How much should I charge for a logo?

[Serpentine]

As it says on the tin.

Background: Several years ago I made this logo for a university sci-fi/fantasy club (just the image, not the text):

Spoiler

Show

It was an in-club competition for T-shirt designs, specifically. I've realised recently that they're still using it, and for darn near everything - T-shirts, Facebook, announcements, etc.

It's caught the attention of a similar club at the other end of the country, and they want to commission me to make another logo, for them. For cash-moneys and all.

But how the hell much do I charge? (Australian $)

Possibly relevant information:
- This would be my first paid commission of this type.
- I don't think they have a clear idea of what they want yet, so I'll likely start by brainstorming with them and then giving a few rough sketches of possible ideas.
- Unlike the dragon/alien logo, which we agreed I could do what I want with after a couple of years, I expect they'll be wanting full rights over the use of this one.

[Chen]

For something of equivalent complexity, maybe $100-$200? You can get fairly generic design stuff done for like $50 and if they're a school club I imagine they're not too full of cash.

[Iruka]

How much would you end up with if you assume Minimum Wage for your time? Would you be comfortable with charging that?

edit: I had a bit of a look around and 150-200 € seems to be the lower end of what you pay for a single logo on a crowdsourcing platform around here. I have however no idea how german wages compare to australian ones.

[GrimmTrigger]

I have often had to ask this kind of question for some work I do on the side. The answer I keep getting is: What would you be comfortable accepting as an hourly wage for your work? Deciding on a set price will often come back to bite you as things need to be adjusted or fixed. Estimates are fine, but make sure you are not giving away or time or product.

[AMFV]

Some brief internet research reveals that the low end for graphics design work is 25-50 an hour for labor costs. I would charge at least 30 for most normal clients, else you risk undercutting your fellows and screwing them over. Now since this is a school club thing maybe give them a 10-20% discount based on that. So you're looking at something like. 24 an hour for your labor costs, plus the cost of any materials and sunk time. Plus probably a downpayment in-case they change their minds or what not.

It's really important to remember that when you're pricing your services that affects everybody around you, not just you. And a lot of people who do side work like that underprice themselves so grossly that it can hurt the market for all the other people in that field.

[Brother Oni]

My wife is self employed doing this sort of thing. I'll ask her and get back to you.

[Serpentine]

My wife is self employed doing this sort of thing. I'll ask her and get back to you.

Please, thank you!

I did some rough maths, and I think the prize I won for my first design (a T-shirt with my design on it and two tickets to a movie (that I never used...)) would be worth somewhere around $40-50 if I'd been given cash instead. So I guess that's my starting point.
I think I'll try and put together some questions to ask them about what they want and what they want to do with it and the like to start us off.

[Algeh]

It's really important to remember that when you're pricing your services that affects everybody around you, not just you. And a lot of people who do side work like that underprice themselves so grossly that it can hurt the market for all the other people in that field.

This is very true. It's one of the reasons I got out of pet-sitting/dog walking - there were always random college students who were just trying to make minimum wage or beer money (and who probably weren't reporting their income on their tax forms), so I couldn't charge enough to actually make a living out of it if I needed to pay for adult things like rent and insurance. (I tried specializing in pets with fragile health or special behavior issues for a while, which might have worked if I'd really hustled for it since those owners were more willing to pay extra for someone who seems more professional. I eventually gave up and went back to teaching.)

That reminds me - this varies a lot by country, but where I live there are some taxes that employers pay "for" you without them showing up as part of your general pay rate. Self employed people get to pay these on their own behalf, and a lot of newcomers are surprised their first year because they didn't realize they needed to set their rates to include them. This is another reason why charging more than minimum wage is a good idea, since those doing this for a living need that extra above minimum wage to make minimum wage rates after paying those taxes.

[Anarion]

If you think there's a chance that they use this for a long while, you could consider something a bit more speculative combined with the flat cash fee. Say, $40 and a 5% share of the revenue they make from any sales with the logo on it for the next several years. I think something like that might be fair since it sounds like they're asking you to give them all the rights to the logo forever, whereas normally as an artist you draw a thing and let them use it but still own the actual drawing.

