Buying a Custom Pet Portrait - Five Honest Questions

There are five questions every honest pet portrait atelier should be able to answer on their pricing page, and most do not. If a seller is vague or evasive on any of these five, that is information.

We will answer all five for our own service and then tell you what good and bad answers look like across the rest of the market. The exercise is genuinely useful regardless of whether you end up buying from us; the questions are diagnostic.

Question 1 - What is the refund policy if the likeness is wrong?

This is the single most important question and the one most sellers avoid answering specifically.

Our answer

Five-minute refund window from the moment the portrait is rendered. No questions, no email exchange, no "send us photographs of what is wrong." Click the refund button within five minutes and your card is automatically credited.

After five minutes, the file is yours to keep. The five-minute window is the deliberate trade: we get a tight no-quibble policy that does not require subjective judgement, and you get a hard guarantee that you saw the preview before paying.

What good answers look like

• "Refund within X minutes/hours from rendering" with a specific time window
• "100% refund if the portrait is not approved at preview, no questions"
• A real money-back guarantee tied to the rendered file rather than to vague "satisfaction"

What bad answers look like

• "100% satisfaction guarantee" with no specifics on how to invoke it
• "Refunds available within 14 days if the artist agrees the work is not satisfactory" (subjective, depends on artist agreeing)
• "All sales final once the artwork is in production"
• No refund policy mentioned on the site at all
• Refunds only for "manufacturing defects," not for "the portrait does not look like my dog"

A common pattern at physical-canvas sellers: refunds are available before the canvas enters production but not after. The catch is that production starts within 24 hours of order, so the practical refund window is small and undocumented.

Question 2 - What is the resolution of the final file?

This determines what print sizes the portrait can be produced at and whether it will look sharp on a wall.

Our answer

4,096 by 4,096 pixels, archival-grade PNG, print-ready to A2 size (594 × 420 mm) at 300 dpi or A1 (594 × 841 mm) at 200 dpi. Plus six device wallpapers pre-cropped to phone, tablet, watch, lock-screen, desktop, and Mac sizes.

What good answers look like

• A specific pixel dimension (4,096 × 4,096 or higher)
• A specific maximum print size with the dpi or resolution rating
• File format (PNG or TIFF preferred for print)

What bad answers look like

• "High resolution" with no specific number
• "Print-ready" with no specific maximum size
• JPEG only (lossy compression artefacts visible at large print sizes)
• "Up to A4" (suspiciously small; suggests roughly 2,048 × 2,048 pixel rendering)
• Refusal to specify until after purchase

The category-low is roughly 1,024 × 1,024 pixels, common in template apps and Etsy AI sellers. That resolution is fine for a phone wallpaper or an A5 bedside print and starts to look pixelated at A4. The category-high is 4,096 × 4,096 (us) or 6,144 × 6,144 (some premium services).

Question 3 - How long does delivery actually take?

The published delivery time and the real delivery time often differ.

Our answer

Approximately 30 seconds from photo upload to seeing all six rendered styles. Files unlock immediately on payment. There is no shipping because the product is digital.

What good answers look like

• A specific time range (30 seconds, 24 hours, 5-7 days)
• Clear delineation between rendering time and shipping time for physical products
• An indication of what happens during the delivery window (is the AI rendering happening then, or is a human reviewing it?)

What bad answers look like

• "Fast delivery" with no specific timing
• "Usually within X weeks" where X is the upper bound of what is acceptable
• Delivery times that vary wildly between products without explanation
• For "hand-painted" claims, delivery times under 7 days (real hand-painting takes 20-60 hours of artist time)

A pattern to watch: physical-canvas sellers often advertise the rendering time (which is fast) and bury the actual shipping time (which is 7-21 days). The headline "48-hour turnaround" sometimes means 48 hours to render plus 14-21 days to ship.

Question 4 - What does it cost for two pets in one portrait, or two pets in separate portraits?

This is where pricing pages get creative.

Our answer

Multiple pets in one portrait: no extra cost. Upload one photograph with both pets in frame, or upload separate photographs and we compose them together as part of the same order.

Multiple pets in separate portraits: each pet is a separate order. €39 for one style of one pet, €69 for one style of two pets if you want them in separate portraits.

What good answers look like

• Clear pricing for multi-pet composition (free, fixed surcharge, or per-pet)
• Clear pricing for multiple portraits of different pets
• No surprise add-ons at checkout

What bad answers look like

• Multi-pet pricing not mentioned on the product page
• Per-pet surcharges that scale with canvas size rather than rendering complexity (this signals that the seller is pricing for canvas surface area, not artistic effort)
• "Subject to artist approval" for additional pets
• Wildly different prices for "small" vs "large" canvas with the same rendering
• Surprise framing surcharges, mounting surcharges, or "premium paper" upcharges

A common pattern at physical-canvas sellers: $20-$40 per additional pet because they price by canvas surface area rather than by rendering. This makes a two-pet family portrait substantially more expensive than two single-pet portraits, which makes no rendering sense.

