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How much should I charge as a freelance branding designer?

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In a rapidly competitive environment, every brand looks to set themselves apart. They want to create an unmistakable image to achieve the highest possible brand recognition among consumers.

A branding designer or brand manager is responsible not only for how a brand reveals itself to the world but public perception too.  They work to increase brand awareness and the way potential customers connect and interact with a brand and the products offered.

They are deeply aware of their business’s target demographic and can therefore not only shape the brand they are responsible for, but also design, strengthen and establish it for customers in the long term.

Branding designers also oversee the introduction of new products and services, which are subsequently supported in the same way as existing brands. To achieve their goals, they work closely with internal departments such as product development, marketing, sales and distribution, but also with external market research companies, advertising and sponsoring agencies.

It’s a role that holds great potential for freelancers who like to move from project to project but how much should you be charging as a freelance branding designer? Let’s start by focusing on some base salaries.

Freelance branding designer rates

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The salary of a junior branding designer is about $58,000 per year. A senior may earn up to $129,000. The average annual salary is around $72,000. The remuneration depends essentially on the size of the company and the brand awareness.

On average, freelance branding designers charge $86/hour. Freelance rates in range between $66 and $101 for the majority of freelancers. Considering a freelance rate of $86/hour, a freelancer would charge $688/day for an 8-hour working day.

Of course, these are basic rates pulled from freelancermap and how much you charge is always going to depend on the sector you choose to work in and your individual experience level. But, as a freelancer, charging per hour is perhaps the safest way to ensure you’re being paid what you’re worth.

Increasing your pay as a branding designer is possible in different ways: -

Change of employer: Consider a career move to a new employer that is willing to pay higher for your skills.

Level of Education: Gaining advanced degrees may allow this role to increase their income potential and qualify for promotions.

Managing Experience: If you are a Brand Manager that oversees more junior branding designers, this experience can increase the likelihood to earn more.

How much should you charge as a freelance branding designer?

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A brand is far more than logos and colours. A consistent brand identity not only communicates your company’s purpose and values to customers, but it also shapes your product development cycle and corporate culture. A branding project can help you figure out what and how to communicate your company’s story, but how much does it cost? That often depends on what stage of their journey a company finds itself.

Here, we’ll be going through a typical branding project and outlining the various individual parts that make up the whole. This should give all freelance branding designers a better idea over how much they should be charging on a per-project basis for their branding designer jobs.

Brand strategy and positioning

Positioning involves understanding who you are as a company, how your product fits into the marketplace, and how you communicate your company’s values. This is the most important piece of the branding puzzle and one that’s worthwhile to begin on your own – when you have more funding, your original strategy work will give you a base for conveying your identity to professionals who can take it further.

Brand strategy and positioning should drive most of your business decisions, so it’s worth taking the time to do this right. With a smaller budget, a consultant might spend a few days with your company leadership figuring out your core values and how to articulate them. For a larger budget, expect design teams to do more research and a competitive analysis, resulting in deliverables like a communication strategy and voice/tone guidelines for your marketing team.

More expensive projects may also include things like trainings to make sure your staff correctly and consistently implements your brand. In general, pricing is determined by how many people are working on your branding project and the complexity of your deliverables.

Cost: $5000-$20,000

Logo and visual branding

A brand is a relationship with your audience, and you’ll want to make sure that every interaction with them communicates your message. You’ll almost certainly need to hire a designer for this work. Sites like Fiverr and 99designs offer cheap logos, but independent consultants advise that if you can find a small budget, you’ll get far better results by hiring an experienced professional to create a more polished logo and simple usage guide.

Visual identity is the result of independent research, visual moodboarding, and rounds of feedback and iteration, says Murray. At the end of the process, you’ll typically receive a logo, typeface, color and design elements, and visual brand attributes. Larger-budget projects will typically involve detailed guidance on specific illustration and photography styles, iconography, and more – Murray suggests also including social media visual strategy and Instagram post templates.

Pricing here increases the more logo variations you need, the more brands you have, and the level of detail required in your visual guidance. Rounds of feedback and iteration add cost, as does the size of the team you hire.

Cost: $5000-$15,000 

Company name development

Many startups find themselves at a stage where they’re well-funded but have a name that no longer fits – what feels right when your company is a month old and bootstrapped with your savings account may not feel the same two years later.

A naming agency will develop names that work with your brand positioning, do a competitive analysis to research the tone, strength, and messaging of these names, and pre-screen them for trademark availability. (Note that you’ll typically need to hire a legal team to register the trademark once this is done.)

Cost = $15,000-$75,000

Website

This is the branding piece with the greatest variability in cost, with projects getting more expensive as they require more user research, prototyping, content creation, and engineering work. Pricing is largely dependent on the complexity of engineering requirements and the number of iterations you want to go through.

Generally, you have static marketing sites on the lower end, websites built on lightweight content management systems (i.e. a custom visual design built to run on WordPress) in the middle, and web applications managing heavy databases or a more robust CMS like Sitecore or Drupal on the higher end.

Cost: $2000-$20,000

Asking around

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Of course, these are all rough guidelines, but it should hive you some idea how much other freelance branding designers are charging. We would also recommend reaching out to the dozens of branding designers on Creativepool for advice not only on charging but on building your portfolio and advancing your career.

Header image by Ginna Mora (Synaesthesik)

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