How much it costs to create your own brand (real budget, no fluff)

People searching how much it costs to create a brand are usually ready to spend. The problem is that almost nobody tells them what they are buying. A logo is not a brand. Filing a name is not launching a product. And the budget that matters is the one that lets you sell, not the one that leaves you with a pretty PDF.

If you want a single number, there is none. If you want a real budget, you have to split three layers: protect the name, build the identity, and put the business on the market.

The cheap part: filing the trademark

Filing is not creating. It is protecting. And the official fees are public.

In 2026, Spain’s OEPM charges, from 1 April, €127.88 for the first class if you file electronically, and €82.84 for each extra class. A national mark covers Spain and lasts 10 years, renewable.

If you sell across several EU countries, an EU trade mark at EUIPO costs €850 for the first class, €50 for the second, and €150 for each class from the third. One title covers all 27 member states. Once the application is published, third parties have three months to oppose: paying the fee does not close the file.

If you use an agent, add search and filing fees. In Spain the usual range is about €400–700 for a well-handled national mark and €1,350–1,750 for an EU one. It is still the cheapest part of the project.

Filing a name for €128 does not give you a brand. It gives you a title. The business starts afterwards.

The visible part: naming, identity and system

This is where the “brand” quotes you see on Google live. There is no official rate card: these are orders of magnitude from studio work, not a tariff. In practice, a basic identity (logo, colour, type, a few applications) often sits between €1,500 and €3,500. A new brand with a system and first applications, between €3,500 and €8,000. If positioning, tone and a full identity with guidelines are in scope, the work moves toward €8,000–18,000.

Those ranges help you compare. They do not tell you if the project is viable. A name you cannot register gets thrown away. An identity without positioning gets copied. A brand book nobody uses does not sell a single unit.

The useful question is not “how much does a logo cost?”. It is “does this identity help someone pay more, choose you first, or remember you later?”. If not, you are buying decoration.

The expensive part: actually launching

If your own brand sits on a physical product, branding is one line in the budget, not the budget. What really moves money is:

• Prototype, engineering and tooling.
• First production run and minimum stock.
• Certifications (CE, RoHS and category-specific ones).
• Import, duties, freight and warehousing.
• Channel: Amazon, your own site, retail, or all three. On Amazon Spain, referral fees for most categories sit between 8% and 15%.
• Import VAT at 21% if the goods enter from outside the EU: it is recoverable, but you have to front it.
• Ads, listing and the first months of traction.

That is what people are really asking when they search how much it costs to launch a product. There is no agency rate card for this: cost comes from the product, the factory, the volume and the channel. On Roll Order, the mould was secured for a fraction of the quote the client had found on their own. That difference is not in the logo. It is in how you industrialise.

Three budgets, not one

To stop mixing oranges with moulds, use three boxes:

1. Legal brand. OEPM or EUIPO fees, clearance search, classes. Hundreds or a few thousand euros.

2. Perceived brand. Naming, identity, tone, pack and digital applications. From a few thousand to around ten, depending on scope.

3. Brand in the market. A manufacturable product, stock, certifications, logistics and channel. This is where most of the money goes, and where a project stands or falls.

If you only quote box 2, the number looks nice and the business is half-built. If you quote all three, you know whether you can pay for it.

What not to spend on first

Do not spend €20,000 on a rebrand if you have not validated demand. Do not spend on a spectacular website if you have no product cost or margin. Do not spend on 5,000 units if nobody has reserved the first one.

The order is the same as always: market, numbers, then identity. Defining the business model comes before the brand book.

How we see it at Unicornio Azul

Creating your own brand is not picking a colour. It is deciding what you promise, to whom, at what price, and with what product you can deliver it. A serious budget comes from that model, not from a logo catalogue.

If you are working out what this will really cost, tell us about your project. We will give you a cost map with the three boxes, not a fluff figure.

Informational article updated in September 2026. It does not constitute legal, tax or financial advice, nor a guarantee of viability. Regulatory and commercial conditions must be verified for each operation.