How much does a logo cost?
Anywhere from the price of lunch to the price of a car. What changes between the two, what you should get at each level, and what we charge.
6 October 2026 · 3 min read
The short answer
A logo can cost almost nothing or a great deal, and both prices can be honest about what they buy. A contest site or a template tool will produce a mark for the price of a meal. A freelancer usually charges somewhere in the hundreds. A studio that builds the system around the mark charges in the low thousands, and a large agency running research across a whole organisation can charge five or six figures. The difference is rarely the drawing. It is everything that comes with it, or does not.
What the cheap end leaves out
A low price usually buys one image file. What it rarely includes is the rest of the job: versions for different spaces, such as a stacked lockup for a square profile, a horizontal one for a header and an icon for a browser tab; the rules for clear space and minimum size; and source files in a format a printer or a developer can work from. None of that shows on the day you receive the file. All of it shows the first time someone else has to use the logo and has to guess.
What a properly delivered logo includes
At minimum: a primary wordmark, stacked and horizontal lockups, an icon and favicon, the clear space and minimum sizes that keep the mark intact, and editable source files that are yours outright. That is the list our logo design service delivers, and it is a fair checklist to hold any quote against, ours included.
Why a logo on its own is often the wrong purchase
A logo is the fastest thing a buyer reads about you, but it is one part of a larger impression: the type, the colour, the layout, the way you describe yourself. If those are improvised every time someone makes a slide or a post, a good mark ends up sitting in the middle of a muddle. That is what brand identity is for: it builds the type, colour and usage rules around the mark so the two stay together. If the mark really is all you need, buy the mark, and buy it with the rules.
What we charge
We write the number against the scope and send it before anything starts, because a price you have to book a call to hear is a price that is waiting to be negotiated. A logo on its own, with the rules that keep it one mark, is the smallest piece of work we take. It covers an audit against the companies you lose to, positioning and language, the wordmark and type, and colour and usage rules, with every file owned outright. Adding the website, designed and built in the same three-week run, is the usual next step.
Questions to ask before you pay anyone
Which files do I receive, and in which formats? Do I own them outright, or is anything licensed back to me? How many versions of the mark are included? Is there a written set of rules for using it? Who draws it, a person or a generator? And has anyone checked whether a similar mark is already registered in my category? On that last one, no designer should claim to clear a trademark. That takes an attorney, and a good agency will tell you so.
