A guide for small businesses
Free browser editors, AI generators, design marketplaces and freelance studios all promise a logo. What separates them is what you are left holding afterwards: which files, which rights, and whether the mark still works on a sign, a shirt and a browser tab.
Four routes to a logo
The routes differ less in how the logo looks than in what arrives at the end: a single image, a batch of concepts, or a set of files with the rights spelled out.
An editor that runs in a web page: pick a template or start from shapes and type, change the colours, and download. Quick for a placeholder, and the fastest way to see what you like before spending anything.
What you usually leave with
Type the business name and a few preferences and the tool returns a spread of options to choose from and adjust. Good at volume and variation, less good at knowing your trade or what a rival already uses.
What you usually leave with
You write a brief and designers respond, either with a fixed-price package or with entries to a contest you judge. More human judgement than a generator, at a price that sits between a tool and a studio.
What you usually leave with
A person or a small team who asks about the business before drawing anything. The slowest and usually the most expensive route, and the one most likely to hand back a system rather than a single file.
What you usually leave with
Whichever route you take
A logo is a small set of files, not one picture. Ask for these before you pay, because adding them afterwards can cost as much as the logo did.
SVG, PDF or EPS. It scales from a favicon to a van door without going soft, and it is the file a printer or sign maker asks for.
The mark with no background box, so it sits cleanly on a photo, a coloured page or a slide.
Solid dark and solid light, for stamps, embroidery, receipts and anywhere colour is not available.
A simplified mark that still reads at the size of a browser tab or a social profile picture.
The exact colours written down, for screen and for print, so the next person to use the logo matches it.
Before you choose
Most of them come down to files, rights and price, and each one has a plainer answer than the sales pages suggest.
House rules
No ratings out of ten and no tier boards. Where one route suits a business better, that is said in words with the reason beside it.
Every price is read from the provider's own pricing page and dated, with the ongoing price kept apart from any introductory offer.
What you own after paying is taken from each tool's own terms, not from its marketing copy.
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