How much does a good logo cost?

How much will your logo cost? It’s a question we get a lot here at Back9. The short answer is, it depends. A lot. Very helpful, we know. So what about the long answer? What does it depend on?

How much does a logo really matter? 

Your logo is an important part of your brand identity. And it’s particularly important if you have a similar name to a competitor—Especially if you’re both in the same industry.

Some business models are designed entirely around riding the coattails of another successful business. They’ll create a similar name in the same industry and can even swipe some customers from their competitor merely through mistaken identity; someone thought they were going to the other place instead. This chance can be greatly reduced by having a memorable logo that stands out. 

But your logo has more uses than simply making you stand out in case someone builds a business with a similar name. For many people, It’s literally the way a that they recognise you. Connecting a quality product to a brand establishes  an emotional attachment, which in turn leads to loyalty, and loyal customers can even become promoters. And it’s a lot easier for a promoter to point someone to the right place with a recognisable brand identity and logo. 

Can’t I just make my logo myself?

If you trust in your artistic ability and only plan to use your logo for a few small, limited projects, there’s no reason why you can’t. But if you want to treat it as an investment and use it as the face of your company for the long haul, we highly recommend working with an experienced graphic designer.

Visual communication, which includes digital graphic design, is a prestigious field in many NZ universities that requires several years of study. Designers learn not only about the fundamentals of art and imagery, but also various pieces of complex software for digital production. An important part is being able to move from abstract ideas to completed projects that make use of colour theory, human psychology, and much more. When you use a professional designer, you get a lot more than a little picture!

A picture that’s worth $1000 dollars…x80.

Generally, the bigger the company, the more money they put into logo design. Take Invercargill City, for example. In 2017, they rebranded with a new logo. The cost for the design and consultation was around $80,000, with $70,000 more going towards replacing the old logo and adding the new one to permanent infrastructures and new signage.

Why was it so much? Logo design is a lot more complex than sketching up a two-minute doodle on a yellow legal pad and scanning it onto the computer. And when spending as much as the City did, you can bet that it wasn’t a single version without changes. Instead, there were probably a dozen if not several dozens of iterations, each of which were changed and tweaked before being presented… To higher-ups who probably wanted even more changes. Brainstorming, sketching, and meetings happened in a loop, then someone made a decision… A decision that was then likely tested with focus groups. And just like that, $80k was spent on a logo.  

What if that’s outside of my budget?

You won’t be spending anything remotely close to $80k for a logo, not when you have a small or upcoming business. $150,000 is definitely a lot to spend on a logo, but it’s still smallchange compared to what some of the big wig international corporations pay. Wondering why petrol seems to always be rising? Petrol pumper BP was estimated to have spent $211 million on their most recent green, yellow, and white logo. That’s as much as the GDP of the entire country of Kiribati in 2019. As much as an entire country.

No, we don’t expect you to spend as much money as an entire country on your logo. Or as much as a city spends. Logo cost is generally proportional to business size, revenue, and outreach, and depends on a few factors. Do you have something to work with or do we need to create something from scratch? Are you okay with the graphic designer taking charge and presenting you with some options or do you need to keep making small changes and revisions so it can be perfect? Each of these factors contribute to your total cost.

How much is that in numbers?

It’s true that your logo design cost depends on a number of factors, but we can still give you a baseline. If you’re a small business that already has a logo but want it to be improved, expect to pay at least a few hundred dollars to get that taken care of. That price increases if you need something from scratch and plan to use it in a variety of mediums for a long time. In that case, it can get into the low thousands range.

But consider everything that a well-designed logo can do for you. Your style, the quality of your work, the way people recognise you, it’s all tied to your logo. Spending a bit more on your logo will usually give you a greater return and you’ll more than make that money back. In the meantime, we can include logo design as part of a marketing package that can be paid over time instead of all at once. Ready to get started? Drop by or call us today.