As hard as it is to believe, a logo design can cost anywhere from $5 to $25,000, and even more.
But why such an extreme range? As you’ll see, a lot depends on who you’re hiring to design your new logo.
Factors such as commitment and understanding, level of sophistication, and expertise will all contribute to how much a graphic designer or branding company will charge for a logo design. The speed in which the new logo is delivered can also impact the cost.
Here are some examples to help illustrate how much a logo design can cost:
- $5–$500: This logo fee is likely from a crowd-sourcing platform or an aspiring, local graphic designer. (Read our article: “A Cheap Logo Design can be a Recipe for Bankruptcy”)
- $500–$1000: A typical fee request by an entry-level graphic designer.
- $1,000–$2,500: An average cost estimate from a mid-level graphic design individual.
- $2,500–$7,500: This is the typical range for professional logo design (Check out our article: “Why Does Logo Design Pricing Vary So Much from One Logo Design Company to Another?”)
- $10,000+: A potential scenario for this fee is if a logo design is incorporated into a larger strategic branding initiative.
Here are a few ways to help manage the expectations for your logo design budget:
Work within your logo design budget
If you’re like most businesses, you probably have a budget or at least have an idea of how much you are willing to invest in your company’s logo design. Based on these figures, you can seek out viable graphic designers and/or teams to help you.
For example, if you only have $750 for your logo design, you might consider paying an aspiring graphic designer or try your luck with an online crowd-sourcing platform. I hesitate to recommend this approach because inexpensive can turn expensive very quickly and wind up costing you much more.
Inexpensive can turn expensive very quickly and wind up costing you much more.
Let’s say you paid $500 for your logo, then spend hundreds or several thousand dollars more to apply the logo to marketing materials such as shirts, signage, printed items, and more. Then you find out it’s hard to reproduce the logo in one- or two-color applications such as embroidered shirts or applying it to small items such as pens. At some point you may need to decide whether to live with your new logo’s limitations or start all over again, which would mean discarding the marketing materials in favor of having them reproduced. This turns into a lot of wasted money, so my recommendation is to invest wisely in a more experienced logo designer.
Review the logo design portfolio of your designer prospect
Once you identify how much of your budget you can allocate toward your logo design, you can start identifying viable people or companies to help you. Asking friends or colleagues for recommendations or searching the web for logo designers whose work you admire is a good approach.
Examine the portfolio area of the graphic designer’s website to see if you can imagine working with them. You should be looking for logo designs that appeal to you and a style that you feel reflects what your company is about. It’s also helpful if your prospective logo designer has completed projects for companies similar to yours. For example, if you are a regional not-for-profit organization or a local law firm, your logo designer should have logos in their portfolio for not-for-profits or law firms. It doesn’t need to be exclusively one type of company but some similarity is a good thing.
Are your expectations realistic and attainable by the logo designer?
The logo design process takes some time to complete. Expect two to six weeks as a standard time period to design a logo. The reason I say this is because if you need or want it faster than that, you’ll likely need to pay extra—potentially double the designer’s rate for priority handling. Ask your prospective logo designer to suggest what is a reasonable time frame and if they can accommodate your timeline. If your needs are within reason, schedules can sometimes be accommodated without extra cost.
In a standard timeline, a logo designer will need to ask you questions about your company and target audience, as well as have an understanding of your competitive landscape in order to begin the logo design process. Expect some back and forth for the inevitable revisions and for the logo designer to save all of the varied file formats for you. Again, if you want the process to happen faster, you’ll likely need to pay more—and be available to provide your comments more quickly.
How many logo design options and revisions do you need/want/get for your budget?
The amount of time a logo designer spends on your logo will be a major driving factor on the cost. Some logo designers will provide only one version for the cost while others may provide many options. For most professional graphic designers and logo designers, two to five options is normal.
At Trillion, after we have done our due diligence and research, we normally provide two logo design options with up to two rounds of revisions to one of the versions. This is usually enough to iron out variations and make any tweaks. If a client wants more options or rounds of revisions, that’s fine, but the cost will rise. I do think that seeing two options is good for discussion and will prove helpful for you to make a decision. Remember that your logo designer is creatively exploring variations for your logo design but only presenting you options they deem to be the best. Be wary of logo designers offering “unlimited” designs or revisions because that’s a sign that they don’t have a handle on your brand or what you do. And who wants to spend an endless amount of time with a bunch of logos you don’t like?
Logo design and graphic design is not the same
Logo design is an art form and should not be confused with graphic design of things like brochures or websites. While these creative design talents often overlap, logo design requires an understanding of typography, composition, and color theory so it looks great no matter how it is being reproduced and applied. The design team at Trillion has extensive expertise in creating logos that help transform or establish branding for organizations. You can see examples of our brand-building work in our portfolio. If you would like to talk through your logo design needs, use our simple contact form or give us a call to schedule a time to talk (908.219.4703).
