Why you won't see prices on a branding website

It's the first thing you want to know, and it's the one thing most branding websites won't tell you. That's annoying, and the annoyance is fair. So here is the honest reason, and the questions that get you a real number faster than a price list would.

Why the number isn't on the page

Branding isn't one job. A new look for a one-van plumber and a rebrand for a clinic with three locations share a name and almost nothing else. A published price has to be either a number that's wrong for most people, or a number padded high enough to cover the biggest version of the work. Neither one helps you.

There's a second reason, and it's about you rather than us. A price list invites you to compare studios on the number alone, which is how people end up buying the cheapest version of the wrong thing. The real cost of a logo you have to redo in eighteen months is not the price of the logo.

What that must never mean

None of that excuses vagueness. “It depends” is the beginning of an answer, not an answer, and nobody should ask you to sign something without a number on it. If a studio can't tell you what the work costs before it starts, what they're really telling you is that they don't yet know what the work is.

Ask these instead

• “What's the price, in writing, before we start?” A real answer is one number for a defined piece of work, not an hourly rate with no ceiling on it.
• “What's included, and what isn't?” The second half is the useful half. Ask about the things you quietly assumed were in there: the business card, the social profiles, the sign on the van.
• “What happens if something changes partway?” Changes are normal. What you want to hear is how a change gets priced, and that you approve it before the work happens rather than after.
• “What do I own at the end?” The working files, the fonts and their licences, and every account set up along the way. All of it in your name, not the studio's.
• “How long will it take, and what do you need from me?” Most projects that run late are waiting on the client for a decision nobody put in a calendar.
• “Who actually does the work?” Being sold by a senior person and handed to a junior is the most common complaint people have about agencies, and it's a fair question to ask out loud.

The one price we do publish

The Brand Check-Up is $495, flat, and it's on the site because it's the same job every time: a person goes through your brand across five areas, scores each one out of 20, and tells you what to fix and in what order.

That's the test, really. A fixed price is possible exactly when the work is properly defined, so a studio that can define the work can price it. For everything else here, you get the price before we start: not an estimate that drifts, and not a meter running quietly in the background.