"I just need a logo." It's a sentence I hear often – and I completely understand it. But a logo is only the tip of the brand. In this article I'll walk through what a small business brand identity actually includes, in what order to build it and how much money to set aside for it.

What does a brand mean in practice?

Forget the fancy talk. For a small business, a brand is simply what your company looks, sounds and feels like everywhere a customer encounters it: on your website, on social media, on a business card, on vehicle wraps and in your email signature. A good brand is recognizable even without the logo – from a color or a tone of voice alone.

What a proper brand package includes

  • Logo and its variants: primary logo, condensed mark, light and dark versions – all in vector format (SVG/PDF), so the logo scales from a business card to a banner.
  • Color palette: 2–4 main colors with exact codes (HEX, CMYK), so the color is the same online and in print.
  • Typography: heading and body fonts plus rules for using them.
  • Tone of voice: do you address customers formally or casually? Playfully or matter-of-factly? One page is enough, but it unifies all your communication.
  • Brand guidelines: all of the above compiled into one document you can hand to any designer or developer in the future.

Why does a 50-euro logo generator end up being expensive?

Logo generators and cheap marketplaces will produce a logo – but:

  • You often only get a pixel image (PNG) that falls apart at larger sizes. The print shop asks for a vector file you don't have.
  • The same template is sold to hundreds of others. Distinctiveness – the whole point of a brand – never materializes.
  • The copyright can be murky – an unpleasant surprise if you ever register a trademark.
  • Nobody thinks about how the logo works in the eyes of your specific customers.

The end result: you pay again later when the identity has to be done properly – and in the meantime your business has looked generic.

How much does a brand identity cost?

  • Logo only, from a professional: €300–800
  • Logo + colors + typography + guidelines: €600–2,000
  • Full brand project from an ad agency: €5,000+

For a small business, the middle tier is almost always the right choice. With us, a complete brand identity starts at €690 – and costs even less if we build your website at the same time.

In what order should you proceed?

  1. Clarify the core: who do you sell to, and why would a customer choose you? This doesn't need to be fancy – one honest paragraph is enough.
  2. Brand identity: logo, colors, typography, tone of voice.
  3. Website on top of the identity: your site is your brand's most important stage – which is why the identity should be created first, not as an afterthought.
  4. Apply it everywhere: social media profiles, email signature, business cards, vehicles.
💡 Tip: if your budget is tight, get the logo and colors done properly and leave the rest for later. It's easy to build on a good foundation – on a bad one, you always have to start over.

Summary

A brand isn't a luxury reserved for big companies – it's how a small business looks bigger and more trustworthy than its competitors. A proper identity costs a few hundred euros and lasts for years. If your business doesn't have its identity sorted yet, let's talk – we'll go through your wishes down to the details and create something that looks exactly like you.