Why our prices are on the website

When we opened the studio in 2018 we did what everyone does: a contact form, a vague promise to be in touch, and a rate card that lived in a PDF we sent after the first call. It took us about a year to notice the pattern. Half of the first calls ended with a number, and half of those numbers ended the conversation.

So we moved the rate card onto the site. Starting prices for the four things we do, the revisions each one includes, the timeline, and the payment schedule. The page was live for a week before anyone inside the studio stopped being nervous about it.

What actually happened: the calls got shorter and better. People arrive knowing that identity starts at $12,000 and takes eight weeks, so the first twenty minutes are about their business instead of ours. The brief form asks for a budget range because the range is already public. Nobody has to guess.

The objection we hear from other studios is that a published price is a ceiling. In our experience it is a floor. The number on the site is where a clean project starts; the scope conversation moves it, and clients understand why because they can see what the base includes.

We lost one project to it. A retail group wanted an identity for a number that would not cover the print run. They found a cheaper studio, and two years later they came back for the packaging. Everyone else who read the page and wrote to us was already in the right room.

We review the rates every January and note the date on the page. If you are a studio reading this and still sending the PDF, try it for one quarter. The worst case is a quieter inbox with better letters in it.