[Brother Oni]

Please, thank you!

TL,DR: 50-60 AUD for a logo sounds about right to her.

Longer answer: she says definitely don't go below minimum wage (Google says this is 18.29 AUD, but is probably dependent on state) and assume at least an hour's worth of work initially.

Depending on how many draft designs you provide them and how many times you let them go around the feedback loop, you'll want to charge more (some professionals allow only once around the loop before they charge extra), particularly if they want a complete redesign later on.

Depending on how you want to be paid, you'll probably want to include banking charges; some digging indicates Paypal charges 2.9% for online payments in Australia. There's some more concerns if you're using Paypal:

Spoiler: Extra Paypal hoops to jump through

Show

• Payment must be made through 'Paying for an item or service' and not 'Friends and family'; you can't ask the client to pay the transactions charges for you as it's against Paypal's TOS (it's technically a business transaction) and may result in your account being frozen if discovered;
• The client should also select 'No address needed' as digital art isn't delivered as physical goods. There's been reports of malicious clients reporting that they haven't received their goods and getting both their payments refunded and the artist's account frozen.

With regard to the tax burden, it depends on how regularly you're planning to do this. If you enjoy this and are planning to do it more regularly, I would advise looking into it in some more detail.
For comparison, my wife has set up her own company, operating as a sole trader (a definition which also exists in Australia).

Ask for payment BEFORE you've done any work. She has heard of numerous stories of clients stopping contact after delivery and not paying; this includes drafts (they take the drafts and finish it themselves without paying the original artist). Similarly she's had clients where their previous artist has taken full payment upfront and not provided any artwork, so scamming works both ways.
She recommends getting half up front, then the second half once they're happy with the final design and you can start finalising the artwork; this way you get something if they flake out after the drafts stage and they only lose half the money if you are unable to complete the commission for whatever reason.

If you'd like an example of her work, how she works and what she charges, let me know and I'll send something by PM.

Edit: Don't send the client your source file with all the layer information (.psd or whatever), send them a bitmap, jpeg or some other flattened image. In case of a dispute, being able to provide the original file to the relevant authority greatly strengthens your case.

If you think there's a chance that they use this for a long while, you could consider something a bit more speculative combined with the flat cash fee. Say, $40 and a 5% share of the revenue they make from any sales with the logo on it for the next several years. I think something like that might be fair since it sounds like they're asking you to give them all the rights to the logo forever, whereas normally as an artist you draw a thing and let them use it but still own the actual drawing.

While I don't think this option is a good idea, if she does choose this payment route and they accept, I highly suggest getting a contract drawn up.

I'll also say that although they own the logo, Serpentine still retains some rights regarding its usage - I suggest reading up on it online as we're heading into legal advice territory now.

[ve4grm]

If you think there's a chance that they use this for a long while, you could consider something a bit more speculative combined with the flat cash fee. Say, $40 and a 5% share of the revenue they make from any sales with the logo on it for the next several years. I think something like that might be fair since it sounds like they're asking you to give them all the rights to the logo forever, whereas normally as an artist you draw a thing and let them use it but still own the actual drawing.

At minimum, if they want all rights, you should ask to maintain the right to display it for portfolio use, both online and in print.

[Jay R]

Charge enough that it is worth your time, but not so much that nobody will buy it.

Beyond that, pricing theory is a deep, complex subject. Corporations spend millions of dollars trying to solve it. I promise you that if I could come up with a clear, correct answer to that question, I would not be wasting my time in this forum answering questions for free.

[AMFV]

Charge enough that it is worth your time, but not so much that nobody will buy it.

Beyond that, pricing theory is a deep, complex subject. Corporations spend millions of dollars trying to solve it. I promise you that if I could come up with a clear, correct answer to that question, I would not be wasting my time in this forum answering questions for free.

