Edip Kilinc is the founder of Webwavers. Together with his team, he develops websites, brands, and digital presences for ambitious companies – with over 250 completed projects and accolades including the German Design Award 2026.
Logo only, without system: 800 to 8,000 euros. Symbol in several variants, file formats, basic rules on color and spacing. Sufficient for startups and small businesses that primarily need a symbol.
Logo plus basic system: 6,000 to 15,000 euros. Additionally color world, typography, business stationery, a compact guide. The usual scope for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Complete corporate design: 15,000 to 40,000 euros. In addition visual language, design elements, applications across multiple media, detailed brand guide, often also tonality and brand core.
With brand strategy: from 35,000 euros. Positioning, target group work, brand core, and name development are added. Useful for repositioning, merger, or succession.
These ranges apply to agencies with their own concept work. Platforms and competition portals are significantly cheaper – there you buy a drawing, not a system.
Logo only, without system: 800 to 8,000 euros. Symbol in several variants, file formats, basic rules on color and spacing. Sufficient for startups and small businesses that primarily need a symbol.
Logo plus basic system: 6,000 to 15,000 euros. Additionally color world, typography, business stationery, a compact guide. The usual scope for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Complete corporate design: 15,000 to 40,000 euros. In addition visual language, design elements, applications across multiple media, detailed brand guide, often also tonality and brand core.
With brand strategy: from 35,000 euros. Positioning, target group work, brand core, and name development are added. Useful for repositioning, merger, or succession.
These ranges apply to agencies with their own concept work. Platforms and competition portals are significantly cheaper – there you buy a drawing, not a system.
The difference lies in three things, and none of them is the drawing.
Research. What is the competition doing? Which symbols are already taken in the industry? What associations does a shape trigger? Without this step, a symbol is created that happens to look like three others in the same market.
Justifiability. A well-thought-out symbol can be explained – why this shape, why this angle, why this color. This is not an end in itself: a logo that can be justified survives a change of taste in the management.
Applicability. Does it work small, in single color, engraved, embroidered, on a dark background? These tests take time and are the reason why cheap logos cause problems later on.
In addition, there is the legal aspect: a search for prior trademark rights costs extra and, in the worst case, prevents a fresh start.
This is how the effort is distributed for a complete corporate design costing around 22,000 euros:
Item | Share |
|---|---|
Research, competition, positioning | €2,800 |
Brand mark incl. variants | €5,400 |
Color world and typography | €2,600 |
Visual language and design elements | €3,200 |
Stationery | €2,400 |
Application examples across media | €2,800 |
Brand Guide | €2,800 |
Total | €22,000 |
Striking: The logo itself makes up just under a quarter. The rest is the system around it – exactly the part that is used in everyday life.
The brand guide acts like documentation and is therefore often cut. This is the most expensive saving decision in the entire project.
Without a guide, every application decides anew what the design should look like. After two years, there are four variants of the logo, three shades of blue, and two fonts. Every correction after that costs more than the guide would have cost.
What a usable guide must contain: the rules that are actually needed in everyday work – logo variants with clear space, color values for all media, font sizes with their intended use, image criteria, two to three finished templates.
What it does not need: forty pages of brand philosophy. A guide that is not used is just as expensive as none at all.
Saving sensibly:
On the number of application examples. Three well-developed ones are more valuable than twelve hinted at.
On the business stationery. Business card, letterhead, and presentation template are enough to start with. Exhibition stand and vehicle lettering will come when they are needed.
On photo production. Define image criteria and work with existing material first, instead of producing immediately.
Do not save on:
The research phase. This is the part that prevents you from looking like your competition.
The trademark search. The costs are in the three-figure range, the risk in the five-figure range.
The brand guide. See above.
A corporate design is not a one-time expense. What comes after is rarely planned for.
Conversion of existing assets. Signage, vehicles, printed matter, workwear, website. Depending on the company, 3,000 to 30,000 euros. This can be stretched out, but not avoided.
Font licenses. 200 to 2,000 euros one-off, with some providers annually. Clarify beforehand, otherwise the question will arise after the project.
New applications. Every year, formats are added that nobody predicted. Expect 1,500 to 4,000 euros annually if this is done externally.
System maintenance. After two to three years, a review is worthwhile: What is being used, what is being bypassed, where are rules missing? A half day that prevents a lot of uncontrolled growth.
