I've been developing my game (for android) for about 6 months. I'm lucky enough to have an independent source of income and some savings and when I started, it was just me in my bedroom coding away.

I found an artist through a mutual friend, who has been doing UI assets (buttons, icons etc) as well as some concept art

At the time we first started working together, I estimated my project would be finished a lot sooner than it will be (it'll be finished when I decide it is suitably awesome ). Meantime, my artist has finished a game design course at college and is looking for employment. The fact that the game still isn't released somewhat lessens the whole "you can do it for free to improve your portfolio" argument and in any case, I feel it is only fair to pay her for what she's already done.

The problem is neither of us have any idea what the going rate is for this kind of work. This is my first business and she's fresh out of uni

I assume there would either be an hourly rate or a comission-type system which we can work backwards with to find out how much is owed? Things are also complicated by the fact we live in different countries on opposite sides of the planet

Any help would be much appreciated in this area

Thanks

Edit: I just read the sticky FAQ for this forum and followed the link to the report on average pay for industry professionals. Working backwards, I figured average salary of $45,114 for entry level artist over a 48 week year working 8 hours a day for 5 days a week comes to $23.50 / hour?

You don't say where you live. Your profile says London, UK but are you both in the UK, or London? Even in England, rates vary a lot by locale. For freelance work, anything from £10/hr for a new grad would be fine... maybe up to double or treble depending how good they are, if they have to travel, etc.

You don't say where you live. Your profile says London, UK but are you both in the UK, or London? Even in England, rates vary a lot by locale. For freelance work, anything from £10/hr for a new grad would be fine... maybe up to double or treble depending how good they are, if they have to travel, etc.

Ah sorry. Yes, I'm in (east) London in the UK, but the artist is in Brisbane in Australia

£10 is ~AUD$15, which equates to a pre-tax salary of ~$31k p/a for full-time work, which is in the low-income tax-bracket, but might be reasonable for a graduate artist.
As a graduate programmer, I started on AUD$40k p/a or $19/hour.

Think I'll go for AU$17.50. That's about what I got paid for my first job in Australia (cold-calling selling solar-panels. yuck!). Can always increase it.

Thanks for all the help!