Most agencies answer this with "it depends", and then send you a proposal a week later. Here is the actual answer: a brand identity from us starts at $290 and runs to $1,750+, and the thing that moves you along that range is not how good the logo is. It is how many places the brand has to work.
Why one number is impossible and three are easy
A logo is not a brand identity. A logo is one asset inside one. What you are actually buying is a set of decisions — typeface, colour, spacing, tone, how the mark behaves when it is 14 pixels tall and when it is two metres wide — written down so that the next person who touches your brand does not have to guess.
The number follows from how many of those decisions you need made now.
Identity Essentials — $290
A young company that needs to look credible, fast. Primary logo, one secondary lockup, a colour palette, type choices and the files you need to start using them. 1 – 2 weeks.
This is the right size when you have one thing to launch and you need it to look like it was made on purpose. It is not the right size if you already have a product range, retail packaging or three markets to serve — you will outgrow it, and paying twice is more expensive than paying once.
Full Identity System — $790
A rebrand that has to hold up across print, screen and packaging. Everything above, plus the system: logo variants for every context, a full type scale, applications across print and screen, and guidelines that document the rules rather than just showing pretty examples. 3 – 4 weeks.
The guidelines are the part people underestimate. They are what stops the brand drifting the moment someone other than us makes an Instagram post.
Brand Partnership — $1,750+
Multi-product or multi-market brands with real complexity. Sub-brands, product lines, multiple languages, packaging families, motion. 6 – 8 weeks, because the work is genuinely bigger, not because the rate is higher.
What actually changes the number
- How many applications. A brand that lives on a website and a business card is a smaller job than one that also lives on a shopfront, a vehicle wrap and six SKUs of packaging.
- How many decision-makers. Two founders who agree is a fast project. A committee of six is a slower one, and slower costs more.
- Whether the strategy exists. If you already know who you are for and what you stand for, we design. If you do not, we work that out first — and that is real work with real hours in it.
- How much has to be migrated. Rebranding an existing company means every existing asset has to be found, judged and either redone or retired.
The cheapest identity is the one you only pay for once. Almost every expensive rebrand we have been called into was a cheap logo three years earlier.
What we will not do
We will not quote a number before we know what it covers, and we will not put a range on a proposal and then discover scope later. Every figure above is a real price for a defined deliverable — if your project does not fit one, we will say so and price the actual thing.
We also will not sell you the biggest package by default. Two of the three identities we shipped last year were the Identity Essentials tier, because that was the correct size of the problem.
How to work out which one you need
Write down every place your brand will appear in the next eighteen months. Not the next five years — eighteen months, because you will know more then than you do now.
- If the list fits on one line, you want Identity Essentials.
- If it spans print and screen and you have people who will need to use the brand without you, you want Full Identity System.
- If the list has more than one product or more than one market on it, you want a conversation.
That last one is free, and you will get a number at the end of it.