Ask five designers what a logo costs and you'll get five different non-answers.

Most will tell you "it depends." Some will ask you to fill out a form, hop on a call, and wait three days for a proposal. A few won't say anything at all until you've already sat through a sales pitch. None of that is malicious — pricing in this industry really does depend on a lot of things — but if you're a small business owner trying to work out whether branding even fits in this quarter's budget, that vagueness is exhausting. You end up either overpaying out of uncertainty, or putting the whole thing off for another six months because you can't get a straight number to plan around.

So here's the straight version. Real ranges, real inclusions, and the questions worth asking before you commit to anyone — including me.

“Most pricing conversations in this industry happen backwards: you're asked to commit before you're told what you're committing to.”

The four levels, in plain language

There's no single "branding package" that fits every business, so most studios — including mine — break the work into tiers based on how much of your brand identity you actually need built from scratch. Here's roughly how that breaks down, with the kind of numbers you'd see from an independent Australian designer:

Logo design — around $600 AUD, 1–2 weeks. This is the narrowest scope: a logo and the core visual mark your business will be recognised by. It suits businesses that already have a clear sense of their colours, type, and overall feel, and just need the centrepiece designed properly.

Logo, colour palette and typography — around $1,000 AUD, 2–3 weeks. This is the most common starting point for businesses that are further along than "just a logo" but not yet ready for a full system. You walk away with a logo plus the colour and type choices that will carry it consistently across your website, socials, and printed materials.

Full brand identity — around $2,000 AUD, 3–4 weeks. This is the complete package: logo, colours, typography, and a usable style guide that documents how it all fits together — so you (or anyone you bring on later) can apply it consistently without guessing. This is the right tier if you're building something you expect to grow into, not just something to launch with.

Hourly and day-rate work — $80/hour, $280 half-day, $500 full day. For businesses that need something more specific — refining an existing identity, extending a brand into a new format, or getting hands-on design support for a defined stretch of time — hourly or day-rate work is often the more honest fit than forcing the project into a fixed package.

And if your "branding" question is really a "website" question: a custom-built site on Figma starts around $1,800 AUD, and a fully editable Framer build — the kind you can update yourself without touching code — starts around $2,500 AUD.

None of these numbers are designed to be the cheapest you'll find, or the most expensive. They're simply real — the kind of figures you can actually plan a quarter's budget around, instead of guessing.

How to tell which tier you actually need

Here's the shortcut I'd give a friend: it usually comes down to how much already exists.

If you're starting from nothing — no name direction, no colours, no sense of "look" — a full identity is almost always cheaper in the long run than building a logo now and trying to retrofit a system around it later. If you've already got a strong instinct for your colours and type and just need the mark itself done properly, the narrower logo-only scope is often plenty. And if you're not starting a brand so much as fixing or extending one that already exists — a refresh, a new product line, a format you haven't needed before — hourly or day-rate work tends to fit better than any fixed package, because you're paying for targeted attention, not a full rebuild.

If you're genuinely unsure which of these describes you, that's a completely normal place to be — and it's exactly the kind of thing worth talking through before committing to a scope, rather than after.

Five questions worth asking any designer (including me) before you sign anything

1. What exactly is included — and what isn't? A "logo design" quote that doesn't mention file formats, revision rounds, or usage rights can turn into a much longer, costlier conversation later.
   
   

2. How many rounds of revisions are built in, and what happens if I need more? This is one of the most common sources of scope creep on both sides.
   
   

3. What will I actually own at the end? Source files, fonts, full usage rights — all of this should be spelled out, not assumed.
   
   

4. What's the realistic timeline, including my own input? Projects slow down far more often because of delayed feedback than because of the designer's workload — a good answer here accounts for that.
   
   

5. Can you show me a project at this same scope, with real numbers? Not just a finished logo, but the actual brief, the actual turnaround, the actual investment. If a designer can't or won't share that, it's worth asking why.

Want a second pair of eyes on this?

If you're sitting with a project like this right now — trying to work out which tier fits, or just want a straight read on a quote you've already received — I'm happy to take a look. No pitch, just an honest answer based on what you're actually trying to do.

→ Email me about your project

Before you brief any designer — me included — there are five things worth sorting out first. I put them all into one free checklist that takes about fifteen minutes to work through and saves a lot of back-and-forth later.

→ Send me the Small Business Rebrand Checklist