Everyone’s asking. Few are saying. Let me be direct.
Brand design for a small business in the UK typically runs from around £2,500 at the lower end of proper strategic work, through to £12,000 or more for a comprehensive project that includes strategy, visual identity, guidelines, and website design. That wide range isn’t evasion — it reflects the genuine differences in scope, depth, and what you’re actually getting.
Here’s how to think about where you sit.
What drives the cost
The price of brand design isn’t arbitrary. A few things determine where a project lands.
Scope. A logo and a basic style guide is one thing. A full brand strategy exercise, a logo suite, a comprehensive identity system, brand guidelines, and website design is another. More work, more cost — that’s straightforward.
Strategic depth. Some design work starts from a brief and executes against it. Other work starts earlier — asking harder questions about positioning, differentiation, and what the brand needs to do commercially before anything visual gets made. The second approach takes more time and delivers more value. If you’re paying less, the strategic thinking probably isn’t happening.
The designer’s experience. Someone early in their career charges less. Someone with twenty years of brand strategy work across start-ups, SMEs, and global organisations charges more. Both might produce a logo. Only one is likely to build you a brand.
Your stage. A start-up validating an idea needs something different from an established SME entering a new market. The right brief — and the right investment — depends on where you actually are.
Honest ranges
For SME-level brand work in the UK, this is broadly what to expect.
A focused identity project — strategy session, logo design, core visual identity, and basic guidelines — typically sits somewhere between £2,500 and £5,000.
A comprehensive brand project — in-depth strategy, full identity system, detailed guidelines, and website design — runs from £5,000 to £12,000 for an independent designer working at the level this kind of work requires.
Larger or more complex projects — multiple markets, extended collateral, brand launch support — go beyond that.
The designers quoting £500 or £800 are delivering something. But it’s usually a logo, not a brand. Worth knowing the difference before you commit to either.
The investment argument
I’m based in Surrey and work with founders and SMEs across the UK — London, Surrey, and South London being where much of my work sits. Wherever they’re based, the clients I tend to work with are at a stage where the brand question is a commercial one, not a cosmetic one. Getting it right makes a real difference to how they’re perceived, how they’re chosen, and what they can charge.
Andy Clayton at FermTech described the brand work as “the cornerstone of several successful businesses.” Jon Holden at Iterum was more specific: “Bob’s work significantly contributed to our initial investment and early success.”
Neither of those is a design claim. They’re business outcomes. And they reflect something I see often: a brand built on the right foundations becomes an asset that pays back well beyond its cost.
The useful question, then, isn’t “how much does brand design cost?” It’s: what does having the right brand make possible for my business?
Not sure what’s right for your stage?
If you’re genuinely unsure what level of investment makes sense — or what scope of project would actually serve you at this point — that’s the conversation to have before you commit to anything.
A 30-minute Discovery Call is where I work through exactly this. What a project might involve, what scope makes sense given where you are, and whether I’m the right fit. No obligation and no pitch — just a clear-headed conversation.