If it helps you could start a thread asking people how much you should charge for the answer. I kid, I kid.

[Serpentine]

Some really helpful stuff here, thanks!

I've got some questions I want to ask them before I offer a quote. What do you think? And are there any others I should ask?

- I assume you want all the rights to the design in perpetuity?
- What is the main thing you will be using it for - t-shirts, pamphlets, ads?
- What other things will you want to use it for?
- Will you be selling things with this design, e.g. t-shirts, for a profit?
- Do you want one design that can just be adapted to different uses, or would you like a few different ones - e.g. a large, full version for t-shirts; a smaller, simplified version for pamphlets etc; and a rectangular banner version?
- Do you have any particular ideas in mind already, or starting blank?

[Chen]

If I were a customer and you asked me the "Will you be selling things with this design, e.g. t-shirts, for a profit?" I'm immediately thinking you're going to gouge me more on price if I say yes to that. Would leave a bad impression for me.

Why do you need that information?

[Serpentine]

Why shouldn't I charge a bit more if someone's going to use my design for profit than if they're not?
I believe I need to know what they intend to do with the artwork before I get started, both to guide my pricing and potentially to guide my design.

[Chen]

You should be charging for the work you're going to do. Unless you need to do extra work on the design if they are profiting off it (cant see what that would be) I dont see why the price would change. Its like a baker charging more for the exact same cake if you tell them its for a wedding vs a birthday.

[Xyril]

You should be charging for the work you're going to do. Unless you need to do extra work on the design if they are profiting off it (cant see what that would be) I dont see why the price would change. Its like a baker charging more for the exact same cake if you tell them its for a wedding vs a birthday.

In terms of fairness, I can see why this might offend you. In practice, this precise sort of thing happens all the time. In the free market, each individual transaction is pretty much a negotiation largely guided by supply (which factors in not only how much you have to sell, but also how much it costs you to provide what you're selling and how much you want to sell) and demand (which is again is an umbrella term encompassing on much the customer wants to buy from you, how much they can afford to pay, and how much they're willing to pay.)

If you someone wants a wedding cake, then chances are they've budgeted for a fancy cake and are unwilling to do without it. They're willing to pay a lot, and as someone trying to keep a business afloat and support yourself, you don't really have a reason not to charge more if they're willing. For a birthday, chances are people really want the cake, but maybe they're not willing to spend as much, or they're more willing to do without the cake and have, say, ice cream or some other substitute instead. If you want to optimize your sales, you may have to charge a bit less than a wedding cake--if your price is too high, then too many folks will just go with a substitute instead. And in terms of cakes just for fun, you probably have to charge the lowest price to get decent sales: There's no social convention pushing you towards cakes, meaning that people will probably care more about price when they're trying to decide from among numerous ways to treat themselves.

Similarly, a lot of people distinguish between for-profit and non-profit applications because the first can usually afford to pay more. In the case of more creative freelancers, however, there's an additional factor: When you're just starting out as, say, a musician, or a photographer, or a graphic designer, there's tremendous pressure to get your name out quickly, even if you're not turning a huge profit. The problem is that, with too many aspiring professionals being pressured to charge below market price (or nothing at all) in order to get "exposure," there will be a downward pressure on rates in general that make it much harder for professionals in general to make a living. One way to get exposure without contributing (as much) to this problem is to be firm in distinguishing between clients. If you're only willing to give reduced rates (or even charge nothing and write off your standard rate as a charitable donation) to charities and non-profit organizations, then you can encourage people to take a chance on you while not contributing to the bigger problem. I know quite a few freelancers who constantly deal with "Well, if you don't want this job I can just get a recent graduate to do it for the exposure" as a negotiating tactic. Imagine how much better things would be if you could honestly retort, "No, you can't. Those guys only do cheap work for charities. Once they're established enough to attract big businesses like you, they know that they can demand the full rate."

