How much do you charge customers asking for their logo in vector format?

[Kevin Mahoney]

Personally I never charge for this, usually though, it means they are sending it to somebody else for something as they will unlikely have the software to even view it. Yes it is a pain in the backside to do it, 30 second job that takes 10 minutes & another 10 to get back to what you were doing

[Pane Talev Pane Talev]

I made an offer for a banner.

The next email was “I will think about it” and then can you send me my logo in EPS…

I hate doing stuff for free – especially because nobody gives me any service for free.

[Kevin Mahoney]

Send them a low resolution jpg saved as an eps[emoji1]

[Martyn Heath]

ive had this recently. i dug my heals in. I explained that we didnt charge you for artwork time, turning your crap jpeg into a workable file and thats fine as im doing your work. However im not now going to release it for free, you can have it but you now need to cover the original artwork time.

[Iain Pearson]

We charge for ALL artwork. If they want a logo designed it’s charged for, and they can have it in whatever format they want, after that, they can do what they want with it.
Time is money gentlemen, far too many give away for free.

[Kevin Mahoney]

I’d kind of assumed it was an existing customer who you’d worked for before. If its a new customer or just at the quote stage, then absolutely not. My customers request their artwork in lots of different formant for lots of uses, but it’s always artwork that was designed & generated by us, & to be used for a service that I don’t offer, no problem with that, but if its a sit down & start from scratch job then you must charge accordingly. New customers never get anything sent other than a low res jpg for approval.
New enquires do not leave here with anything but a look at the proposed artwork & a quote.

[Colin Crabb]

We always quote for artwork (logo creation etc) as a separate item, never in the mix for, say a banner….

Artwork charges:
Basic: £25 per hour
Creative: £35 per hour
Brand Creation: £55 per hour (this include brand guidelines documents etc)

[Paul Hodges]

If the question is, what to charge for vectorising a logo, then just your hourly cad rate as others have pointed out.

However, if the real question, and I think it is – is having quoted for some work, the customer then asks you to supply their digital artwork (so they can get the job done elsewhere), the answer is a little more tricky.

If you vectorised it at your cost and then keep it for your own production, you own the copyright, and don’t have to pass it on to anyone. If you charge the customer to do it for work you’re producing, they own the copyright and you are obliged to let them have the copy.

Problem areas occur when you’ve created it for your own use, and they want it. You are entitled to charge them to hand it over, assuming you suspect they will use it for another supplier. When they come to you asking for the logo for T shirt printing or stationery printing, you have to use your best judgement, but effectively, if they haven’t paid you for the vector, you should decline, because even when it is for T shirts or something else, those suppliers should generate their own copy to use like we all have to do.

It makes me laugh really because you don’t see this in any other profession – nobody machines tools or parts and gives the pattern away for others to use free of charge!

[David Hammond]

quote Paul Hodges:

If you charge the customer to do it for work you’re producing, they own the copyright and you are obliged to let them have the copy.

I do not know where this myth came from… there is no obligation to release the artwork… YOU (or your company) owns the copyright, and it is up to you how you handle it, either hand all rights, or licence rights.

It’s really not that difficult the whole copyright thing, and the rights are very much in our favour! :thumbsup:

Look at stock libraries, you’re not buying the image, you’re buying a licence to use the image, subject to the terms in the licence.

We charge for artwork up front. I don’t even open the outline until they’ve paid. If they’ve said they have a budget of £500, and like the portfolio images of work we’ve done within that budget, they should happily hand over at least £50… if they don’t they can toddle off. Even then we send rasterised proofs.

Same as Iain, if they then want to go elsewhere they can crack on, I’ve been paid for my time.