First, photographs should ALWAYS be matted... never in direct contact with glass or plastic. If left in contact, they will eventually be ruined.

When I was selling a lot of prints, I either fully matted and framed them or offered unframed, in a mat and a plastic sleeve for protection. I bought archival mats online in bulk from matcutter.com and got sleeves in various sizes in bulk from a couple sources, too.

Frames I bought mostly from Aaron Brothers. I haven't bought lately, so am not sure if they still do, but they used to have a 1 cent sale twice a year or so. Buy one frame at regular price and get a second that's regularly priced the same or less for 1 cent! Basically it was a two for one deal. Frames came complete with glass in a wide variety of standard sizes. Some even came with mats. This often worked out to costing $10 to $15 to frame an 8x10 print to an 11x14 frame or a little more to frame an 11x14 print to a 16x20 frame, for example.

For the large part I avoided odd size prints that would have required custom matting and framing. Those get quite expensive (I did custom framing in a shop for a number of years when I was in college). There's a large selection of of standard size mats and frames available anyway, so this was never a problem. The largest prints I made were 16x20 (I had to outsource those, the largest I can print at home are 12x18). Most of my color prints were done on 100% rag, smooth matte papers. Black & white I prefer to print on luster or semi-gloss paper of similar archival quality. Unless a customer specifically requested otherwise I only used standard glass... UV "museum glass" adds a lot of cost. I don't like and usually don't use "non-reflective" glass. It significantly reduces image contrast, color saturation and sharpness.... plus it's expensive!

Profit margins weren't great though... and the shop I did most of my sales through closed it's doors several years ago after a big rent increase from the landlord. So I haven't been selling a lot of prints and am not sure if Aaron Bros is still doing those sales and prices might have increased a bit.

Opinions,,,,, I sell my pictures using 8x10's and putting them in dollar store frames. Explaining that its a safe way for them to get it home and they can re-frame themselves. works for me and I do ok. But what about upping the product. Using 11x14 quality frames and using metal prints. This would allow them to take it home and hang it. MY cost to produce dollar store one is one dollar and 68 cents. Going the higher quality route would change my costs to about $20+ per print. long question shortened. better to sell more at a lower cost and sell more, or sell less at a higher cost. So, if you are taking your work to an art show, what would you do? sorry for rambling, but its 2am and I am at work