Apollo Studio
Tattoo Prices in Los Angeles
Apollo's real prices in Santa Monica: a $100 minimum, $100 an hour with most of our artists and $350 with Raa or David, a $600 full day, and flash days at three tattoos for $99. Final pricing depends on the artist, size, design and placement.
Book a consultationTattoo cost guide · Santa Monica & Los Angeles
How much does a tattoo cost in Los Angeles?
At Apollo, $100 is both the minimum and the standard hourly rate for most of our artists. A one-hour tattoo is $100. A full day is $600. Two of our artists — Raa and David — work at $350 an hour instead, and we say so up front rather than letting you find out at the chair. Final pricing always depends on the artist, the size, the design and the placement.
Apollo is at 2625 Main Street in Santa Monica, minutes from Venice, West LA and Culver City. People ask us what a tattoo costs every single day, and most shops answer with a shrug and “it depends.” It does depend. That's still not a useful answer, so here are our actual published rates, straight out of our booking system, followed by the reasoning that lets you read any quote — ours or anyone else's.
Two things to hold on to before the tables. First, a tattoo is quoted by time, not by square inch, so a small dense piece can cost more than a large simple one. Second, the number on this page is a rate, not a quote: the quote comes from an artist looking at your reference, your placement and your skin. Skip ahead to Apollo's rates, the $99 flash special, or what pieces this size usually run.
Apollo's published rates
Apollo tattoo prices (service only)
These are our real booking-system rates, not estimates. They cover the tattoo service itself. Your artist confirms the final number in person before any needle touches skin.
By session length
| Session | Price |
|---|---|
| 1 hour | $100 |
| 2 hours | $200 |
| 3 hours | $300 |
| Half day | $400 |
| Three-quarter day | $500 |
| Full day | $600 |
| Touch-up | $100 |
The half-day, three-quarter-day and full-day blocks are the ones long custom work actually books into. A full day at $600 is cheaper per hour than stacking six single hours, because the artist isn't breaking down and resetting a station between clients.
By artist
This is the part most price pages leave out, and it's the part that changes your bill the most. Apollo runs two rate tiers, and which artist you book decides which one you're in.
| Artist | Hourly rate | Eight-hour day |
|---|---|---|
| Blue Mason | $100 / hour | $800 |
| Hannah | $100 / hour | Booked 1–4 hours |
| Rick | $100 | — |
| Raa | $350 / hour | $2,700 |
| David | $350 / hour | $2,700 |
So the honest version: most of the studio is $100 an hour, and two artists are $350 an hour. That gap isn't arbitrary and it isn't a markup on the same work. Raa and David carry the specialist book — the pieces where the demand, the technical difficulty or both justify the rate — and their calendars price accordingly. If your piece doesn't need that, we'll say so and put you with the artist whose lane it actually sits in. Meet the roster on our tattoo artists page and read the healed work before you pick on price.
One more line worth knowing: at eight hours, Raa and David book at $2,700 rather than $2,800 — the long-session block is priced slightly under the straight hourly multiple, same logic as the full-day rate above.
Deposits
Apollo takes a deposit to hold the appointment, tiered from $50 to $500 depending on how much of the calendar the booking occupies. The deposit is non-refundable and applied to the total — it's prepayment, not a surcharge. It's forfeited on a no-show or a late reschedule; your artist confirms the window when you book. Consultations are $100.
Prices above are the tattoo service. Final pricing depends on the artist, size, design and placement, and is confirmed at your consultation.
Flash specials
Flash day: three tattoos for $99
The Apollo Flash Vault is our recurring flash event, and it is the cheapest honest way to get tattooed here.
How it works: slots are prepaid and appointment-only, and they're capped — the last run put 32 on the calendar and they went. You pick from the flash sheets we put up for that event; designs are tattooed as drawn, no resizing and no customising, and the sheet retires afterwards. Larger and one-of-one pieces are offered at higher tiers on the day.
For context on why $99 for three is a real number rather than a loss-leader gimmick: comparable studios commonly price flash around $100 for a 2″×2″ piece and $200 for 3″×3″, and the nearest three-piece deal we've seen locally runs $150. A flat $99 flash day sits under the usual $150-plus floor for the same three pieces. Everything else on this page — single-use needles, autoclave, licensed studio, an artist who has done this for years — is identical on flash day. The saving comes from pre-drawn designs and a packed, pre-sold schedule, not from cutting anything that matters.
Flash is also a genuinely good first tattoo. The design decision is already made, the sitting is short, and you learn what your skin does before you commit to something big. See flash tattoos in Los Angeles for the current event and the design sheets.
What drives the price
Five things set every tattoo price
When a quote feels high or low, one of these five is doing most of the moving. Size is only the first, and rarely the most important.
Size
The obvious driver, but not a linear one. A four-inch piece often runs six to eight times a one-inch piece, because scale invites more detail and longer sittings. Below a certain point the minimum takes over — a tiny tattoo costs what a slightly bigger one costs.