Also, as for the extra work (for the for-profit logo) that you can't see, one issue is legal. A lot of graphic designers (especially beginning ones) tend to be nebulous about what rights they are turning over. In my experience, when it's an amateur university club hiring a student, they turn over graphic files that have enough resolution for whatever the client said they'd use it for and give them the right to use them, but the artist keeps the vector file and neither party really clarifies who has ultimate rights to the image in general. However, if you're a for-profit organization, you generally want to make it a work for hire, meaning that the artist doesn't retain any rights that might pop up and interfere with their business later. Depending on the wording of the contract, sometimes this means that the artist can't even show a copy of the work in his portfolio. So from an intellectual property perspective, you generally have to charge more to for-profit businesses because they will generally demand more of your rights in turn.

More practically, a for profit business generally wants something that is versatile. A college club might be perfectly happy with something that looks decent on a facebook page or a t-shirt but looks horrible when scaled up to massive poster size. In my experience, businesses will try to get as much mileage as they can out of what you give them, and complain horribly if your work later proves unsuitable for something they never told you it might be used for. In fact, some might even go as far as to try to hire a very annoyed lawyer to sue a freelancer because the logo they purchased--which was specified to be a particular logo-sized resolution in the contract--looked ugly as sin when they tried to blow it up for a billboard. Having a good contract means you probably won't be sued successfully, but some freelancers consider the potential hassle dealing with businesses and price it into their standard rate.

[Brother Oni]

Further to Xyril's comments, knowing that your artwork will be used for merchandise is useful when directing any future clients towards examples of your work, even if you can't include it in your portfolio.

In my wife's case, she likes to know if people are planning to do things with her designs as she can adjust the artwork to be suitable for the intended use. She especially likes to know if it's going to be printed on something (or made into a sticker in one recent case), as she might like to purchase it.
One client liked a piece of commissioned artwork she did that they were looking into getting it turned into a limited run of a few hundred plush dolls - she helped turn a 2D design into a 3D one and would like to buy one herself.

There's a couple of other things that might influence the price, but we're heading into legal advice territory here and Xyril's touched on the main points.

[Chen]

In terms of fairness, I can see why this might offend you. In practice, this precise sort of thing happens all the time. In the free market, each individual transaction is pretty much a negotiation largely guided by supply (which factors in not only how much you have to sell, but also how much it costs you to provide what you're selling and how much you want to sell) and demand (which is again is an umbrella term encompassing on much the customer wants to buy from you, how much they can afford to pay, and how much they're willing to pay.)

I am well aware of the reality of the situation. Im saying people might get upset being asked up front that question so directly. Work that question in subtly if anything but coming right out and saying it is going to annoy people.

If you someone wants a wedding cake, then chances are they've budgeted for a fancy cake and are unwilling to do without it. They're willing to pay a lot, and as someone trying to keep a business afloat and support yourself, you don't really have a reason not to charge more if they're willing. For a birthday, chances are people really want the cake, but maybe they're not willing to spend as much, or they're more willing to do without the cake and have, say, ice cream or some other substitute instead. If you want to optimize your sales, you may have to charge a bit less than a wedding cake--if your price is too high, then too many folks will just go with a substitute instead. And in terms of cakes just for fun, you probably have to charge the lowest price to get decent sales: There's no social convention pushing you towards cakes, meaning that people will probably care more about price when they're trying to decide from among numerous ways to treat themselves.

To be fair, I know people who ordered a cake for a "celebration" and the person who delivered it was PISSED off that it ended up being a wedding. The cake would have been EXACTLY the same but cost double or triple the price if they knew it was for a wedding. That's absolutely ridiculous.

[Serpentine]

What they said.
I'm open to different ways of wording my question to get the same answer, though.

[Brother Oni]

What they said.
I'm open to different ways of wording my question to get the same answer, though.

To be honest, you could probably just drop the 'for profit' question, as you should be able to infer what they're planning to use it for between their answer to the first question (rights in perpetuity) and all the others.

