What Does a Successful Logo Cost?

Micheal Fox
4 min readMar 16, 2021

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What Does a Successful Logo Cost?

What does a successful logo cost? A simple question that should have a simple answer — that’s what many entrepreneurs think. Why doesn’t every graphic artist or logo design company simply publish a price list for design work on his homepage and thus save himself the tedious and time-consuming calculation of offers? Some designers and logo design service providers would like that. Unfortunately, this list does not exist. At least not a serious one. According to expertise and required work, a graphic artist who develops individual logos and customer-based specifications will calculate his offer per customer’s requirements in his logo design services. There is no general value that can be applied in principle. The background to this is that many variables play a role in the calculation of a design service.

What are the costs of a logo?

The calculation begins with the graphic artist himself, his skills, experience, place of residence, and specialization; the same applies to the logo design company. It continues with the design technology (for example, graphic or illustrated) and the resulting working hours. Furthermore, established designers and agencies calculate the expected added value that they will create with their work. It means that you make a significant contribution to how successful a company, service, or product will be in the future with your work. In the case of particularly promising or cost-intensive projects, the designer, therefore, has a great deal of responsibility that deserves an appropriate share in the success. Most of the time but not always, these value-added logo design services’ variables are called usage rights attached and opened. Finally, ancillary project costs include advice, purchases of briefs, coordination, travel, materials, etc.

Does that sound like a lot?

Why are there so many logos design companies who offer your logos for $ 100 or even $ 20? Simply put: the higher the price, the higher the quality of the product. Graphic or logo design service providers who can offer such low prices usually have a catch somewhere. To give a few examples:

1. The graphic artist does not work individually. He has ready-made drafts in his drawer and draws any of them, adjusts the color and font — done. Conversely, this means that the logos used are meaningless and interchangeable. If you remove the lettering, nobody can tell whether the design belongs to a doctor, a craftsman, or a restaurant and thus the actual goal of a logo would be missed.

2. The graphic artist works with a kind of logo generator. With one click, he throws together random motifs, fonts, and colors. The result can look good, no question about it. But does the generator know who your target group is and how they want to be addressed? I do not think so. In the end, you have a nice logo, but you wonder why you don’t get any orders.

3. Buy a finished logo by a logo design company. You can often buy cheap logo designs from stock image agencies or logo design companies. All you have to do is insert your name, and you’re done. Great thing! Or? Certainly, a lot of nice logos were created this way. Only the company’s success failed to materialize. You have to keep in mind that this off-the-shelf logo isn’t just sold once, but hundreds of times. The uniqueness and recognition value of a company is gone.

4. Unprofessional graphic artist. In the USA, anyone can work independently in the creative professions like logo design company — without training and without proof of essential knowledge. Often these are students who want to earn something on the side or unskilled workers who see it as a “simple part-time job”. Most of the time, communication and advice fail because the necessary experience is lacking. The result remains questionable. So take a close look at the experience and reference projects of your future project partner.

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. However, everyone should weigh for themselves what a successful logo is worth to them. Back to the cost of a successful logo:

Summary

Here again, is a rough overview of the variables that play a role in logo design services.

· Price graphic artist (hourly rate)

· Work technique and the resulting working time

· Usage rights (type, duration, area, scope)

· Ancillary project costs

What does a graphic designer cost?

I have already seen hourly rates from 20.00 to 180.00 an hour … Everything is possible here. When doing your research, remember that the hourly rate alone doesn’t say much about the designer or logo design company. The price and quality of the references should match. Again, many factors play a role in the final hourly rate.

  • Is the full-time self-employed or does he do it as additional income?
  • Where does he live and what cost of living does he have to cover (rent, food, transport, etc.)?
  • Does he work from his home office or does he have to pay for a rental office?
  • Which insurances and regular compulsory expenses he has to cope with?
  • How fast does he work or does he prefer to take it easy?
  • How dissolute he lives because a Mustang and the Rolex also want to be financed (attention humor)?
  • What professional experience does he have?
  • What great customers can he adorn himself with?
  • How big is the competition in the area?
  • And much more.

Assuming all these factors, you may ask the logo designer or any logo design services provider for the quotation and then negotiate accordingly.

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