Detail & complexity
The quiet driver clients underestimate. A loose traditional rose takes far less time than a photorealistic portrait the same size. Fine single-needle script at small scale is watchmaker's work. Density, not dimensions, usually decides the hours.
Color vs. black-and-grey
Color pieces typically run 1.5–2× longer than equivalent black-and-grey, because color-packing builds saturation over repeated passes. Dense black-and-grey realism is the exception — a full tonal range built from one pigment takes dozens of shading passes.
Placement
Ribs, sternum, hands, feet, neck and spine are slow. Thin skin over bone plus constant micro-movement means more care and more breaks. Forearm, outer thigh and upper arm move at normal pace. Placement is a time multiplier on an identical design — see our guide to the most painful tattoo placements.
Artist & demand
This is the $100-versus-$350 line above. You're paying for time, and you're paying for judgment — line weight, composition, and whether a reference should be tattooed as drawn or adjusted for the skin it's landing on.
The minimum
Apollo's floor is $100. Setup, sterilisation, stencil work, single-use needles, biohazard disposal, paperwork and the booking slot don't scale down for a five-minute tattoo. If size is the only reason your piece is small, we'll happily make it bigger at the same $100.
Cost by size
Tattoo prices by size: typical LA market ranges
These are general Los Angeles market ranges — what work at this scale commonly runs across reputable LA studios, so you can sanity-check any quote you're given. Apollo's own rates are in the tables above.
Market ranges reflect the greater Los Angeles area (Santa Monica, Venice, West LA, Culver City). Treat them as orientation, not a quote.
Hourly vs. piece rate
Hourly rates, piece rates & the shop minimum
Studios quote in one of two modes, and the mode is dictated by the scale of the work. Both are legitimate. Piece rate just shifts who carries the risk of a fast or slow day.
Hourly rate
Used for anything likely to run three or more hours — sleeves, back pieces, large custom work and cover-ups, where the endpoint isn't certain until you're underway. Apollo's hourly is $100 with most artists and $350 with Raa or David. You're paying for time actively spent tattooing, across the estimated sessions.
Piece rate
Used for smaller tattoos an artist can quote whole upfront — most work under three hours. One number, one payment, whether the tattoo takes ninety minutes or two and a half hours. Best for small-to-medium custom work, flash, and first tattoos.
Shop minimum
Apollo's minimum is $100. It's the floor below which a tattoo costs the same regardless of size, because setup, sterilisation, stencil work, single-use needles and tubes, biohazard disposal, consent paperwork and the booking slot itself all happen for a five-minute tattoo exactly as they happen for a three-hour one.
What a minimum isn't: a margin the shop can shave. It's the breakeven line for being open that hour. The polite version of “can you do it cheaper if it's smaller” is that we can make it larger for the same $100 — better value, and usually a better tattoo. For same-day smaller work, see walk-in tattoos in Los Angeles.
Cost by style
How style changes the price
Two tattoos of identical size can cost wildly different amounts, because style dictates detail density and therefore hours. Browse the full tattoo styles library for portfolios.
Fine line
Deceptively slow at small scale. Single-needle precision and crisp script reward patience, so a small fine-line piece can sit higher per square inch than a bolder design the same size.
Black-and-grey
Generally the most efficient choice per hour — one pigment, faster coverage. A strong starting point for a first piece or anyone watching the number. Dense black-and-grey realism is the exception: tonal range takes many passes.
Color
Color-packing builds saturation through repeated layered passes, so color work typically runs 1.5–2× the hours of equivalent black-and-grey. Gradients and fills decided at the stencil stage push the number up. Plan the palette early.
Japanese & large traditional
Japanese (Irezumi) and large neo-traditional pieces are composition-led, multi-session projects priced by session. Design time for a flowing sleeve or back panel is real work and is folded into the quote.
On the day
Why a quote can move between consult and stencil
The most common pricing surprise isn't the rate. It's a number that shifts — upward, usually — between the consultation and the moment the stencil goes on.
Scale
You look at the stencil in the mirror and want it bigger. Bigger is longer, and longer is more. This is the single most common one, and it's almost always the client's call, not the artist's.
Placement
The planned spot wraps badly at final scale, or sits against a joint that will distort the design as it ages. Moving it can change the time.
Detail
At final scale the artist can see the detail density will run past what the consultation assumed. Denser means more hours.
Session count
Thirty to sixty minutes in, the artist has real information about how your skin is taking pigment. A two-session estimate can become a three-session reality.
The fix is easy and nobody uses it: say your number out loud at the consultation. An artist who knows the ceiling before the drawing is finalised can design inside it. An artist who finds out at the stencil can only cut something. And if the adjustment is more than you can carry that day, scaling back at the stencil stage is nearly always possible — better than discovering halfway through that the piece has run past what you brought. Our consultation prep guide covers what to bring.
Value, not price
Why suspiciously cheap tattoos are risky
A tattoo is permanent. A quote well under the local floor means something is being cut — experience, time, supplies, sterility, or all four — and the saving rarely survives contact with year two.