If they ask "why?" to any the other questions, say that you may need to provide different versions of the design to get it to work for that purpose - a high resolution image with lots of detail would be fine for something large like a T-shirt or banner, but you'd need to simplify it for the letterhead of an A5 size pamphlet or something smaller.

As an example, Twitch emotes need to be submitted in 3 different sizes: 28x28, 56x56 and 112x112. Simply resizing the 112x112 image down to 28x28 usually ends up as indistinct mess at the lower resolution, so the image needs to be redone.

[Algeh]

You also might want to ask them about whether they need something that works on both dark and light backgrounds, which can definitely be an issue with t-shirts and such more than it is if they just want letterhead/business card type uses. If they'd like you to make multiple versions of a logo for those different use cases, that's something to charge extra for.

[Trog]

Hey Serp!

Ask them their budget for the project to begin. Then discuss what you could provide for that budget. If they have a low budget keep the design options and number of revisions possible simple and small and tell them that up front.

Ask them to provide you examples of what simple logos they like to get an idea of what they are shooting for. This helps please the customer and also tells you if the project is going to balloon out of control. The two answers ($50 but hey do up a logo with a painting of a battle between two armies in the background, and then..., and then...) might be wildly separated. In which case reign them back in.

Use is important for file preparation only. Customary to provide the original vector files to the client if they pay you for the job. Clip art sites will ask things about use and then charge more for items being resold, but that is because they also offer the same art for like $5 for web use. They have a low end to satisfy quick online use. In logo design you’re handing over everything, usually. The buyer retains all rights. And you charge full price.

For hourly rate estimate how long you know producing a design will take times a rate that is worth your time. Very subjective. If there will be a learning curve on your part to do it do not charge the customer for that time.

Good luck!

[Serpentine]

Hokay, here's what I've got to propose. Thoughts?

$60 - Logo designed to be legible at small and large sizes. Includes different sized final copies and minor variants if appropriate (e.g. slightly different shapes, colours). Includes brainstorming, research, sketching, feedback, reworking, etc.

Extras (can be added later):
$10 each - Additional concepts developed beyond the stage of sketches.
$15 - Expanded, more complex version of the logo designed for use as cover art, banners, bookmarks, etc.
$20 - A large-scale, more complex version of the logo specifically designed for use on T-shirts, posters, etc.
$25 each - Additional, unrelated T-shirt/poster designs.


Also I've been playing around with a new version of Illustrator, but I don't really get it. I suspect most of the new features are designed for people doing much more complicated work than I do. Is there any particular reason why I shouldn't just go back to an older version I'm familiar with?

[Liquor Box]

Some really helpful stuff here, thanks!

I've got some questions I want to ask them before I offer a quote. What do you think? And are there any others I should ask?

- I assume you want all the rights to the design in perpetuity?
- What is the main thing you will be using it for - t-shirts, pamphlets, ads?
- What other things will you want to use it for?
- Will you be selling things with this design, e.g. t-shirts, for a profit?
- Do you want one design that can just be adapted to different uses, or would you like a few different ones - e.g. a large, full version for t-shirts; a smaller, simplified version for pamphlets etc; and a rectangular banner version?
- Do you have any particular ideas in mind already, or starting blank?

This depends whether you or they would own the intellectual property on the logo you create. Are they contracting for your services, or are they contracting for a license to use IP? It sounds to me like they are intending to own the IP, and that is probably much simpler for you both legally.

If they own the IP they can use it for whatever they want - even if they tell the use will be more limited. As such the first question is answered, and questions 2-4 are somewhat irrelevant (unless they influence your creative process).

[Brother Oni]

Hokay, here's what I've got to propose. Thoughts?

My wife says those all sound reasonable to her.

Also I've been playing around with a new version of Illustrator, but I don't really get it. I suspect most of the new features are designed for people doing much more complicated work than I do. Is there any particular reason why I shouldn't just go back to an older version I'm familiar with?

It depends if there's any difference in the output files between the old and new versions. If there isn't and neither you or your client needs features offered by the new version, then stay with the more familiar version as it will allow you to get the work done more quickly.