What should you actually pay for a brand identity? (And why location doesn't matter anymore)
Every month or so, someone fills out my contact form with a version of the same question: 'How much would a brand identity cost?'
It's a fair question. It's also impossible to answer without a conversation. But the fact that so many people ask it tells me something. The market is confusing. You can get a logo on Fiverr for €50 or hire an agency in London for €50,000. Both call it 'branding'. No wonder people don't know what they should be paying.
So here's my attempt at an honest answer. Not a sales pitch. Just what I've learned from fourteen years of doing this work, what actually drives the cost, and why the old rules about location and pricing are starting to fall apart.
The real range (and why it's so wide)
If you search for 'brand identity cost' right now, you'll find numbers ranging from a few hundred to six figures. That's not because the industry is broken. It's because 'brand identity' means completely different things depending on who you're talking to.
A logo is not a brand identity. A logo is one piece of it. A full brand identity typically includes strategy (who you are, who you're for, what you stand for), a logo system (primary mark, variations, favicon), a colour palette and typography system, guidelines for how it all works together, and often a set of templates or collateral to get you started.
The more of those layers you need, the higher the cost. That's not a trick. It's just scope.
Here's roughly how the market breaks down in 2026. A junior freelancer doing logo-only work will charge somewhere between €300 and €1,500. A senior freelancer (five to fifteen years of experience) delivering a full brand identity will sit in the €3,000 to €15,000 range, depending on scope and deliverables. A boutique agency will charge €10,000 to €30,000 for the same work, and a large agency with a full team will start at €25,000 and go well beyond €50,000.
Those are broad numbers. The point isn't to memorise them. The point is that when you're comparing quotes, you need to know what's actually included.
What you're paying for (it's not just the logo)
I've had clients tell me they got a quote from someone else for a third of my price. When I ask what was included, it's usually a logo and a colour palette. That's it. No strategy, no guidelines, no system.
That's fine if that's all you need. But if you're building a company that will need a website, social templates, packaging, pitch decks, and a consistent presence across ten platforms, a logo on its own won't hold up. You'll end up spending more later fixing the gaps.
When I work on a brand identity, the bulk of the time isn't spent drawing. It's spent thinking. Understanding the business, the audience, the competitors. Figuring out where the brand sits in the market and what it needs to say that nobody else is saying. The visual work is the output of that thinking, not the starting point.
That process is what separates a €500 logo from a €5,000 brand identity. The logo might even look similar. The difference is that one of them was designed with a reason behind every decision, and the other was a style exercise.
The agency premium (and when it makes sense)
Agencies are more expensive because they have more overhead. Office space, account managers, project managers, junior designers, senior designers, strategists. You're paying for the infrastructure.
Sometimes that infrastructure is exactly what you need. If you're a company with fifty stakeholders, a complex approval process, and a twelve-month rollout, an agency can manage that in a way most freelancers can't. The premium is justified.
But if you're a startup, a small business, or a founder building something from scratch, you probably don't need all that. What you need is a senior person with good judgment who can move quickly and talk to you directly. That's what a freelancer offers. Fewer layers, faster decisions, and your money goes toward the work itself, not the machinery around it.
Why location stopped mattering
This is the part most pricing guides get wrong. They still frame design costs by country, as if hiring a designer in Lisbon is somehow a compromise compared to hiring one in London.
Five years ago, that framing might have made sense. Today it doesn't.
I'm based in Portugal. I work with clients in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, the US. We use the same tools, the same video calls, the same file-sharing systems as everyone else. The timezone difference with most of Europe is zero or one hour. With the US east coast, it's five. That's manageable.
What actually matters is the designer's experience, their process, and whether their taste aligns with what you're building. None of that is determined by a postcode. A designer with fourteen years of international experience who happens to live in Porto is not a budget option. They're a smart one.
The companies that figured this out years ago, the ones that hired the best person for the job regardless of where they sat, are the ones with the strongest brands now. Remote work didn't lower the bar. It widened the talent pool.
The red flags in a quote
Not every cheap quote is bad and not every expensive one is good. But there are patterns worth watching for.
