The difference between the $100 logos, $1.000 logos and $10.000 logos
PUBLISHED BY NELA DUNATO ON AT 07:00 IN BRANDING, GRAPHIC DESIGN
“My designer quoted me $600 for a logo. Is this a fair price, or are they ripping me off?”
“That’s way too much. I can recommend someone who can do it for $50.”
I’ve witnessed this kind of conversation many times. I’ve decided it’s about time I talk about this heated topic here on my own blog to explain what the whole deal with pricing logos is about.
Discussing prices is touchy because people can easily become defensive. It’s not my intention to belittle anyone whose budget can only afford them low priced logos, nor to convince anyone that they should buy a more expensive logo. I want you to become aware of what you’re buying. I want you to have realistic expectations of what your budget can afford you, so you don’t end up disappointed because you didn’t get what you wanted. There’s a logo for every price point, and there’s a good reason why they cost as much as they do.
People outside of the design industry who don’t understand the nuances behind logo design are legitimately confused by the prices. Logo prices vary wildly, from 5 dollars to millions of dollars. What’s the deal? How can the same thing cost $5 and $5 million?
That’s the point—it’s not the same thing.
While this topic is a lot more complex than I can cover in a single article, I’ll simplify things a bit and divide the typical logo ranges in 3 tiers: the low-end ($100-$999), the mid-end ($1.000-$9.999) and high-end ($10.000+). I’ll explain what happens at each of these levels, and why it costs as much as it costs.
First things first: What is a logo?
In order to qualify as a logo, a graphic must satisfy several conditions. It must be:
- A vector graphic, blown up to any size without any loss in quality.
- Clearly convey meaning even when scaled down to the size of a stamp or an app icon.
- Suitable for use in a variety of media (print, digital, engraving, embroidery etc.)
- Unique—there are no other businesses using the same graphic.
If a graphic fails one of these checks, it’s not done to professional standards, so it cannot be considered a real logo.
Logo design for Wild Moon Spirit.
The shapes remain recognizable even when scaled down, or converted to a single color.
$5 “logos” are not logos
The reason I’m not even considering Fiverr gigs a part of the legitimate logo design industry is because the results you get from those gigs are not logos. What you typically get are plagiarized graphics placed on a white background (if you’re lucky), which makes them literally useless for any practical purpose.
So let’s move on to actual logos. What’s the difference between low, mid and high end logo design services?
The main difference is the process
When I said that $100 logos, $1.000 logos and $10.000 are not the same thing, what I meant is that the process used to get to these logos differs. While the result might appear similar to an untrained eye, the work that went in it is of a different order of magnitude.
I’m not even talking about the operating costs here.
A legitimate business pays taxes, their own healthcare, bookkeeping fees, expensive professional design tools and equipment. People in the Western Europe, North America and Australia have higher costs of living than those in Eastern Europe, South America, Africa or most Asian countries. All of these conditions factor into the designer’s rates—someone might be able to offer the same level of service for a lower price because their operating costs are lower. (That’s why my services are cheaper than that of an American or British designer of comparable level of skill and experience.) But let’s put that aside for now, because we could be here all day analyzing spreadsheets.
Before we get into the process thing, I’d like to point out one other difference that’s rarely discussed in the design circles.
Logo price also depends on the client
The value of the logo is not solely in the designer’s work: it’s in your company’s potential to profit from it. A corporation who will profit in millions every year from a branding project should pay more for a logo than a non-profit or a small family business.
Non-profit organizations and local micro-businesses have lower budgets and don’t expect a big return from a re-branding project. Designers often decide to lower their price, or even offer pro bono services in order to meet the needs of their less profitable clients.
Businesses who are serious about using design to gain more customers and be perceived as a premium brand are willing to invest more money, because this investment will lead directly to higher profits.
Two different companies may pay a different price for what can be considered the same amount of work, and this is not unfair: it’s called value based pricing. If the logo will help you get more customers at a higher price point, this translates into profit. Designers who help you achieve that deserve a piece of that pie.
Now that you know the two other factors of logo design prices—operating costs and value based price—let’s circle back to the main topic of this post: the differences in the design process.
