Why are branding projects so expensive?

I like to think of branding projects and logo projects as two phrases with completely different meanings. Take this quote from Entrepreneur.com for instance. They define branding as: “The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products.”

A logo is a part of a brand, and branding is partially logo design. But, a logo is not the full branding service. Get what I’m sayin’?

Branding (should) incorporate color palettes, business naming, typeface design and selection, brand positioning/strategy, and lots and lots of analysis. If you worked with a branding agency that didn’t do much for your brand or did a terrible job of designing your logo, they probably didn’t have a process. More on that process thing in a little bit.

So, why are branding agencies wanting to charge you so much money for branding projects? Why are they so expensive?

They take a lot of time and resources

The fact is, a well thought out branding project that is going to be a win for your company is just going to take a lot of time and resources. You might be able to find a freelancer that is local to you that slipped through the cracks who will deliver one hell of a branding project to you at a great cost, but don’t expect to get great deals from the more prominent agencies around town. Some people are going to charge based on value, some on a per-project basis, but expect at the very least to have your branding project start at $10k+.

Additionally, if you are thinking about throwing in a website, interior designing, or have an even bigger project slated and want a large agency in your state or in the United States to do it for you, you are talking about a decent sum of money. Probably $150,000+ at least.

 But let’s talk about processes.

Lots of moving parts

Usually, there is a lot going on during the branding process, so I’ll try to make this as brief as possible. Branding projects typically go through a 7-part process. No agency will probably have this same process, and not every client will go through this same process, this is more or less to give you a feel of what will happen and why the branding process takes a while/is so expensive. So let’s dive in!

#1 Digital Strategy/Brand Strategy

At least from what I know from being in the industry, both digital strategy and brand strategy should be included during the branding process. Some will only have a brand strategy, some will have a strategy. Whatever it’s called, it’s probably all similar in nature. They want to know more about you, why you are wanting to do this, your goals, how you want to grow, and to whom we are creating the new brand identity.

#2 Related images to the brand/Moodboarding

I will come out and say early in this section that finding related assets for the brand and mood boarding are not the same thing. You can find images, words, typefaces, and collateral and place them onto a mood board, but these are two separate processes. Some agencies like to utilize a mood boarding process early on in the branding process, but agencies are all different, and so are their processes. 

The reason to even do a mood board in the first place is to find assets or to get a sense of the brand you want. The initial strategy and calls/meet-ups go over tone/voice, look/feel, but agencies want to know what that actually looks like. They need to take something abstract and make it something real. Finding assets and creating mood boards are great ways to do that.

#3 Typefaces

Sometimes agencies will start the typeface process early on with you, and again, it depends on the agency. During the mood boarding process, it is typical to only see a few different typefaces in the different type selections on the mood boards themselves: Serif, Sans Serif, Script, Blackletter, etc. They want to find the type that is going to match your brand, so this is a very important part of the process. Lots of different type choices will be shown during the sketching and showing portion of the process, but they want to nail down the classification before they start going down the wrong creative direction for your brand.

#4 Sketches

I know, all of those other things before we get a pencil to paper? Seems excessive, maybe? I wish I could agree with you, but all of what they have done before the sketching process leads up to them creating what they think is going to be the best fit for your brand. Without all of the analysis and creative direction, they’d just waste 3 weeks on Pinterest trying to search for a “clean and minimalistic” logo you said you wanted and come back to you with something that doesn’t fit who you are.

So what is sketching? Well, I like to call it “aimlessly filling the space on my dot grid notebook, wondering why everything looks… off.” Because sketching usually includes random shapes and a mush of drawings, they aren’t going to show you this part of the process. But I’ll tell you during the sketching process they’ll create anywhere from 5, to 179 different sketches of your mark. After picking what seems to be the wrong one over and over again, they’ll end up condensing just slightly in Illustrator so things aren’t so crazy in the file itself. During this part of the process, marks will only be created in black and white. Agencies really don’t need to make things incredibly difficult with colors at this point in the process. That’s for later, of course.

#5 Showing the marks on paper

Everything created on a computer is going to look strangely digital and “off.” Although there is lots of creativity on the Internet, the brand that is being created for your company isn’t going to just live on a website; it’s going to be shown in your store, on your coffee cup, featured on your packaging, and so on. The agency will need to physically print out all of this stuff so they know if it will look good when it’s brought into the real world.

Each mark is printed on a sheet of white paper, showcased only in black and white. Narrowing down selections to the best 3-5 is key here so they can get going on what they think is the winner.

#6 Colors

Colors are incredibly hard to find for brands. Not only is the pressure on to get it right, sometimes it is tough to find what is going to work for each specific brand especially if the brand is one with a long, rich history, and customers have associated them with those specific colors.

Sometimes it’s good to cut the cord and bring in a new look. So, what’s the color process look like?

Let’s go back to the last section, where your agency essentially will pick the losers and the winners. Those 3-5 winners that we have will go through the color process. Usually, brands will have anywhere from 4-6+ different colors. So for these marks, we want to pick 4-5 colors that will work well with the brand and with the mark itself. When colors pair well with the marks, they are put off to the side and from there, the 3-5 best color combinations are selected.

#7 The winner’s circle

A winner has to come from all of this, and that’s what the agency has you for! Out of the 3 selections that are brought to the last meeting, you get to decide what the face of your brand is. During this process, it is often normal for the agency to “mock-up” the logo and brand identity into different situations, like on your product packaging, and featured on billboards. The agency you are working with will pick different options based upon the offerings that your brand has.

Not so easy, huh? Like I said earlier, there is a lot going on during the branding process. They aren’t charging what they are charging because this is quick and easy. To create something unique, meaningful, and impactful, it takes time and a lot of effort between both of you. But why are some branding projects more expensive than others?

It is important to who you are

A brand is literally who you are as a company. This is the impression you are going to make on new customers and to your most passionate, loyal customers. Why not make it the best you can make it? It would be very counterproductive to create a brand for your company that you aren’t proud of or didn’t put a lot of effort into. If you hate your brand or think it was cheaply done, there’s no doubt your customers think the same.

And if you really don’t care about the quality of your brand or the way the public perceives it, here’s a short rant for you: You created your company to provide value to the community around you. If you don’t care about your brand, why should your customers? Your community? Your employees? This works both ways. If you half-ass a branding project, a website, your packaging, whatever it might be, everyone will know it. I guarantee it. 

So how does a branding project being important make it expensive?

Not to answer my own question or anything, but it’s in the phrase itself. If the project means a lot to you and your brand and you stand to lose or gain a lot from the project itself, it’s important. Bad publicity and people critiquing the new brand is going to happen at the start, but what you don’t want to happen is rebranding again 2 years from now because what the agency created for you just doesn’t work. This should be something that lasts for a long time and is (mostly) why it costs a lot of money.

How do you know when you need a new logo or a brand refresh?

You might be getting feedback from your clients, your friends, or your employees that things are looking a little… off.

Hopefully, by now, someone has been honest with you and straight up told you things are looking a little dated. Give that person a nice gift for the 2025 holiday season. They are someone you need around more often. But if not, let a third party (like us) give you an overview of what we think can be done to spruce things up and bring you back to life. Let’s make something great together.