How much does a branding project cost in Spain?

It depends, yes. But on concrete things that can be explained. This is what we say clearly when someone comes to the studio and asks us that question.

Why branding has no catalogue price

A brand identity project is not a standardised service. You cannot set the price without knowing what the starting problem is, what strategic decisions need to be made, what assets need to be produced, and how much internal alignment work the process will require.

A company that arrives with strategic clarity, a small decision-making team, and a defined scope may need six to eight weeks of work. A company that is repositioning itself, with several internal stakeholders and a need to carry the identity across multiple formats, may need six to nine months.

The first case has one price. The second has a very different one. Treating them the same — in time, in process, and in price — would do a disservice to both.

The variables that drive the price

There are four factors that determine the cost of a branding project more precisely than any other indicator.

The scope of the strategic work. Applying a brand direction that has already been defined is not the same as building one from scratch. When the studio has to do the work of understanding the business, identifying the positioning, defining the tone, and deciding the direction before designing anything, that work carries a cost that is not always visible to the person buying from the outside. It is also the work that has the greatest impact on the final result. This includes co-creation sessions or workshops, interviews with internal teams and clients, and discovery conversations to get under the skin of the business.

The assets that need to be produced. A basic identity — logotype, colour palette, typography, primary applications — has one scope. An identity that also includes a web system, application guidelines, communication templates, an animated identity system, a typographic system, an icon or illustration library, signage, or packaging has another entirely. The difference is not only in hours: it lies in the level of judgement required to make the whole system work coherently. And if, beyond all the production work, the implementation of a Digital Asset Management system (DAM, with costs starting at around €7,000) is also required — or if it is necessary to design and support a brand launch plan — the scope and coordination become considerably greater still.

The internal approval process. Projects where there is a single point of contact with decision-making authority are more agile and less costly. Projects where the outcome has to pass through management, marketing, communications, legal, and the executive team — with their respective timelines, rounds of revisions, and versions — multiply the studio’s effort even when the final result is similar.

The real seniority behind the work. The price of a branding project also reflects who is thinking through it and who is executing it — and the greater the distance between the two, as tends to happen in large agencies, the harder the process becomes to manage. A junior profile executing a direction set by someone else has one cost. A senior team that arrives with a point of view of their own, defends its decisions, and where the founding partners and the lead team are the ones doing the work, has another. That difference is the one that rarely shows up in the portfolio but is felt throughout the process.

Real market ranges in Spain

With those variables in mind, these are the ranges we see consistently in the Spanish market among studios and consultancies with a genuine track record:

Basic identity for an SME: between €8,000 and €18,000. Includes light naming and positioning strategy, visual identity system, application guidelines, and key primary assets (such as the website and communication templates, corporate presentations, and so on). This is the range where most of the work for companies looking to professionalise their brand sits, without requiring an extensive system.

Full branding project for a growing company: between €18,000 and €45,000. Includes in-depth strategic work, an extensive identity system with thorough brand guidelines, web or digital environment rollout, and the capacity to extend the system across multiple formats. This is the range that makes sense when there is a meaningful business decision behind it — expansion, repositioning, moving upmarket, or raising investment.

Large projects or engagements with extended scope: above €50,000. Projects with multiple product lines, international rollout requirements, very extensive assets, or ongoing relationships structured around a monthly retainer.

What does not work out well below a certain price

There are branding projects below €5,000. They exist, they work in certain contexts, and there are professionals who carry them out with rigour. But that range almost always implies one of three things: the scope is very limited and the strategic work is minimal; a junior profile is executing without senior oversight; or the revision process is restricted and the result is whatever comes out first time.

None of those three things is necessarily a problem if the client understands it as such. The problem arises when the expectation is of a project with strategic judgement and the budget does not allow for it. That disconnect is the cause of most branding projects that end up in a drawer.

How to think about budget before asking for proposals

The most useful question before speaking to any studio is not “how much is it going to cost me?” It is: what business decision lies behind this project? How much is it worth to my company to solve that problem well?

When there is clarity on that, the pricing conversation becomes much more honest. Because what is being bought is not a logo or a visual system: it is the capacity to think through the problem and resolve it in a way that lasts. And that, like almost everything that lasts, has a price worth understanding before deciding who to work with.

If you are at that point and have questions about what kind of project makes sense for your company, that is the conversation we are most interested in having.