Built by Tattoo Artists - Sold by Grifters

Big, Hungry, and Late to the Table

Industry Insights

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Author: Ren Behan

The Tattoo Industry Feeding Frenzy - A Big Appetite, No Contribution

I started my apprenticeship in 2015 when tattoos were already mainstream due to reality TV shows popularizing the culture. Though the 90's were the tattoo renaissance, the 2000's introduced tattoo industrialization - we saw a massive demand for tattoos, new health standards, and new regulated business models.

I, like many, benefited greatly from the groundwork that came from older tattooers - old cats who tattooed tribal on your dad, who then had to explain to your grandmother that he wasn't joining a gang. I had the benefit of learning under my brother, and later, also from his own tattoo mentor - I got insight from two very different generations. Unfortunately, after three years, I took a hiatus to deal with family illness, and later came back in 2021 - total culture shock. The industry changed drastically in such a short amount of time. Machines had battery packs, and needle bars were practically obsolete thanks to these fancy new cartridges. A whole new world in just 5 years.

The tattoo industry has grown exponentially from the days when tattoos were taboo and artists were seen as rebels working out of back rooms and alley studios. It's no longer taboo to have a tattoo or to be the one doing them - in fact, now it's stranger to meet someone over 30 with no tattoos - freaking unicorns. That shift has been both cultural and financial.

The changes brought some great things: cleaner practices, better machines, quality inks, equipment, marketing, etc. But it also put a target on our backs. When an industry becomes a multi-billion dollar global market - people who never tattooed start salivating at the prospect of getting a gluttonous piece of the pie.

The tattoo industry is now valued at over $2.3 billion, growing about 10% a year (Dojo Business, “Tattoo Industry Statistics”). Do you know what that means? Here's a glimpse: The Dojo Business website is publishing guides telling non-tattooers how to open up shops and profit off of artists. READ THAT AGAIN. People who can't pull a clean line are being told to own the people who can. That's not growth - that's exploitation.

Who Are These People!??

You already know some of them.

They're the pushy "marketing guru" that pops up every single time you open your Instagram, selling a program with a $3500 starting fee, $250 monthly fee, and a cut of each deposit for every client they "help" you book. The not-so-funny part: they'll prioritize taking on artists that already have a following! What. The Actual. Fuck.

They're the investors and sponsors of tattoo academies - fast-tracking "artists" with worthless certificates gained over a weekend. These places are popping up in Texas and Florida, charging $5000-$15000 for online courses - creating wannabes who think they're ready to permanently mark skin (CDC report on the trend). This sort of program is attractive to those unwilling to commit effort to a traditional apprenticeship - preferring a convenient 3-4 month course over 1-3 years of free hands-on learning. Worse - Oregon has already mandated annual schooling to maintain tattoo artist licensure.

They're the supply companies mass-producing machines and needles across the pond without a single artist on deck for expert advice - selling $40 wireless pens to kitchen wizards on Amazon who don't know the difference between needle depth and stroke.

But now they are private equity! Factory Capital just raised up $50 million just to buy out tattoo studios across the U.S through a platform called "Tattoo Partners". These dudes bought 11 shops in New York, Miami, Phoenix, Houston, and Las Vegas (Factory Capital). They call it, "The first institutional platform in the tattoo sector" - do you know what we call it? A hostile take over.

Oversaturation In An Already Competitive Market...

During my apprenticeship, I was expected to complete 100 tattoos for free on friends and family before I could actually charge a rate. Before I could do that, I studied Bloodborne Pathogens and tattoo history, I cleaned the shop, I watched the artists tattoo and asked questions, I set up and broke down stations, and I drew - A LOT. And when my asshole mentor kicked my chair while I was drawing? I like to think he was teaching me to react fast enough to not ruin what I was working on. Or maybe he was just hazing me. Either way, I learned a valuable lesson.

That is just a smidgen of how you learn to tattoo - not from a weekend online workshop.