If someone quotes you a full brand identity for under €1,000, ask what's included. You'll usually find it's a logo with a few mockups. That's not a brand identity. It's a deliverable.
If someone can't explain their process, that's a problem. Good design work follows a structure: research, strategy, exploration, refinement, delivery. If the designer jumps straight to 'I'll send you three concepts next week', there's no thinking behind the work. You're paying for decoration.
If the quote doesn't mention revisions, ask about them. Unlimited revisions sounds generous but usually means the designer doesn't have a clear process. Two or three structured revision rounds is healthier for both sides.
And if someone quotes you €30,000 but can't show you work at that level, trust your gut. Price is not a proxy for quality. The work is.
It works both ways, though. A good designer will ask things of you too. They'll want a deposit (usually 50%) before starting. They'll send a proposal or contract outlining what's included. They'll set deadlines for your feedback, not just theirs. If a designer doesn't do any of that, it's not a sign they're easygoing. It's a sign they don't have a process, and that almost always leads to scope creep, missed deadlines, and frustration on both sides.
What would I actually charge?
Numbers are easier to understand with context. So here are three hypothetical projects and what I'd charge for each one, with the reasoning behind it.
A tech startup needs a full brand identity before their launch in three months.
They have a name and a rough idea of their audience, but nothing visual yet. They need a logo system, colour palette, typography, brand guidelines, and a set of social media templates to get started. I'd quote this between €6,000 and €9,000. The strategy and exploration phase is where most of the time goes. Understanding the market, developing a direction, testing it, refining it. The deliverables themselves are the output of that thinking. Three months is a comfortable timeline, which means fewer rush fees and better work. I'd ask for 50% upfront and structure the project in three phases: strategy, design exploration, and final delivery with two rounds of revisions at each stage.
A restaurant opening in Porto wants a logo, menu design, and a simple signage system.
The owners have strong opinions about the vibe they want but no design language yet. This is a smaller scope than a full brand identity, but it's still identity work. I'd charge €3,000 to €5,000 depending on how many menu formats they need and whether the signage requires production-ready files or just design direction. Restaurant projects tend to involve a lot of back-and-forth on the 'feel' of the brand, so I'd build that into the timeline. Again, 50% deposit before starting, with a clear agreement on what's included and how many revision rounds we get.
An established company wants to refresh their brand without starting from scratch.
They like their logo but everything else feels dated. They need an updated colour system, new typography, refreshed guidelines, and a few key templates. A refresh is a different kind of project from a new identity. You're working within constraints, which can actually be harder because you need to know what to keep and what to change. I'd price this at €4,000 to €7,000. The strategic thinking is just as important here, maybe more so, because you're making decisions about what still works and what's holding them back.
In all three cases, I'd send a written proposal outlining the scope, timeline, deliverables, revision rounds, and payment terms before any work starts. That's not bureaucracy. That's how both sides avoid surprises.
What I'd actually recommend
If you're reading this and trying to figure out what to budget, here's what I'd suggest.
Know what you need before you ask for quotes. 'I need a brand identity' is vague. 'I need a logo, colour system, type system, and brand guidelines for my SaaS product launching in three months' gives a designer something to price accurately.
Get two or three quotes from designers whose work you actually like. Don't just compare prices. Compare what's included, what the process looks like, and how many revisions you get. The cheapest quote is rarely the best value.
Budget somewhere between €3,000 and €10,000 if you're a startup or small business looking for serious work from a senior freelancer. That range gets you a real process, not just a pretty output.
And don't choose a designer based on where they live. Choose them based on whether their work makes you feel something.
One last thing
I write about this stuff because I think the design industry has a transparency problem. Clients don't know what things should cost, so they either overpay for mediocre agency work or underpay for something that was never going to be good enough. Both outcomes waste time and money.
And while I'm being honest: the culture of free work makes it worse. Every time a designer works for 'exposure' or does a full project as a 'test', it drags down the floor for everyone. Clients who have never paid properly for design don't know what proper looks like. That's not their fault. It's ours, collectively, for not talking about this openly enough.
If you're in the middle of this decision right now and want a straight answer about what your project would cost, you can reach out through my services page. No pitch, no pressure. Just a conversation about what you need and whether I'm the right person for it.
