Arteify Editorial · Our Story
Why We Built Arteify:
The Story So Far
Every platform has an origin story. Ours starts not with a lightbulb moment in a boardroom, but with a long-standing frustration — the kind that builds quietly over years spent watching a market that everyone loves operate in ways that benefit almost nobody.
The art and antiques market is extraordinary. It connects people to history, to culture, to beauty, and to other human beings across centuries. It is also, by almost every measure, badly structured. Fees are opaque. Provenance is handled inconsistently. Technology has arrived slowly and expensively. And the people who love the market most — the small dealers, the mid-market collectors, the emerging artists — are the ones who consistently get the worst deal.
The Problem We Kept Seeing
Take a piece sold at a traditional British auction house. The seller pays a commission of around 15%. The buyer pays a premium of 20–25% on top of the hammer price. By the time both sides have transacted, the house has taken roughly 35–40% of the total value exchanged. For a £5,000 painting, that’s nearly £2,000 going to the intermediary — not the artist, not the collector, not back into the culture.
“We are building a platform where a first-time collector can find an authenticated piece with full provenance, and a seasoned dealer can reach serious buyers without losing a third of their sale to fees.”
Online platforms existed, but most were either expensive to list on, poorly designed for the actual needs of collectors and dealers, or built around the wrong audience entirely. The gap was clear: there was no digital-first, fairly priced, properly curated marketplace for British and European art and antiques.
What Arteify Is
We started building Arteify to change that. Not a gallery, not a generic marketplace — something purpose-built for the way people actually discover, collect and trade art and antiques in the UK and beyond.
For Collectors
Browse authenticated art and antiques with full provenance records. No hidden fees. A 10% buyer’s premium — the lowest in the market — is always clearly disclosed before purchase.
For Dealers & Artists
Reach a qualified audience of serious buyers. An 8% seller fee — versus 15–25% at traditional houses — means more of every sale stays with you, where it belongs.
Where We Are Now
We are a young company. We won’t pretend otherwise. The platform is live, the listings are growing, and the community we are building — of collectors, dealers, artists and auction specialists — is exactly the audience we set out to serve.
The road ahead is long and the work is real. But the direction is clear. We are building the marketplace that the art world deserves — and we are only just getting started.
Published by the Arteify Editorial Team · March 2026