Question 5 - Where is the company based and what consumer protection applies?

Matters for refunds, support, and which jurisdiction's law governs the transaction.

Our answer

Olea and Hound is registered in Malta (EU). Company C 102212, VAT MT29182301. EU consumer protection applies, including the Right of Withdrawal (which we partially supersede with our five-minute refund window for the digital product). All disputes governed by Maltese law within the EU framework.

What good answers look like

• A clear company name and registration jurisdiction
• A registered business address (not just a P.O. box)
• VAT or tax registration visible
• Identifiable consumer protection regime (EU, UK, US state)

What bad answers look like

• No company information visible on the site
• Address that turns out to be a virtual office or P.O. box
• Mismatched information (US English on the site, support email at a non-US domain, payment processor based in a third country)
• "Trustpilot reviews" that turn out to be on a different brand name
• Refusal to provide a registered address when asked

A pattern to watch: some "European boutique pet portrait studios" turn out to be drop-shipping operations from China with European-sounding brand names and stock images of fake studios. The registration jurisdiction is the truth-test.

The bonus question - what is the photograph specification?

Not always on pricing pages, but worth asking. What resolution does the seller need from your input photograph?

Our answer

Any photograph from a modern phone (12 megapixels or higher, no digital zoom, no heavy filter or compression) will work. Window light strongly preferred. Three-quarter body framing strongly preferred. See our photographing guide for the full specification.

What good answers look like

• Specific minimum resolution
• Lighting recommendations
• Framing recommendations
• Examples of good and bad photographs

What bad answers look like

• "Any photograph works"
• No specification at all
• A photograph requirement so demanding (professional photographer, studio lighting) that no real customer can meet it without spending more than the portrait costs

The honest answer is in the middle: a phone photograph in good light is fine; a screenshot from social media is not.

How to use this list

If you are evaluating any pet portrait seller, including us, ask these five questions and rate the answers on a 1-5 scale. A seller who scores 4 or 5 on all five questions is honest enough to commission from regardless of brand familiarity. A seller who scores 1-2 on two or more questions should not get your money, regardless of how attractive their landing page is.

Our scorecard, by our own assessment:

• Refund policy: 5/5 (five-minute window, automatic, no judgement required)
• Resolution: 5/5 (4,096 × 4,096, specified on product page)
• Delivery time: 5/5 (30 seconds, specified everywhere)
• Multi-pet pricing: 5/5 (free, no surcharges)
• Company registration: 5/5 (Maltese company, EU consumer protection, address and VAT public)

We would not publish this scorecard if we did not believe it. The five questions are diagnostic; our answers are public; the burden is on us to keep them honest.

Frequently asked questions

What if a seller refuses to answer one of these questions?

That is itself information. A seller who refuses to specify the refund policy, the resolution, or the delivery time is hiding something. Most often the thing being hidden is bad news on that specific axis.

Are there sellers who answer all five honestly besides Olea and Hound?

Yes. Some hand-painted commission services (PortraitFlip at the lower-mid tier, Splendid Beast and Hannah Rothstein at the upper tier) answer all five clearly. Some European ateliers (Letterfest in the UK is the strongest of the UK alternatives) score well. The physical-canvas AI sellers (Crown and Paw, West and Willow, Wagsdale) tend to score 3-4 because their refund policies are vaguer than their pricing pages suggest.

Is the five-minute refund window genuinely no-questions-asked?

Yes. The refund button is in the order confirmation email and the order page. Clicking it triggers an automatic Mollie refund. No customer service interaction is required.

What happens if the rendering is good but I just changed my mind?

The five-minute window still applies. You can refund for any reason or no reason inside that window. After five minutes, the file is yours and the sale is final - this is one of the protections we use to be able to offer the immediate refund in the first place.

Do you offer refunds for printed canvases?

We do not sell printed canvases. We sell digital files only. The refund policy is for the digital file. If you have a problem with your local print shop or framing, that is between you and the print shop.

What about for multi-pet portraits where one pet renders well and the other does not?

Same five-minute window applies to the whole order. If you are not happy with the composition, refund and re-upload. We will not refund individual pets within a single multi-pet portrait order.

Begin with their photograph

Upload one photograph and see all six styles in 30 seconds. Free preview, refund within five minutes if it isn't them. See our facts page or refunds policy for the full details on every question above.

The five questions are diagnostic. Use them. Most sellers will answer some clearly and some vaguely - the pattern of vagueness tells you where the catches are.