A logo will not win you customers on its own. A bad one will quietly cost you, because people read it as a sign of how carefully you do everything else. What a small business needs is a mark that is legible at the size of a thumbnail, still works printed in one colour, and looks like it belongs to the same business as the van and the website. This page covers what makes one work, where to get it, what it costs, and the files and rights you must walk away with.
At a glance
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| What a logo does | Makes you recognisable and shows you take the work seriously |
| What it does not do | Win customers by itself, or fix a business nobody has heard of |
| The three tests | Legible tiny, legible in one colour, legible on a van and on a phone |
| Ways to get one | Do it yourself, a logo maker, a marketplace freelancer, a designer |
| Files you must own | A vector file, PNGs with a see-through background, a one-colour version |
| The thing people forget | Getting it in writing that you own the design |
| The other half | Colours and typefaces — Plan creates those, and your guidelines, free |
What a logo does, and what it does not
Nobody has ever chosen a plumber because of the logo. Customers choose on being findable, on reviews, on the phone being answered, and on a price they understand.
What a logo does is quieter. It makes you recognisable, so the van somebody saw last week and the quote in their inbox today register as the same business. And it signals care. A logo stretched out of shape, or a photograph of a spanner with the name typed over it, adds up to a feeling that the business is a bit slapdash. So keep the budget small and the standard high: simple beats cluttered, and simple is the cheap end.
What makes a small-business logo work
It is legible tiny. Your logo spends most of its life about the size of a fingernail: a profile picture, a browser tab, a map pin. Shrink yours to that size on your phone. If the words turn to mush, it fails, and detail never helps at that scale.
It works in one colour. Sooner or later somebody needs it in black on white — a stamp, an embroidered polo shirt, a sign cut from one colour of vinyl. If it only holds together with a gradient, that version gets bodged for you.
It reads on a van and on a phone in a dark hallway. The two real viewing conditions for a trade. Big letters, strong contrast, few words, and a phone number more prominent than the mark itself.
The name does most of the work. For a local business, a clear name in a good typeface and one consistent colour usually beats an abstract symbol, because people search for words. It also sidesteps your trade's cliché — the swoosh, the house outline, the crossed spanners — which four competitors are already using. Our business name guide covers choosing a name that survives a bad phone line.
Take Jamie, who runs Jamie's Plumbing, a one-man emergency plumbing business in Reading. His logo is the name in a heavy typeface, in one strong blue, with a small water-drop shape in place of the apostrophe. It reads across a car park, survives being shrunk to a profile picture, and prints in black on an invoice without falling apart.
Where to get a logo, and what it costs
Four routes, cheapest first. Costs vary and change, so check before you commit.
Do it yourself in a design tool. Free or a small monthly fee for something like Canva: pick a template, type your name, choose a colour. Fine for a business that needs something on a quote by Friday. The risks are that thousands of others used the same template, and the export may not include a proper vector file.
A logo maker or generator. A website that produces logos from a few questions, usually free to try with a fee to download. Read the licence before you pay, because some sell you the files without giving you exclusive rights to the design.
A marketplace freelancer. A one-off fee, with a couple of rounds of changes. Quality varies enormously at the low end. Ask to see three logos they have done for businesses like yours, and ask which files you get.
A designer or agency. The most expensive by a distance, and the only route where somebody thinks about the whole thing — the mark, the colours, the typefaces, and how it behaves on a van, a shirt and a website. It earns its place when customers buy partly on how you look.
Whichever route you take, the colours and typefaces need settling too, or the logo arrives and nothing matches it. That part you do not have to pay for. Create your brand guidelines free with Plan. Answer a few quick questions about the look you want, and Plan puts together your colours, typefaces and a brand guidelines document — free, so whoever draws your logo has something to design against.
The files you must walk away with
This is where first-time founders get caught. You pay, you get a JPG, and eighteen months later the sign writer asks for a vector file and the designer has vanished.
