How much should a logo and brand cost for a small business?
Anywhere from the price of a lunch to the price of a car, and the difference is rarely the drawing. What you are paying for is the thinking that decides what gets drawn. My own identity work starts at $3,750, and an identity with a website starts at $7,500.
Why is the range so wide?
Because “a logo” describes four very different purchases.
- A marketplace or contest logo. You get a file. Nobody asks about your business, because the price doesn’t leave room for questions.
- A freelance designer. You get design built from your brief. If your brief is good, this can work well. Most people don’t have a brief.
- A strategist and designer. The brief comes out of a real conversation about your business, and the design is built from it. This is where I work.
- An agency. A team, account managers, and months. Right for companies with many stakeholders, and priced for them.
What does the cheap logo leave out?
- The questions. Nobody finds out what makes you different, so the logo could belong to anyone in your industry.
- The system. A logo alone is not a brand. You need colors, type, and rules for using them, or every new thing you make looks like a different company.
- The files. Versions for dark backgrounds, small sizes, print, and the web.
- Certainty that it is yours. Ask any designer where the mark came from, and ask a trademark attorney before you build a business on it.
The most expensive logo is the one you pay for twice.
What do I charge?
Every project starts with brand therapy, which is $600. The full amount comes off any package booked within 90 days.
- The Spark, starting at $3,750. Logo, color, typography, tagline direction, and a brand book. About a week.
- The Shine, starting at $5,000. Everything in The Spark, plus the pieces a founder uses every day: LinkedIn banner, email signature, and a collateral template or business cards.
- The Stage, starting at $5,000. A custom website of about five pages for a brand you already own.
- The Spotlight, starting at $7,500. The Shine and a five-page website, designed together.
- The Showstopper, starting at $15,000. For established companies and growing teams, with a larger website.
Every price is a starting point, shaped by your diagnosis. The prices are published so you can budget, not so you have to choose alone.
What should a small service business spend?
Enough to get the thinking done once. If the budget is tight, spend it on the diagnosis first. A written diagnosis with a modest logo will serve you better than a lavish logo built on a guess.
Who owns the work?
You do. All of it. The files, the website, the domain, the content. Ask this of anyone you hire.
Sound like you?
Everything starts with a free twenty-minute hello, where we both decide whether this is a fit. Or take the Brand Smart Check first: ten questions, about three minutes, and a straight answer.