But these weekend workshops are threatening to become a new standard, and the people coming out of them are walking hazards for clients who don't know any better. These "certified artists" go around charging $80 for work that will cost 20X more to fix or cover. Walk in to any cover-up artist's studio and ask them how many of their coverups were due to scratchers. Watch. They'll just shrug cause they've lost count. And the ones who somehow make it into licensed shops - well, that just says a lot about the shop owners. Don't get me started on the number of shops out there owned by non-tattooers. Who's bright idea was it to have a non-tattooer manage and profit off of artists?

Look, I get it - there are some exceptions to the rule. There are many very talented self-taught artists who've thrived in this industry, but we have to be real here: the few exceptions do not speak for the majority. Just because one dude with a sense of good hygiene and sanitation practices and with remarkable ambition and talent rocks every tattoo he pushes out does not mean the other guy isn't permanently damaging people's skin.

Health standards and regulations were supposed to help prevent this sort of nonsense - to keep clients safe and ensure that licensed artists and shops are keeping health and safety in mind. But what do we get from this regulation? The threat of over-regulation with the FDA and with local Health department officials breathing down our necks for the sink's water pressure instead of using artist-paid funds and tax money to enforce health code against scratchers. Seriously?

Now, Oregon mandates tattoo schooling for all new tattoo artist licensure, and then artists to have 10 hours (5 with an approved classes or courses, 5 for self-study) of continuing education each year to maintain that licensure. The state regulations explicitly outline that 5 hours of that 10 hour requirement must be federally accredited or approved by the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Program. Again - tattoo artist licensing fees are being used to further regulate and mandate responsible tattoo artists rather than enforce health and safety laws in response to violators who avoid tattoo licensure. You can read the Oregon code for this here. Tattoo schools are entering state law regulation guys, and killing traditional apprenticeships - we need to pay attention to this. It's one thing to require sponsorship from a licensed mentor and Bloodborne Pathogens education courses for licensure, its another to require "accredited" courses for our trade entirely.

Meanwhile, active tattoo artists are being told to buy marketing courses, hire social media managers, and subscribe to booking platforms just to stay visible. The whole system is being rebuilt around us by people who have more money and don't even tattoo.

When education becomes commodified, the barrier to entry shifts—not toward skill, but toward who can afford to access it. This leads to oversaturation, inconsistent quality, and artists entering the field without the foundation needed for long-term success. College is already overpriced and doesn't guarantee a job - why the fuck are we trying to push what should be free apprenticing with the potential for a job immediately after towards paid accredited education for a piece of paper stating you fell for it?

And that affects working artists directly. Oversaturation does not simply mean “more competition.” Competition builds incentive and encourages growth. No, this oversaturation often results in more underpriced work, more misinformation, and more inexperienced artists.

It doesn't put artists first, and it certainly isn't putting clients first either.

Tattoo Directories and Gurus: Hungry Hungry Hypocrites

Let's talk about tattoo directories - the platforms that claim they exist to "connect clients with great artists for their ideas". This is great in theory, until you realize you have to pay for preferential visibility. A few examples, Freshly Inked Mag, Tattoo Spotlight, Skin Art, and many others.

In my niche, there's a big anime tattoos directory website which started by offering free profiles to anime tattoo artists, but later, started waitlisting free profile applicants. Suddenly, ads were popping up everywhere for a "custom-built website and marketing system" through their platform - but only available to one artist per location so it was apparently limited. A large number of artists who interviewed with this platform for the service each explained how they had been asked about their following, their monthly income, and their tattoo prices during vetting - if you didn't have enough followers or a high enough monthly income, you'd be denied services. A few artists who had used the paid services came forward to reveal that the platform had encouraged shady practices like inflating the standard rate so high that "discounted" specials and giveaways seemed more substantial to potential clients. They also would backlog the poorly made "custom websites" to collect client information from links and forms, then collect deposits and forward them to the artist for booking.

Note: they invite top-performing and popular artists to join for free because it incentivizes smaller name artists to join - believing the celebrity artist must have gained from the service in some way!

Here's the problem with directories in general: You request a page on one of these directory sites (free, premium, or whatever) and get published. You then upload your name, portfolio of your best work, and your location expecting some promotion or backlinks - but instead, the platform uses that content to drive their traffic and their ads. Guess what cookie? You're the product! You just provided them with the photos and information to push "featured artists" blogs, social media posts, and ads - all with the keywords and content to match. Paired with the sheer number of applicants, google boosts them to the front of the line for potential clients!