A vector file (SVG, EPS or AI). Vector means the logo is stored as shapes and maths rather than a grid of dots, so it scales to the side of a lorry with no loss of quality. Sign writers, embroiderers and printers all ask for this one. If you get nothing else, get this.
PNGs with a see-through background, in a few sizes. The everyday web files. The see-through background stops your logo sitting in a white box on a coloured header.
A one-colour version, usually black, and a white version for dark backgrounds.
A square version for profile pictures, because a wide logo squeezed into a circle becomes unreadable.
Ask for all of these by name, in writing, before you pay, and keep them somewhere you will still have access to in five years.
Make sure you own what you paid for
Paying somebody to design a logo does not automatically make it yours. In the UK the person who created the design normally keeps the copyright unless it has been assigned to you in writing. That matters the day you want to change it, put it on merchandise, or register it as a trademark.
Get it in writing. One line in the invoice or email is usually enough: that on payment, full ownership and copyright in the final design pass to you. Agree it before the work starts.
Check what a generator is selling you. Some licence the design to you rather than transfer it, and some build logos from stock symbols other businesses can buy too.
Check the typeface licence. Fonts are licensed, not owned, and a designer's licence does not always cover you using the font yourself.
While you are on ownership, search the register for anything close to your name and mark. A trademark is a legal right to a name or logo for particular goods and services, registered by sector, so the same name can be free in one trade and taken in another. GOV.UK's trademark search is free.
A logo on its own is only half a brand
A logo with no colours and no typefaces behind it is a picture, not a brand. The moment you make a second thing — a leaflet, a Facebook post, a quote template, a shirt — somebody has to decide which blue, which font, and how much space goes round the logo. Decide once and write it down, or you decide differently every time and none of it looks related. Our brand guidelines page explains what goes in that document, and Plan creates yours free.
If you would rather somebody handled all of it — Want it designed properly? The Fractions can design your brand and build the website that goes with it. They are our sister agency and work with small UK businesses, so the logo arrives with the colours, the typefaces and the site that uses them.
Figures correct as of September 2026. Tax thresholds, fees and rates change; check the linked GOV.UK pages before acting. Prices and costs shown are indicative and vary by area and by what's included.
What is Plan?
Plan is a free business operating system for people starting or newly running a UK business. It walks you, one simple step at a time, from your elevator pitch through brand, product and pricing, to a complete business plan — then uses everything it now knows about the business to help with the basics: logo and brand, marketing, a website, a bank account, funding, insurance, company registration. You can use as much or as little as you want.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a logo cost for a small business? It ranges from nothing, if you make one in a free design tool, through a small one-off fee for a logo generator or a marketplace freelancer, up to a much larger sum for a designer. Most new businesses are well served at the cheap end.
Do I need a logo to start a business? No. You need a name, a way for people to contact you and something to sell. Plenty of businesses trade for months with the name set in a clear typeface and nothing more. Being findable and answering the phone matter more on day one.
What file formats do I need for my logo? A vector file (SVG, EPS or AI) for sign writers and printers, PNGs with a see-through background for web use, a one-colour black version, a white version for dark backgrounds, and a square crop for profile pictures.
Do I own the logo I paid someone to design? Not automatically. The designer usually keeps the copyright unless it has been assigned to you in writing. Ask for a line confirming that full ownership passes to you on payment, and agree it before the work starts.
Should I trademark my logo? Not usually on day one, but check you are not stepping on somebody else's. A trademark is a legal right to a name or logo for particular goods and services, registered by sector, so search GOV.UK's register against what you sell.
Two ways to do this
Get the brand part done free. Plan asks a few questions about the look you want and puts together your colours, your typefaces and a brand guidelines document — free, so whoever draws the logo, including you, has something to work from. It runs in your browser and you can do just this bit.
Or have it designed for you. If you would rather hand it over, our sister agency The Fractions can design your brand and build the website that goes with it.