Free Branding Budget Template (and How To Use It)

Brand identity is how a business portrays itself and often how consumers perceive it. Thankfully, building a strong brand doesn’t have to mean overspending. A thoughtful branding budget can help you showcase your brand’s personality, stand out in the market, grow brand awareness, and foster customer loyalty without breaking the bank. 

While the cost of branding services varies depending on what you hope to accomplish, here’s what you need to know to create an effective branding budget and plan your brand spend strategically.

Download the free branding budget template and keep reading to learn how to use it. 

How To Budget For Branding Services in 6 Steps

Your branding budget will depend on the goals of your project and the deliverables you hope to receive. When working through the steps below, consider the services you’d like to have done in the next 6-12 months. 

1. Set Branding Goals and Define Your Scope of Work

The scope of your branding efforts over the next 6-12 months will be the biggest factor influencing your overall branding budget.  

Building a brand from scratch can be a significant investment of time and resources. As a result, these efforts typically require a larger branding budget.

However, some companies don’t need to start from scratch. Some just plan to refresh their brand by updating their image templates quarterly or optimizing their website. When branding work is phased or focused on specific deliverables, it can be much more affordable.

By outlining exactly what you hope to accomplish through your branding in the near term and identifying the deliverables that support those goals, you can create a realistic, flexible budget.    

2. Set Aside a Certain Amount for Branding

The most important part of creating a branding budget is making sure you don’t overspend. Especially for new businesses that don’t have a lot of funding and are building their brand from scratch, it’s important to limit expenses. 

How much you spend on branding depends on what you hope to achieve, how big your business is, and what you can afford. Even if your business can only afford to spend a few hundred dollars to design your website, that’s a great place to start. As your business grows, you can build out your brand identity more thoroughly. 

Once you have a set budget in mind, you can allocate your funds to support the branding efforts you think are most important for your business goals or require the most work. 

3. Consider Hiring a Branding Agency or Consultant 

Because your brand image is so important, hiring an expert is worth the expense. Branding agencies have the expertise to understand your customers well while providing objective opinions that can help your business differentiate it from others in your industry. 

Additionally, they often have experienced teams full of designers, brand strategists, and market researchers who can help you create a unique brand identity. Unless your organization has a team of graphic designers and marketers who can fill these roles, it can be difficult to complete a branding project without external help. 

Usually, brand agencies charge hourly rates for their services. Companies planning to work with a branding agency need to account for these fees. Because of their hourly rates, the cost of the partnership will likely depend on the number of deliverables.

To save money, some companies choose to hire a freelancer rather than an agency. While their teams aren’t as robust, they can still provide many of the same services. They can also be brought in to work with your team and provide additional support temporarily.  

4. Market Research and Brand Strategy

Market research helps companies:

• Better understand their audience so they can target them more effectively.
• Identify their own value proposition.
• Develop a brand identity that appeals to consumers.
• Differentiate their business from their competitors. 

With the information gathered through market research, you can begin to formulate your brand strategy. 

A brand strategy is the approach by which you build out your brand identity. For example, this includes how your name, logo, colors, and website convey your brand’s voice, values, and mission. 

The cost of market research depends on what methods your business plans to use, as well as how much data you collect. Ranging from just a few hundred dollars for qualitative interviews to $50,000 for quantitative research, there are a few ways to collect market research. 

While market research is a valuable tool for companies looking to refresh their brand or take it to market, it is important to remember that it is just a fraction of your branding project. Consider what information you would like to know ahead of time and allocate a fraction of your budget to market research. 

5. Design Branding Materials 

With the results from your market research and a brand strategy in place, branding teams can begin producing brand materials. Again, your branding budget will depend on what brand materials you need for your project. 

Branding materials include: 

• Brand documentation
• Logos
• Editorial style guide
• Powerpoint, email, and stationery templates
• Images and videos
• Web Design 

Certain brand materials, such as web design, can be more time- and resource-consuming, which can significantly add to the scope of your project and price. 

More basic brand documentation, such as a logo design or choosing brand colors, is less labor-intensive and will keep your branding budget more affordable. 

