Branding can cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars up to multi-millions for larger corporations. What's the difference in what you get and how much should you invest in your business' brand?
Here's a general list of prices that start-up and small growing businesses should expect to pay for a professional branding project that may include a combination of the following: naming, positioning & strategy, messaging, logo & identity design, copy, website design and development, creation of marketing materials, company culture and messaging.
1. CREATING SOMETHING FROM NOTHING: Budget < $2,000
New businesses typically don’t have a lot of cash to spend on branding, so it’s understandable that they would look for low-cost ways to get the logo and website they need to be competitive. Between fiverr.com, which offers all kinds of design services for $5; squarespace.com, with its free and almost free logos; 99designs.com, which offers crowd-sourced logos, identity, and website; and the infinite freelancers on Craigslist who will design anything and everything at all price points, it is possible to piece together a logo and maybe website for under a thousand dollars.
The question is: will it have a brand and badass business behind it that will actually make money? What if you could get more than design, but an actual business and brand that attracts clients, and is easy to sell? Learn what you should and shouldn't spend time and money on here:
How To Build a Badass Brand on a Shoestring Budget: Free & Cheap Resources
2. GENERAL STARTUP & SMALL BUSINESS REBRANDING PRICES: $2,000 - $15,000
If you have a little money to spend, you will be able to hire a more seasoned designer, but he or she will not offer the strategies and marketing insights you can find with a brander. A designer will create your logo, brand identity, and website, but will not build your brand. A designer cannot help you answer why people will buy from you instead of your competitors, and then design your brand to support that message. Instead, you must trust your own knowledge about branding and marketing.
Because so many small businesses need a brand but don’t have a big budget, Worstofall developed an affordable all-in-one branding package that strategizes your message and builds it out into all your materials. We’re able to deliver agency level strategy and work for less than an agency because we built a unique process that allows us to execute the entire brand in 1-2-day intensives called Brandups. Clients are people who want to start selling now with a badass, professional brand and don't have six months to waste working with a company. Read more about our process here.
3. SMALL BUSINESS w/ $1 million+ in Revenue: $15,000- $60,000
For small businesses that have been in operation for a number of years, this is typically the price range for a rebrand and redesign/development of materials. The price is determined by a number of factors: the size of the company and its overhead, the size of the website, the number of deliverables, and the team’s experience level. Unfortunately, price does not always equal value. Plenty of small agencies deliver design, rather than brand. Vet your agency carefully. Be sure the team will go beyond merely executing what you are thinking. (If that’s what you want, you can get it for less.) On the other hand, unless you’re a branding expert or have a background in marketing, hire a strategically minded company that you like, and then trust them to do what they do best.
4. MID SIZED- LARGE BUSINESSES: $60,000+
For larger companies or institutions with a lot of decision makers or big websites that require high functionality, the bill can increase pretty significantly. We won’t go into details here, because companies at this level usually aren’t reading articles about the cost of branding.
