The short answer

  • Branding cost should follow the decisions, system, applications, and rollout required—not the number of logo files.
  • The planning bands expose their person-days and rates rather than claiming to report UK market prices.
  • A refresh, a new identity, and an organisational rebrand carry different research and change obligations.
  • Copyright, trade mark work, fonts, imagery, production, training, and rollout need explicit commercial treatment.
  • Comparable proposals must define strategy, deliverables, revisions, rights, applications, governance, and exclusions consistently.
01

Build a branding budget from visible assumptions

Branding is not a uniform deliverable with one responsible UK price. A focused visual refresh for an established proposition is different from naming a new company, defining its position and voice, creating a complete identity system, testing priority applications, securing rights, and coordinating a multi-channel rollout. The budget should describe the business decision and organisational change being funded rather than treating every engagement as a logo exercise.

For early planning, this guide models a focused foundation or refresh as 15–30 person-days at £500–£650 per day, producing £7,500–£19,500. A new strategy and identity system is modelled as 35–70 person-days at £550–£800, producing £19,250–£56,000. A complex transformation and rollout is modelled as 80–180+ person-days at £650–£950, producing £52,000–£171,000+. A person-day is one person's working day, so a five-person team can consume five person-days in one calendar day. The rates are hypothetical blended assumptions used to demonstrate model sensitivity, not observed agency or freelancer rates. This editorial method was last reviewed on 16 August 2026.

These are editorial planning bands, not market averages, Blancc prices, quotations, guarantees, or a promise that expenditure will create a particular commercial outcome. They exclude VAT, client time, trade mark attorneys, searches or applications, photography, film, illustration, copy production, font and stock licences, printing, fabrication, media, travel, translation, accessibility audits, and technology implementation unless specifically included. Reproduce the figures by multiplying planned days for each role by the stated rate, then list external costs and contingency separately.

  • Focused refresh scenario: 3–6 research days, 4–8 strategy days, 5–10 identity and application days, and 3–6 handover and delivery days
  • New-system scenario: 8–14 research days, 8–15 strategy and verbal-identity days, 14–30 visual-system and application days, and 5–11 guidance and delivery days
  • Complex-transformation scenario: 15–35 research and strategy days, 25–55 system-design days, 20–50 application and rollout days, and 20–40 governance, training, and delivery days
  • Separate hypothetical rates from legal advice, production, media, implementation, VAT, client time, external costs, and contingency
  • Replace every illustrative input with a supplier’s investigated role plan before authorising work
02

Choose the right level of brand change

A focused refresh improves expression while preserving the core position and recognisable assets. A new identity develops a more complete strategic, verbal, and visual system for a business or offer. A rebrand changes deeper foundations—such as audience, category framing, architecture, name, promise, or experience—and therefore affects more people, touchpoints, approvals, and legacy material. Calling every change a rebrand makes both scope and risk harder to see.

Define the decision that must change before commissioning creative routes. Research may need leadership interviews, customer or employee evidence, service and sales data, competitive context, brand architecture, naming constraints, and an audit of existing touchpoints. Then agree the intended audiences, category, relevant difference, proposition, reasons to believe, personality, message hierarchy, and evaluation criteria. Research depth should follow uncertainty and consequence, not an automatic workshop count.

Map affected applications before selecting a band. A business-to-business consultancy may depend on its website, proposals, case studies, presentations, email, social content, and recruitment. A consumer product may add packaging, retail, campaigns, environments, customer service, and product interfaces. Cost rises when the identity must work across more demanding formats, countries, languages, regulated claims, sub-brands, internal teams, or independent production partners.

  • Write which strategic foundations will remain, change, or require evidence
  • Audit frequent, high-risk, and technically difficult brand touchpoints
  • Name audiences, approvers, regulated contexts, territories, and languages
  • Choose applications that test the system rather than decorative launch mock-ups
03

Price the system, applications, and usable handover

A complete scope can combine research and strategy; naming or architecture; verbal identity; logo system; colour; typography; layout; imagery; illustration; iconography; motion; templates; priority applications; guidelines; training; and rollout support. Not every organisation needs every component. The proposal should identify the actual artefacts, number of creative routes, decision gates, revision rounds, technical formats, and applications instead of using the word ‘branding’ as an unlimited container.