Depending on the scope of your branding project, you will have various team members, such as graphic designers, web designers, copywriters, and more, working together to bring your brand to life. It’s also important to note that these services may charge different hourly rates. 

When creating your branding budget and talking to branding service providers, be sure to consider how having each of these team members will impact the overall cost of your project.

6. Budget for Several Iterations 

Even the best branding agencies aren’t likely to deliver exactly what you want in the first go around. 

In fact, most branding agencies will have an initial meeting with your leadership team to get a better understanding of your brand. Then, they will provide several options for names, colors, and logos. From there, you will be able to discuss what you like and dislike about the options they provided. 

With that feedback, they will go through more iterations and repeat the process until you’ve narrowed it down to your final brand name or logo. This process ensures communication between your internal team and the branding agency and that you’re happy with the final product. 

However, the more iterations you go through, the more expensive it will be because agencies charge hourly rates.

Sometimes, when you hire a branding agency, they will offer different packages in which they will outline the number of revisions they will go through. Generally, packages with more revisions, branding concepts, and revisions, will be more expensive. 

Before hiring a branding agency, be sure to ask about their process and exactly what will be included in their quote. 

Practical Ways to Keep Your Branding Costs Low

Building a strong brand doesn’t always mean spending a fortune. There are several ways to get professional-looking branding results while keeping costs manageable. Here are practical approaches to reduce expenses without sacrificing quality:

• DIY design tools: Platforms like Canva, Figma, or AI logo generators can help you create logos, social graphics, and other brand assets without hiring a designer.
• Stock assets: Free or low-cost photos, icons, and fonts can elevate your branding materials while keeping your budget in check.
• Work with freelancers: Hiring freelancers for specific tasks rather than a full-service agency can save money. Use platforms like Upwork or Fiverr and scope work carefully to stay within budget.
• Template reuse: Reuse branded templates for presentations, social media posts, email headers, and other materials to avoid reinventing the wheel each time.
• Phased approach: Start with essential branding elements, then expand your brand assets over time as your budget allows. This prevents overspending upfront and spreads costs across multiple months.
• Cost comparison examples: Understanding the difference between DIY efforts, freelancers, and agencies can help you make informed decisions. For example, a DIY logo might cost $50–$200, a freelancer $300–$1,500, and an agency $3,000+, depending on scope.

Implementing these strategies early ensures that even businesses on a tighter budget can build a professional brand identity while maximizing every dollar spent.

Free Branding Budget Template 

Use this branding budget template to organize your branding expenses and plan your spending more strategically. The template is designed to help you break down costs by service type, prioritize essential branding work, and allocate your budget across the next 6–12 months.

Whether you’re building a brand from scratch or investing in ongoing updates, this template makes it easier to see where your money is going and identify opportunities to stay on budget.

Download the branding budget template. 

Factors For Brand Pricing

While some companies spend several hundred thousand dollars on branding, others only spend a few hundred to get their business off the ground. How much they spend depends entirely on the scope of their branding project. 

However, to accurately estimate the cost of your project, consider these factors: 

• Deliverables
• Number of revisions
• Company niche
• Company stage
• Industry

Be sure to include all of these factors in your branding budget. 

Invest In Your Brand Identity Without Blowing Your Budget 

Branding is important for differentiating your business, attracting new customers, and fostering brand loyalty. While developing a full brand identity can be expensive, even smaller branding projects can help set your business apart. 

When creating your branding budget, be sure to outline exactly what deliverables you hope to attain. Then allocate portions of your branding budget to each item based on how much it costs to produce them. Even if you can only afford a logo design right now, you can always hire a branding expert to build out your brand identity later on. 

About the Author

Hannah Hicklen Content Marketing Manager at Clutch

Hannah Hicklen is a content marketing manager who focuses on creating newsworthy content around tech services, such as software and web development, AI, and cybersecurity. With a background in SEO and editorial content, she now specializes in creating multi-channel marketing strategies that drive engagement, build brand authority, and generate high-quality leads. Hannah leverages data-driven insights and industry trends to craft compelling narratives that resonate with technical and non-technical audiences alike. 

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