You’re starting a business, the budget’s tight, and someone’s just quoted you four figures for “brand identity work”. Meanwhile a free app says it’ll make you a logo in thirty seconds. Somewhere between those two extremes is what you actually need. Let’s find it.
What a logo actually costs in the UK
Logo design cost is one of those questions where every answer online says “it depends” and then never tells you on what. So here are real numbers, including our own.
| Route | Typical cost | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free logo generator | £0 | A template icon thousands of others also use, often low-resolution |
| Marketplace freelancer | roughly £50 to £300 | Varies wildly; you’re gambling on the individual |
| MarketingDone4U Starter | £199 one-off | 1 logo concept, colour palette, font recommendation, logo files |
| MarketingDone4U Growth | £399 one-off | 2 concepts, font pairing, brand style sheet, social profile image, web-ready assets |
| MarketingDone4U Pro | £699 one-off | Visual direction, detailed brand guide, social templates, email signature, launch graphic pack |
| Traditional design agency | often £1,500+ | Full brand strategy, workshops, extensive guidelines |
Those middle three rows are our own published prices, so you can hold us to them. See the full breakdown of what each plan costs.
A brand identity is more than the logo mark. It’s the logo plus the colours, fonts and rules for using them, which is why the tiers above scale on assets rather than on how pretty the logo is. The £199 logo and the £699 logo can look equally good. The difference is everything wrapped around it.
Why “free” usually isn’t
Free generators produce something, and something feels better than nothing at 11pm before launch. But three problems show up later.
You don’t stand out. Generators assemble logos from shared icon libraries. The little roof-and-spanner icon you picked is on hundreds of other trade businesses already.
The files are wrong. You often get one small PNG. Then the sign maker asks for a vector file, the embroiderer asks for a single-colour version, and you’re stuck.
Ownership can be murky. Some tools restrict how you can use the output, or charge to unlock proper files. Read the terms before you build a business on one.
None of that makes generators useless. For testing a business idea this weekend, fine. For the brand you’ll put on a van, a shopfront and a website, £199 is a small price for something that’s actually yours.
Colours and fonts: the cheap part everyone gets wrong
Here’s the honest bit: most small businesses don’t fail on the logo. They fail on consistency. A decent logo used consistently beats a brilliant logo used chaotically.
Pick one main colour, one accent, and two fonts (one for headings, one for body text), and then never deviate. Write them down, hex codes and all. That one page of notes is the poor man’s brand guide, and it’s the reason a one-person cleaning company can look more professional than a ten-person rival.
This matters most on your website, where visitors judge you in seconds. If the brand and the site are being built together, it’s worth reading our guide to small business website design so the two jobs happen in the right order: brand first, then site.
What’s skippable at launch (and what isn’t)
Not everything a branding agency sells belongs in a startup budget. Here’s how we’d triage it.
Worth paying for on day one: a proper logo with the right file formats, a defined colour palette, and font choices. That’s the £199 tier, and it covers a business that’s mostly online and local.
Worth it once you’re trading: a brand style sheet, social templates and web-ready assets, so anyone who touches your marketing keeps it consistent. That’s the £399 Growth tier, and it’s the one most of our clients pick.
Skippable until you’re established: brand strategy workshops, taglines by committee, and a 40-page guidelines document nobody opens. If you’re a plumber in Wilmslow, your brand strategy is “answer the phone and do tidy work”. The £699 Pro tier earns its keep when you’re hiring, franchising or launching with a real campaign, not before.
And if you’re still deciding whether the website itself comes first, our honest take on whether you need a website at all is the place to start.
Don’t let the words let the visuals down
One last thing owners forget: a sharp logo sitting above waffly text still loses the sale. Branding gets people to trust the surface, then your copy has to do the persuading. Once the visuals are sorted, our formula for website copy that sells picks up where the logo leaves off.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a logo cost in the UK?
Anywhere from free to several thousand pounds. Realistically, a professional logo for a UK small business costs £199 to £699 as a one-off. MarketingDone4U charges £199 for one concept with colours and fonts, £399 for two concepts with a brand style sheet, and £699 for a full launch brand pack.
Is a free logo generator good enough for a small business?
For testing an idea, yes. For a business you’re serious about, usually not. Generator logos are built from shared icon libraries, so they rarely look unique, and you often don’t get the vector files that printers and sign makers need. A £199 professional logo avoids all of that for a modest one-off cost.
What files should I get with a professional logo?
At minimum: a vector file (SVG or EPS) that scales to any size, high-resolution PNGs with transparent backgrounds, and versions for light and dark backgrounds. A single-colour version helps for embroidery and print. All MarketingDone4U branding packages include proper logo files, and the Growth tier adds web-ready and social assets.
Do I need a full brand guide when I’m starting out?
No. At launch you need a logo, a colour palette and two fonts, used consistently everywhere. A one-page style sheet covers that, which is what our £399 Growth package includes. A detailed brand guide becomes worthwhile once other people (staff, printers, marketers) start producing things in your name without you checking every piece.
How long does a logo design take?
For a small business package, expect days rather than months. The pace mostly depends on how quickly you give feedback between concept and final files. Agency brand projects with workshops and multiple stakeholders stretch to weeks or months, which is one more reason a fixed-price package suits most new businesses better.
Want this done for you? See our website plans with hosting included, or compare every service and price in one place.
