How Much Should a Logo Cost. and Why Does the Same Brief Get Quoted £20 to $10,000?

Invalid Date3 min readBranding

Real UK business forum thread: one user got a "fantastic" £20 logo. A designer in the same thread called competition sites "a massive waste of money. invest in your company and get a proper brand designed." Both are telling the truth. Both are talking about different jobs.

Here's the whole picture, so you can pick.

What you actually pay for at each price point

Under $100. A file. A designer somewhere generated an option that matched your brief closely enough to submit. No strategy, no revisions worth having, no ownership guarantees, and often. as one forum poster found. a stolen or auto-generated file dressed up as original work. Fine if you need something on a bank form tomorrow. Not fine if this logo is going on trucks and business cards for the next five years.

$100 to $500. An individual freelancer with a portfolio. Usually one round of concepts, one round of revisions. You'll get something clean and workable if you brief them well. You will NOT get a system. brand colors, typography, usage rules. You'll get a logo. If your business is early and you just need to look competent, this is fine.

$500 to $3,000. A small studio or senior freelancer. Multiple concepts, real revisions, delivery of a logo system (primary mark, secondary mark, favicon, black/white variants, spacing rules). This is where a logo starts being usable everywhere. Instagram, letterhead, packaging, a trade show booth. without looking off. This is the honest floor for a business that plans to grow past the founder.

$3,000 to $10,000+. A brand studio doing a real identity. Strategy first: who is this for, what's it saying, how does it stand next to competitors. Then design. Then a proper brand book. This is what companies mean when they say "our brand." Worth it if the brand is the product, or if you're playing in a market where visual sameness is the death sentence.

$10,000+. Enterprise brand. Not usually the right conversation for a business under $2M in revenue.

Why the same brief gets quoted 100x apart

Because the brief isn't the job. The brief is the input. The job is different at every price tier. and most buyers don't know that.

The $20 logo answers: what visual mark can we ship that matches this description? The $5,000 logo answers: what visual system will make this business look correct across every surface for the next five years? The $50,000 logo answers: what identity will make this business the obvious choice in its category?

All three are called "logo design." All three cost what they cost because they're solving different problems.

When cheap is actually the right answer

You're validating a business idea and might rename in 12 months. Buy the $50 logo. Ship. Don't fall in love with it.
You need something on tomorrow's form. Canva or Looka. Move on.
You already have a strong brand direction and you just need someone to execute a specific mark. A $200 freelancer with a clear brief is fine.

When cheap actively costs you

You're going into a market where the visual bar is high (design, fashion, hospitality, premium services). A DIY logo signals amateur, and buyers price you accordingly.
Your logo will appear on physical goods or packaging where reprints are expensive. Fix it once, expensively, or fix it four times, cheaply-but-wastefully.
You're about to spend money driving traffic to a site the logo anchors. Everything downstream inherits its credibility deficit.

The question that makes the price make sense

Before you get any quote, answer this one out loud:

What position is this brand competing for, and what does the visual mark need to say to make that position believable?

A $50 logo can be right. A $50,000 logo can be right. The variable is the position it's serving. If you can't name the position, no logo. at any price. is going to solve the real problem.

That's the actual work. It's what we do first, before touching a design tool, in the Foundation Package.