Clients believe they are browsing the top artists, when really, who they are actually seeing is those who paid the most to be there. It's disingenuous. New artists get buried. Established artists who refuse to pay get buried. The only ones who win are the platforms, and they never even touched a machine to begin with, yet continue to influence the market.

This influencing problem also includes "performative" tattoo artists who are not equipped to lead this industry.

What The Hell Is A Performative Tattoo Artist?

To put it bluntly - it's a poser. You've seen them plenty of times online - the guy wearing black gloves while unboxing a new tattoo product in an ad - and not even doing a tattoo. Or that guy at a convention as one of the product sponsors and as one of the contest judges, but is not a tattoo artist. Or the guy that in every reel, has to have some sort of tattoo machine prop to scream "Look! I'm an artist too!" - but we never actually see them use it. They're selling some sort of marketing course, some line of "premium" needles, or new ink sourced from China for $3 a bottle and charging you more than double.

These guys are cosplaying tattoo artists - they've studied the tattoo aesthetic like a marketing grad student studies target demographics. They know our slang and they wear the clothes, but know next to nothing about obtaining full saturation in a tattoo. These are the non-tattooers that make more money than most working artists - and off the back of a culture they never really had a passion for.

I've gotten tattooed by someone with carpal tunnel and a middle finger callus the size of your aunt's mole - that's real. That's earned.

Entering the tattoo space as outsiders to sell services, tools, or platforms to artists without actually being experienced artists themselves assumes exploitive motives. So then, when artists push back and call them out, there is an update; they are suddenly actually tattooing, documenting the process, and positioning themselves has having already been there and building their craft. Or...they just block those artists so they can continue gaslighting everyone.

It's not so much about learning the trade but more about maintaining face and wearing a mask. This is unlike the cases where a tattoo enthusiast decides they're ready to leap into an apprenticeship because they adore the craft so much - no, that is admirable and well accepted. That's passion!

It's about intent! One is built on respect for the process, and the other is built on maintaining influence to their market.

- table flip-

Non-tattooer Investors, Corporations, and Manufactuers

As outside companies continue entering the tattoo industry—acquiring businesses, scaling supply chains, and branding products—we are seeing tattoo tools and supplies become increasingly commercialized, inflated, and mass-produced. Market Wide Research explains that the tattoo industry demand has expanded significantly alongside supply markets, attracting corporate interest due to long-term profitability. Corporate acquisitions are happening all over as a result of this hubbub.

Remember when I mentioned that Factory Capital - a private equity firm - dropped $50 million to buy up 11 tattoo studios? They rebranded them under "Certified Tattoo Studios" and essentially started operating as a franchise. These were not just some struggling shops in need of a buy out - they were established businesses with clients and a reputation! But man, can a wad of sell-out money be super appealing.

Similarly, a number of tattoo supply companies and product brands have been quietly acquired by large private equity consolidators (Nexus Brands Group and Body Art Alliance) - hoarding a dozen brands under a single corporate umbrella. No one noticed because they kept the original brand names to maintain face for the existing clientele - us. We're now a part of "customer acquisition metrics". Private equities are buying up shops, consolidating supply chains, and turning what used to be artist-owned small businesses into corporate assets.

Sure, acquisition is not necessarily a bad thing - many will argue that it's just business. However, the mass consolidation happening in our industry will put independent suppliers and manufactures at a major disadvantage. How? It's already happening with MoCRA - the FDA's Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act - this was introduced in 2022. Big private equities like Nexus Brand Groups and the BAA are backing this bill.

While regulation may appear to help with enforcing health and safety in products on paper, the real intention is mandating expensive lab standards and hefty paperwork to create obstacles for small businesses. Restrictions and bans on ingredients and materials that have been used safely for decades could reduce product options for tattooers. it also will create difficult financial barriers for small businesses struggling to keep up with the big fish, and so it risks phasing them out of the equation entirely.

So when the people designing, marketing, and regulating these products are not tattooers or they don't employ tattoo artists for their expertise, practical performance often takes a back seat to profit margins and federal control. Artists end up paying more for tools that don’t necessarily perform better—and those costs are inevitably passed down.