The $100 logo design process
$100 is the least you can expect to pay for a decent logo, though by First-world standards that’s still cheap.
I have two explanations for how it’s possible for designers in developed countries to charge $100 per logo and still make a living:
- They’re not full-time designers.
- They create 10-20 logos per month.
If someone has a second job that’s paying the bills, or is still in the university and their life is funded by parents and student loans, it figures that they won’t value their services as much. They don’t need the money to survive—they can afford to put a ton of work into a project and only get a fraction of what they deserve.
If we’re talking about a full-time designer that’s still somehow managing to make a living off of $100 logos or cheaper, you have to wonder: how much effort are they able to put into each one? If you know your logo is just one of half a dozen they’re working on this week, can you be confident in the quality of what you’re getting?
When the designer is forced to rush through a project, they have to cut corners.
There is no way logo design can be optimized like a factory and be done in a few hours every single time. Creative process doesn’t work that way.
Typically, the first thing that suffers is research.
Design research is the first step in the logo design process. It’s an essential step, because logos are not created in a vacuum—we need to establish what’s already present on the market, and how to differentiate from your competitors. If we don’t do that, the results will likely be a generic cliché that’s already been seen a thousand times.
That means that the designer has to work based on client’s input alone, and jumps quickly into the creation process. Such process might involve:
- Asking clients for design direction (favorite colors, fonts, symbols, moodboards etc.).
- Creating several variations quickly and offering the client to pick their favorite.
- Refining the chosen option based on client’s input.
- Sending the final logo and the invoice.
This can realistically be done in a few days, so it explains why the price is so low. The question is, do you want to put the symbol that will represent your company for years to come into the hands of a student, designer with a second job, or a designer who is juggling many other projects alongside yours?
The $1.000 logo design process
For $1.000 or more, you can get a pretty good design solution, provided that the designer has plenty of experience and adheres to professional standards.
A complete logo design process involves the following phases:
- Researching the client and the competition.
- Setting the design direction (through the use of a design brief and/or a moodboard).
- Creating many design concepts.
- Refining concepts with the most potential.
- Choosing the concept that best communicates the client’s values and brand message.
- Presenting the logo proposal to the client (with examples of everyday use).
- Revising the logo based on feedback (optional).
- Preparing multiple color and composition variations of the logo.
- Designing the branding guidelines.
You can see there’s a lot more involved in the mid-end design process than it is in the low-end. A single project can take anywhere from 30 to 50 or more hours to complete. The project can last between 2 and 6 weeks, depending on how many projects the designer is working on at a time, and if there’s additional graphics included with the logo.
The phases in my own logo & brand design process
Experienced freelancers in the US and the EU will typically fall into the 4-figure dollar price range, but there are also freelancers charging 5-figure rates.
Is a mid-range logo design project in your budget? Then you’re in luck, because that’s how much my logos cost.
Next, at the 5-figure range and beyond, we have branding agencies.
The $10.000 logo design process
The high-end logo design process follows a similar structure as a mid-end one, with one key difference: it involves a team of designers and marketers.
Instead of one dedicated professional, you get 2, 3 or more, all working to make your project a success. Since there’s more people and resources involved, you’re getting a lot more done:
- The research phase is more thorough.
- More designers equals more ideas.
- Design may involve active participation of the client or a customer focus group.
- Business naming and taglines are often included in the agency brand design package.
This type of process can last several months. Large companies with so much at stake wouldn’t dare to rush it because if they don’t let the agency get it right, it might cost them a lot of money.
With so many people involved, and all of them giving their focused attention to your project, prices of the agency logo designs practically have no upper limit—they can go up to millions of dollars for big clients like MasterCard, Pepsi and Airbnb.
Different design processes deliver different results
A “deliverable” is an item that you as a client get once the design is finished. The more money you invest, the more deliverables you get to take home.
With a low-budget logo, you get a logo. That’s it.
With a mid-budget logo, you get:
- Multiple logo variations (color, black, inverse, vertical, horizontal, icon etc.)
- Brand style guide.
