The Man said it, it must be true. Even in Sailor Jerry’s day people knew you had to pay for quality, but what we’d like to talk about today is a horrible trend we’ve noticed lately: Price gouging by people who are willing to take advantage of their client’s ignorance.

It’s happening all over the place, not just in the tattoo business. In everything from fuel and food to contractors and service industries we’re seeing businesses take advantage of the current news cycle about high inflation rates to increase prices and increase profits. Now, not to be stupid, we completely understand at times like this business will increase rates as costs increase, but to exploit the current state of the nation in order to disproportionately increase revenue; to bleed the very customers you claim to want to help dry, well, that just ain’t cool. To sum it up, it seems like in so many ways, you just don’t get what you paid for anymore.

Even memes are suffering from inflation. The first two tattoos in either of these internet memes are the same, but the quoted prices for them have doubled. Even the shitty ones. That’s the point.

We’ve seen far too many less-than-stellar tattooers out there charging well above their ability level by pushing glittery marketing campaigns and trash talking their contemporaries. Well, the proof as they say, is in the pudding. If you are going to drop hundreds of dollars on tattoo work, you want to at least make sure you're getting what you paid for. It’s too expensive and too permanent to end up with a finished tattoo that you’re not in love with.

Lighthouse Tattoo has artists with decades of experience and exemplary, award-winning portfolios of work to back up the prices we charge. We have years of positive customer service experiences and a large body of repeat clientele, coupled with hundreds of five-star reviews online. When you are trusting your body to an artist, don’t leave the end product up to chance, get what you paid for.

Not only do we have some of the best tattoo artists going, we also have a corps of young up-and-coming apprentices to address your small-and-simple tattoo needs at a discount. These young artists are still learning and will even go so far as to charge less than the usual shop minimum for tiny pieces. Don’t subject yourself to arbitrarily inflated prices because someone’s ego has gotten the better of them, do the research, dare to compare, and once you’ve made your decision, we are confident Lighthouse Tattoo will become your new tattoo home.

We know this post is likely to stir things up but it’s time to address a problem we’ve seen with the way some people are charging and how it doesn’t match up to the poor quality of work they are turning out. If we have to name names, we will. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. This industry needs to pivot if it is going to continue to grow and thrive and fleecing our client base isn’t a sustainable business model, contrary to the popular opinion of the ‘charge as much as you can get’ crowd. We will be happy to show side-by-side comparisons of their work and disclose what was charged for each piece. We guarantee it won’t go well for the other guys.

We stand by our work. We manage costs and budget to pass savings on to our clients. We treat people like they matter. And we love tattoos. This is Lighthouse Tattoo, you’re welcome here.