What a logo actually costs in Ireland, and what you get for each price

If you have been quoted 200 euro by one designer and 8,000 euro by another for what looks like the same job, you are not going mad. Logo design cost in Ireland genuinely runs from about 50 euro to 15,000 euro, and depending on what you actually need, either end can be the correct number.

The gap has almost nothing to do with the drawing. It has everything to do with what sits around the drawing. Below we lay out the four price tiers you will actually meet, what each one buys, and how to tell a cheap file from an identity that still holds up in five years.

One bit of context first. The Central Statistics Office reports that SMEs make up 99.8% of active enterprises in Ireland (CSO, Business in Ireland 2020). Most of those businesses pay for a logo once, maybe twice, in their whole lifetime. That is exactly why it is worth knowing what you are looking at before the money leaves your account.

The 50 to 300 euro logo: a file, not an identity

At the bottom of the range you are buying a picture. Fiverr, a logo generator, a template marketplace, or a mate who is handy in Canva. You send a brief, you get a nicely rendered PNG back, and for a lot of businesses that is genuinely enough to get trading.

Be clear about what you are not getting. There is no research, no exploration of alternatives, and usually no ownership of the underlying design. You get one lockup, often built on a stock icon that forty other companies are also using. You will not get a vector master, so the first time a sign-maker or a printer asks for an EPS file you are stuck.

If you are a sole trader testing an idea this weekend, this tier is a sensible place to start. Just do not confuse it with a brand.

The 300 to 1,500 euro logo: a freelancer who thinks about it

Here you cross from a file into a small piece of work. A freelance designer or a junior at a studio spends real hours on it. You get a proper brief, two or three routes to choose from, a couple of revision rounds, and the correct file formats: vector, colour, black, white, and something that survives being an app icon.

This is the tier most Irish micro-businesses should be aiming for if budget is tight but standards are not. A café, a trades company, a physio clinic. The logo will be original, it will be yours, and it will not fall apart at small sizes.

What you still will not get is a system. One good mark, delivered well, but little guidance on how it behaves across a website, a van, a menu, and an Instagram grid. That is the job of the next two tiers.

The 1,500 to 6,000 euro logo: a small identity from a studio

Now you are paying for thinking, not just execution. A studio starts with your business, not your logo. Who are you talking to, who are you up against, what do you actually want people to feel. The mark comes out of that, which is why it tends to survive contact with the real world.

At this level you get a small identity kit rather than a single image. A primary logo and its variations, a colour palette with the exact values, two or three typefaces, spacing rules, and a short guide so whoever touches the brand next does not wreck it. This is the point where a logo stops being decoration and starts doing a job.

A logo is not the brand. It is the signature at the bottom of the letter. What people actually respond to is everything the signature is standing on.

If you are not sure whether you need the mark or the thinking behind it, we wrote a separate piece on exactly that call in brand strategy or brand identity, which one your business needs first. Read it before you brief anyone.

The 6,000 to 15,000 euro logo: a full identity system

At the top the word logo is almost misleading. You are commissioning an identity system, and the mark is one part of it. This is for businesses that live across a lot of surfaces at once. Retail, hospitality, funded startups, anyone rolling out to multiple locations or investors.

Expect discovery and strategy up front, several considered directions, and a full toolkit at the end. Logo suite, typography, colour, photography direction, iconography, layout rules, motion in some cases, and a real brand guidelines document. You are paying for consistency at scale and for the hours of senior time that go into making a hundred different applications feel like one company.

For an SME this tier is overkill until it very suddenly is not. The tell is when your brand is being applied by people you have never met, in rooms you are not in.

Why an identical-looking logo can cost ten times more

Two logos can look like cousins and be priced a decade apart. The difference is almost never the shape. It is this:

• Strategy first, or straight to the drawing. Research, positioning, and audience work take days and shape everything downstream.
• One route, or many explored. Cheap work shows you the first idea. Considered work shows you the best of ten.
• A file, or a system. A PNG versus a full set of vectors, colour specs, type, and rules for every surface.
• Ownership. Whether you actually own the design outright, or licensed a stock asset dressed up as bespoke.
• Who does the work. A weekend template versus senior time and a studio process that stands behind it.
• Guidelines. Nothing versus a document that keeps the brand consistent long after the invoice is paid.

You are not paying more for a nicer curve. You are paying for the certainty that it will not need doing again in eighteen months.

Most rebrands we get called into are not there because the old logo was ugly. They are there because someone bought the drawing and skipped the system, and it stopped holding the business together the moment it started to grow. If you want to talk through which tier your business actually needs, get in touch and we will give you a straight answer, not a sales pitch. For the wider picture on how identity works, our branding and identity in Ireland guide is the place to start.