- Additional graphics (optional, depends on how much you’re paying).
- Brand strategy (optional, not all freelancers do this).
With a high-budget logo, you get:
- Brand strategy.
- Multiple logo variations.
- Brand style guide.
- A comprehensive selection of all the graphics you will need.
- Optionally, brand name and tagline.
I hope this post has clarified why the logo prices vary so much. It’s not that designers are trying to cheat you, it’s that logos are not trivial.
I see logos as the most challenging type of design project there is.
Not every designer can do logos well—it’s a highly specialized skill. I don’t teach business owners how to design their own logos because honestly, by the time you learn how to do it properly, you spend so much time that simply paying someone else would be faster and easier.
There’s no template or “best practice” that guarantees a logo everyone will love. So much can go wrong when an inexperienced designer takes on a logo project (for example, ending up with an unintentionally vulgar logo). The company’s reputation is at stake, because logo is a business tool that wears many hats.
If a logo design project turns out unsuccessful, re-branding will invite even more costs. You’ll need to re-design and print all the promo materials over again, like websites, apps, brochures, signage, vehicle graphics, business cards for all employees… The costs just add up, which is why companies avoid re-branding if they can help it.
Saving money on a low-cost logo today might mean having to invest more money later to fix what isn’t working.
That said, my advice for you is:
Don’t rush into a logo design project.
If you don’t have the budget for what you want right now, save up for it rather than spending money on something you won’t be happy with. And if you choose to stick with a low-priced logo, I support your decision—but please, do your research so you don’t get ripped off by a logo designer.
Hand-lettered logo design is my specialty
If you like my work, you’ll be glad to hear that my logo design services come in two packages. You can start with a smaller package right now, and add other graphics as you need them later on. This is a cashflow-friendly option that many business owners choose when starting out.
If you have any questions about the logo design process, contact me and I’ll be happy to answer them—no strings attached. Or, you can ask your question in the comments below.
Really, I’m just looking for an excuse to talk about logos because I’m so passionate about them—like you’re passionate about your work.
EDIT: Note to designers on raising your prices
This post is making rounds in the design circles, and I’m very happy about that, because it means more designers will learn how to earn a reasonable living from their work. Several designers have reached out to me to say that they have realized they need to raise their prices after reading this article. That’s wonderful.
But.
You may not be able to raise your prices overnight.
I teach business owners all the time how your price needs to reflect not only the quality of your work, but also your professional presentation. In my article Is your business a bargain bin brand? I described what happens when your presentation is not at the level that we tend to expect from “premium brands”, ie. brands that charge higher fees. You can’t sell expensive champagne in a plain bottle, and you can’t sell $1000+ logos on a free Wix site.
Before you raise your price, ask yourself:
- Are your services already in demand?
- Do your clients recommend your services to their friends and colleagues?
- Is your portfolio filled with high quality logo designs that you’re proud of?
- Do you have your own website on a custom domain that looks professional?
- Does your website contain useful content that helps clients decide whether you’re the right designer to help them?
- Are you regularly getting to know new people who might become potential clients, or refer new clients to you?
If you don’t have a solid foundation in your design business, raising the price alone won’t do you any good. All this stuff we tell our clients—how having a great looking brand will help them get more buyers—is twice as important for you. You have no excuse, you are the designer. If you can’t come up with a beautiful and professional brand presentation for yourself, how can you do that for your clients? You’re not walking your talk.
On top of looking like a professional, you also need to show a compelling reason why they should choose you, instead of someone else. That’s the unique value proposition, and in our line of work “I can draw really nice logos” is not enough. You may decide to choose a niche, or a style, or some other way you want to differentiate yourself, but you need to think of something. Otherwise, no one will pay you thousands of dollars.
It’s not just about money (it’s never just about money). It’s about how you present yourself as an expert, and how you connect with clients. Money is a result of that. If you just change your pricing and nothing else, it might not work because the clients can’t see why $1000+ is worth it.
This is a whole different topic that deserves a more in-depth article, but I put the short version here to make sure that every designer who reads this article knows what they’re getting into. Good luck.