Usability and accessibility shape the design work. W3C's WCAG 2.2 guidance sets a minimum 4.5:1 contrast ratio for ordinary text and 3:1 for large text at Level AA, with an exception for text that is part of a logo or brand name. That exception does not make low-contrast body copy, interface labels, presentations, or campaign text accessible. The identity scope should test approved colour pairs, text hierarchy, focus visibility, images of text, motion alternatives, and real templates rather than only a logo on a neutral background.[4][5]

The handover should make the system operable. Specify master and export files, editable templates, font information, colour values, asset naming, usage examples, accessibility notes, licence records, version history, governance, training, and storage. Confirm which tools and account types recipients need. A polished guideline document has limited value when teams cannot access the fonts, reproduce layouts, locate current files, or decide whether a new execution is on-brand.

  • Count original systems separately from adaptations, exports, and mock-ups
  • Define creative routes, feedback windows, revision rounds, and final approvers
  • Test colour, type, layout, imagery, and motion in representative accessible applications
  • Require editable assets, licences, naming rules, training, and governance in handover
  • Record which implementation work remains with web, product, print, or campaign suppliers
04

Budget rights, clearance, and rollout before launch

Paying for commissioned design does not automatically transfer every copyright. UK Intellectual Property Office guidance says the person or organisation that creates a commissioned copyright work is normally its first legal owner unless the parties agree otherwise in writing. A contract should state whether rights are assigned or licensed and address territories, duration, media, adaptation, sublicensing, source files, portfolio use, and third-party restrictions. This guide is procurement information, not legal advice.[1][3]

Trade mark work is separate from creative preference. The IPO says applicants should select relevant classes and terms and search for identical or similar registered marks before applying; it recommends professional advice when similar marks are found. Budget responsibility for preliminary searches, attorney advice, applications, objections, territories, and future monitoring. A creative agency can help generate and screen candidates, but a design presentation should not be described as a legal clearance opinion unless appropriately qualified advice is included.[2]

Rollout can exceed the design phase when the organisation has many live assets. Create an inventory covering domains, websites, products, apps, social accounts, CRM and email, sales documents, signage, packaging, uniforms, vehicles, environments, templates, supplier portals, legal names, and archived content. Assign each item an owner, production cost, dependency, approval, launch date, and retirement rule. Decide whether transition is simultaneous, phased, or triggered by natural replacement so operational cost is not discovered after identity approval.

  • Schedule copyright ownership, licence, source-file, and third-party asset terms
  • Budget trade mark searches, classes, advice, applications, and possible objections separately
  • Inventory every live touchpoint with an owner, replacement cost, and transition date
  • Preserve records for fonts, imagery, illustration, music, creators, and production suppliers
  • Do not publish objective brand claims without the evidence and approvals they require[6]
05

Compare branding proposals on one procurement basis

Issue a common brief describing the business change, evidence available, unresolved questions, audience, markets, architecture, current assets, required deliverables, priority applications, accessibility expectations, rights, rollout boundary, decision makers, deadline drivers, and budget. Ask suppliers to show their team, method, person-days or capacity assumptions, research access, stages, outputs, client dependencies, revision model, exclusions, expenses, external costs, and change process. A fixed-fee proposal should still reveal what conditions the fee assumes.

Normalise before comparing. One proposal may include strategy, verbal identity, templates, rights negotiation, training, and rollout support while another covers a logo and visual presentation. Build a table that aligns deliverables, applications, rounds, rights, source files, licences, legal work, production, implementation, support, and client effort. Score the approach against the decision quality, relevant experience, accessibility method, team continuity, ownership clarity, and likely usability of the final system—not presentation polish alone.

Use staged approval to protect the budget. Confirm the problem and strategic criteria before naming or identity exploration; approve a direction before expanding the full system; test the system in demanding applications before producing every template; and verify rights before launch. Tie payment stages to reviewable outputs and require a written change record. Branding cannot guarantee awareness, preference, leads, or revenue, so measure implementation quality and audience response without turning the planning band into a performance promise.

  • Send every supplier the same evidence, deliverables, applications, and rights brief
  • Normalise excluded legal, licensing, production, implementation, and client costs
  • Evaluate decision method, team, accessibility, ownership, and governance alongside price
  • Approve strategy, direction, system, applications, and handover at explicit gates
  • Record scope changes with their budget, schedule, rights, and rollout consequences

Sources and further guidance

Blancc uses primary guidance where factual or regulatory context matters. Recommendations remain general and should be assessed against the specific business, audience, product, and risk.

Read Blancc’s editorial standards and corrections policy for source selection, illustrative labels, update dates, software assistance and corrections.

  1. UK Intellectual Property Office: Ownership of copyright works
  2. UK Intellectual Property Office: Before applying for a trade mark
  3. GOV.UK: Intellectual property and your work
  4. W3C WAI: Understanding WCAG 2.2 contrast minimum
  5. GOV.UK Design System: Colour
  6. ASA and CAP: CAP Code section 3 — Misleading advertising