The Client Experience Shift

If you're a client reading this, here's how all this nonsense will - and already is - affecting you:

You're paying more - but your artist isn't seeing all of that money. The booking platform took a cut and maybe even the deposit. If they are paying for directory listing, they paid a fee to be listed. They're paying for supplies. Then the shop owner - who may not be a tattoo artist these days - takes a percentage anywhere from 40-60%. By the time the artist gets paid (who is doing the majority of the work) they are getting paid less than artists did 5 years ago - all while your tattoo costs more.

You're also drowning in the oversaturation - for every established and skilled artist, there are five "certified" tattoo artists or 3 tattoo influencers with bought followers. Funny how even with the convenience of online media, it can feel more daunting to find out who is legitimate to do your tattoo. That's by design too - these directories and booking platforms want to shift you to their paid artists even if another artist may be better suited to execute your idea.

You have all these awesome tattoos planned and now, your artist may very soon face difficulties obtaining supplies for your tattoo. If the FDA were to over-regulate tattoo products like ink and hardware (tattoo machines), your artist will have to navigate the new changes to adapt their setup accordingly. Manufactures will be mandated to produce and sell product approved by FDA processes and requirements regardless of the product's successful history before regulation.

Some of these marketing "gurus" will ask artists what their current rate is, and then tell them to inflate it, so they can pretend to offer the client a "sponsored" discount for booking with that artist. It's a trap! When the artist had actually been charging $1200-1400 for their day rate prior, they now claim to have a $2000-2200 day rate - but don't worry! The platform wants to sponsor your idea and take $400-600 off your tattoo cost!

What the hell can we do about it?

If You're A Client: Do Your Homework.

Don't rely on tattoo directories or go through booking platforms to find the perfect artist for you - go to the artist's page or website. Look at the portfolios and their healed work - read comments and check testimonials. Word of mouth is still a powerful thing - check reviews at the shop they work in - make sure they are working in a shop. While I understand everyone has a different budget, try not to let the price or booking time scare you away from an artist you really like! If they are worth the wait, save up. Be aware of MoCRA- it may be focused on the tattoo product manufacturing and sales side of things, but it will effect your tattoo experience in the long run.

For The Artists: Connect With Your Community.

For the love of Sailor Jerry - stop giving your hard-earned money to non-tattooers! I understand if you need some help with marketing - but you can learn, just take the time to research. Build your own following, manage your own website and study SEO (here's a great place to start), your niche, and the demographics of your clients. Treat your clients well! It's all about dedicating time to learning - hey...just like we did for tattooing.

If you are seeking an apprenticeship, don't just walk into a shop and get butt hurt that they don't accept you on the first inquiry. Mentors taking on free apprentices is a major investment on both sides- take time to build a rapport with a potential mentor. Interact with their social media, go in for a tattoo, check in every so often to see if they are ready. Build a valid portfolio in the meantime - draw everything! Mentors love seeing the passion and ambition. Remember - apprenticing is generally free, that means the mentor is giving away free education and investing their time into your learning, and all it will cost you is time. Also - don't tolerate bad mentors - find a new one.

Don't give a percentage of your earnings to a stupid booking platform - you're being ripped off. Use a free or low cost scheduling tool and keep your money. That supply company with no tattooers on staff? Nope - buy from artist-owned brands like Lucky Tattoo Supply, Workhorse Irons, Maverick Supply Co., Inkjecta, etc... People who actually use the tools they are selling. Where you're putting your money will make a difference.

The strongest artists don’t grow in isolation. They guest spot, travel, attend conventions, and stay connected to other artists who are actively in the craft. Growth comes from proximity, exchange, and lived experience—not digital shortcuts with false promises of wealth and fame. Put in the effort to research, understand, and grow rather than paying someone to do it for you.

We need to be better about supporting each other.

This industry was made and should remain with the people who bled ink to study and work on their craft, building reputations and happy clients one tattoo at a time. It's not a franchise. It's not a market to be exploited. It's a culture to be protected - with awareness, with choices, and with spending your money on the right people.

The grifters are here to stay - best we can do is starve them.