norm because neither side has to share bank details or be in the same room.
Artists on REAP send a secure Stripe payment link with the booking. You tap it, pay by card, and the booking is marked paid on both sides straight away. The deposit goes to the artist's own Stripe account, and you cover a small flat booking fee at checkout. Either way, always get the deposit acknowledged in writing, even if that's just a DM saying received.