The dive-bar-tattoo regret cycle is well documented inside the industry. A bargain piece from someone who shouldn't have been holding a machine isn't saving money — it's buying a cover-up later, plus the cost of living with a piece you don't want, plus the usually-higher cover-up price, since covering old ink demands more ink, more planning and more artist time than working on clean skin. Cover-up math is always higher than getting-it-right math.
Low rates also signal real safety risk. Sterility isn't optional: a licensed studio runs an autoclave, uses single-use needles and tubes, follows cross-contamination protocol and carries insurance — all of which cost money a cut-rate operation has to skip to hit its price. Experience is the other half. A modest first piece from a competent artist at a licensed studio, even at the $100 minimum, is a better financial decision than a bargain anywhere else, before you count the quality difference at all. If you're weighing where to go, our guide to the best tattoo shops in Los Angeles covers what actually separates a good studio from a cheap one.
A tattoo price is not a mystery number. It is a function — size, detail, color, placement, and whose hands are doing it.
The most common regret in this studio is not “I spent too much.” It is “I got the smaller version.”
Say your number out loud at the consultation. It is the one piece of information that makes the design better instead of smaller.
Your exact number
Get your real number at a $100 consultation
The rates on this page are what we charge. The quote for your piece comes from a conversation about the design, the size, the placement and the style — which is exactly what a consultation is for.
Our founder, Blue Mason, has been tattooing since 2007, and consultations at Apollo are free. Bring the reference you keep going back to, tell us where it's going, and say your budget. The artist will quote it with the variables showing their work, or help you scale the design so it still reads at a size that fits. We're a 4.9-star studio across 623+ Google reviews, and a big part of that is nobody being surprised by a number at the chair. Book a consultation and walk out knowing what your piece costs.
FAQ
Tattoo cost: common questions
How much does a tattoo cost at Apollo?
Our minimum is $100, which is also the hourly rate for most of our artists — Blue Mason, Hannah and Rick. Raa and David work at $350 an hour. By session length: one hour $100, two hours $200, three hours $300, half day $400, three-quarter day $500, full day $600. Touch-ups are $100. Final pricing depends on the artist, size, design and placement, and is confirmed at your consultation, which is $100.
What is your tattoo minimum?
$100. That's the floor below which a tattoo costs the same regardless of size, because setup, sterilisation, stencil work, single-use needles, biohazard disposal and the booking slot don't scale down for a tiny piece. If size is the only reason your tattoo is small, most of our artists will happily make it larger at the same $100 — better value, and usually a better tattoo.
Do you have flash tattoo specials?
Yes. At our Apollo Flash Vault events you can get three small flash tattoos in one sitting for $99, or a single piece for $49. Slots are prepaid and appointment-only, and they're capped — the last run had 32. Designs come from the event flash sheets, are tattooed as drawn with no resizing or customising, and are placed on arms and legs. It's a genuinely good first tattoo: the design decision is already made and the sitting is short.
Why do some artists cost $350 an hour and others $100?
Because you're booking a specific person, not a generic service. Most of the Apollo roster is $100 an hour. Raa and David are $350 an hour — they carry the specialist book, where technical difficulty and demand set the rate. Neither tier is the “real” price and neither is a discount. If your piece doesn't need a specialist we'll tell you and match you to the artist whose lane it sits in.
How much is a sleeve tattoo?
A full sleeve is a multi-session project quoted by hours rather than as one price. In the wider LA market it commonly runs $1,500–$6,000 or more, depending on detail, color versus black-and-grey, and the artist. At Apollo the arithmetic is straightforward: total estimated hours multiplied by your artist's rate, which is $100 an hour for most of our artists and $350 for Raa or David. Your artist estimates the hours at consultation.
Do you take a deposit, and does it come off the price?
Yes, and yes. Deposits run from $50 to $500 depending on how much of the calendar your booking takes up. The deposit is non-refundable and applied to the total — it's prepayment, not an extra fee. It's forfeited on a no-show or a late reschedule; your artist confirms the notice window when you book. Consultations themselves are free.
Why are cheap tattoos risky?
A quote well under the local floor usually means something is being cut: experience, time, supplies, sterility, or insurance. A licensed studio runs an autoclave, uses single-use needles, follows cross-contamination protocol and is staffed by trained artists — all of which cost money a bargain operation skips. A cheap tattoo also tends to become an expensive cover-up later, since covering old ink needs more ink, more planning and more artist time than clean skin. Cover-up math is always higher than getting-it-right math.
What factors determine the price of a tattoo?
Size, detail and complexity, color versus black-and-grey, placement on the body, and the artist — on top of the shop minimum and whether the work is quoted hourly or by the piece. Size is only the starting point; detail density and color usually swing the number more. When a quote feels high or low, one of those is almost always the reason.
Are consultations free?
Yes. Consultations at Apollo in Santa Monica are free, and they're the only way to get an accurate number for your piece. Bring the design, the placement and a real budget, and the artist quotes it honestly — or helps you scale the design so it fits. Book a consultation at /booking/.
