How much does a logo or a complete corporate design cost?
Key takeaways
- A logo alone costs between 800 and 8,000 euros, a complete corporate design between 6,000 and 40,000 euros.
- The price difference comes from research and the depth of the system, not from the drawing itself.
- If you only buy a logo, you buy half. The second half comes later as individual jobs.
- The brand guide is the item that gets cut most often and that prevents the most follow-up costs.
The price ranges
Logo only, without a system: 800 to 8,000 euros. The mark in several variants, file formats, basic rules on color and spacing. Enough for start-ups and small businesses that mainly need a mark.
Logo plus core system: 6,000 to 15,000 euros. In addition, a color palette, typography, stationery and a compact guideline. The usual scope for small and medium-sized companies.
Complete corporate design: 15,000 to 40,000 euros. Plus imagery, design elements, applications across several media, a detailed brand guide, often also tone of voice and brand core.
With brand strategy: from 35,000 euros. Positioning, target group work, brand core and name development are added. Makes sense for a repositioning, merger or succession.
These ranges apply to agencies with their own concept work. Platforms and design contest portals are significantly cheaper: there you buy a drawing, not a system.
The calculation that is rarely made
Logo only, without a system: 800 to 8,000 euros. The mark in several variants, file formats, basic rules on color and spacing. Enough for start-ups and small businesses that mainly need a mark.
Logo plus core system: 6,000 to 15,000 euros. In addition, a color palette, typography, stationery and a compact guideline. The usual scope for small and medium-sized companies.
Complete corporate design: 15,000 to 40,000 euros. Plus imagery, design elements, applications across several media, a detailed brand guide, often also tone of voice and brand core.
With brand strategy: from 35,000 euros. Positioning, target group work, brand core and name development are added. Makes sense for a repositioning, merger or succession.
These ranges apply to agencies with their own concept work. Platforms and design contest portals are significantly cheaper: there you buy a drawing, not a system.
Why the same logo costs 300 or 8,000 euros
The difference lies in three things, and none of them is the drawing.
Research. What is the competition doing? Which marks are already taken in the industry? What associations does a shape trigger? Without this step, you get a mark that happens to look like three others in the same market.
Justifiability. A well-thought-out mark can be explained: why this shape, why this angle, why this color. That is not an end in itself: a logo that can be justified survives a change of taste in management.
Usability. Does it work small, in one color, engraved, embroidered, on a dark background? These checks take time and are the reason cheap logos cause problems later.
Then there is the legal side: a search for prior trademark rights costs extra and, in the worst case, prevents having to start over.
The individual items
This is how the effort is distributed for a complete corporate design of around 22,000 euros:
| Item | Share |
|---|---|
| Research, competition, positioning | €2,800 |
| Brand mark incl. variants | €5,400 |
| Color palette and typography | €2,600 |
| Imagery and design elements | €3,200 |
| Stationery | €2,400 |
| Application examples across media | €2,800 |
| Brand guide | €2,800 |
| Total | €22,000 |
What stands out: the mark itself makes up just under a quarter. The rest is the system around it, exactly the part that is used in everyday business.
The item that gets cut most often
The brand guide looks like documentation and is therefore often cut. That is the most expensive cost-cutting decision in the whole project.
Without a guideline, every application decides anew what the design should look like. After two years, there are four variants of the logo, three shades of blue and two typefaces. Every correction after that costs more than the guideline would have cost.
What a usable guideline needs to contain: the rules that are really needed in everyday use, so logo variants with clear space, color values for all media, font sizes with their purpose, image criteria and two to three ready-made templates.
What it doesn't need: forty pages of brand philosophy. A guideline that isn't used is just as expensive as none at all.
Where it makes sense to save
Smart savings:
On the number of application examples. Three well-developed ones are more valuable than twelve sketched ones.
On stationery. Business cards, letterhead and a presentation template are enough to start with. Trade fair booths and vehicle graphics come when they are needed.
On photo production. Define image criteria and work with existing material at first instead of producing right away.
Don't save:
On the research phase. That is the part that prevents you from looking like your competitors.
On the trademark check. The costs are in the hundreds, the risk in the tens of thousands.
On the brand guide. See above.
What the ongoing costs are
A corporate design is not a one-time expense. What comes afterwards is rarely planned for.
Converting existing materials. Signage, vehicles, printed materials, workwear, website. Depending on the company, 3,000 to 30,000 euros. This can be spread out, but not avoided.
Font licenses. 200 to 2,000 euros one-time, annually with some providers. Clarify beforehand, otherwise the question comes up after the project.
New applications. Every year, formats come up that nobody anticipated. Expect 1,500 to 4,000 euros per year if this is done externally.
Maintaining the system. After two to three years, a review is worthwhile: What is being applied, what is being worked around, where are rules missing? Half a day that prevents a lot of uncontrolled growth.
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