Author: Cindy LeClaire
Pricing logo design is challenging. There’s simply no “one size fits all” logo or price. Answering the broad question of how much a logo costs is similar to answering how much a house costs or how much a car costs. Do you want a cottage or a mansion, a Ford Focus or a Mercedes? Many factors go into logo pricing. Is the business a large New York corporation looking for high-scale branding or a mom and pop start-up that just wants to hang a shingle on the door?
Clients invariably think of logos like the Nike swoosh and how simple it looks. How difficult was that design to create? While simple, it was a stroke of genius. Nike certainly profited in the billions and the unmistakable logo was a major contributor to its success.
As author and graphic designer Neil Tortorella points out so well in his article, “The Delicate Art of Pricing Logo Design,” some graphic designers have given logos away. Others have charged a billion dollar corporation like Pepsi a million dollars.
He goes into detail describing the overhead costs a graphic designer would engage in when working for a major company, including market research, focus groups and legal research to ensure no trademark infringement. Would you do this for a small town business with no big plans for company growth or a national presence? Absolutely not. They cannot afford the price, and for what the client is paying, the graphic designer cannot afford to spend time on due diligence.
The bottom line is that a logo is a tailor made, customized design. The following are factors that graphics designers consider when designing and pricing logos:
- Hours spent coming up with ideas and creating logo versions
- Time spent creating different files for logo uses (sizing for business cards, letterhead, invoices, website, etc.)
- The business’s purpose for having a logo
- The amount the client has in the budget for a logo
- Logo value
Logo value refers to whether the company’s business objective is to become a corporate giant like the next Starbucks, Microsoft or Apple. Perhaps your fee (or bite of the apple) would include compensation proportionate to the role the logo plays in company branding and growth. Stock in the company or a percentage point related to company growth is another way of pricing a logo where huge business is concerned.
At Web Perseverance, we enjoy devising marketing that is a perfect fit for our client’s business ─ including logo design.
