How much do you pay for business card design?

[cafe-central]

I've been quoted £45 - is this the standard charge for design without printing?

 

[bjg123]

It always amazes me the number of people who we print for, who have paid a lot of money for a business card design, which is no different to something they could have designed on our website. £45 is a decent price, if you really need a bespoke design, I would suggest most people don't. Currently, we charge £10 to add a company logo or similar to one of our own designs through our "tweak" service. I would hazard a guess that our templates and tweak service would suffice for the vast majority of people who currently spend money on having a card designed fo them. Have a browse through our designs and see what you think.

 

[KreativeJuice]

Its a little on the low side.....

If you fancy a looksie at our portfolio and a quote give me a tinkle.

Kind regards
Karen
[email protected]

 

[S-Marketing]

I've been quoted £45 - is this the standard charge for design without printing?

Depends if they are any good or not. If they are, its a good price, if they are rubbish, then not so good.

 

[KreativeJuice]

if you really need a bespoke design, I would suggest most people don't.

Totally disagree there.

Your business card is a point of first contact and this means a point of first impression, give a bad impression and your business and sales will suffer. For the sake of a few pounds a professional designer can create a bespoke design tailored to your business and target market, together with the advice of which print methods and papers will give you the best results....why wouldnt you?

 

[cafe-central]

Interesting - ill take a look at whats available both bespoke and non and see if there is a big difference in design then.

Thanks alot for your replies.

 

[longleaf1]

I wouldn't know on prices as my cousin is a graphic designer and did all mine for a few pints on a Friday

However it doesn't seem too expensive and remember its a one off, once its done, its done and you can print over and over again with the same design.

I also disagree, like someone else said, your business card says a lot about you and your business, I see all sorts of rubbish cards and think for the sake of a few extra quid why wouldn't you get something decent!

 

[Matt1959]

I'd expect to pay over £100 for a business card and letterhead design. Whether a biz card on its own is £45 worth I dont know. Possibly ok if the jobs short and sweet but if it drags on due to a fussy client then its not enough? If your not fussy use a template via the printer? if you want a spot on job, you have to pay I think....lots of non designers out there though

 

[akirk]

Simple business card - c. 1/2 an hour - so sounds about right
more complex business cards - longer

and yes, I am sure that lots of people will shout that they work for 99p an hour etc. we don't!

then printing on top of that...

logically doing a number of similar business cards (details only changing) is comparatively cheaper...

Alasdair

 

[bjg123]

Totally disagree there.

Your business card is a point of first contact and this means a point of first impression, give a bad impression and your business and sales will suffer. For the sake of a few pounds a professional designer can create a bespoke design tailored to your business and target market, together with the advice of which print methods and papers will give you the best results....why wouldnt you?

I'm sure this could turn into a "well you would say that wouldn't you?" argument, but you would say that wouldn't you?! Our templates aren't designed by monkeys, they're done by expensive and talented graphic designers. For £10, we'll add any logo you want, and change the design as you see fit, so it's still going to be a professionally designed business card, tailored to your spec, for a tenner. You also have the advantage of being able to browse 100s of different styles and ideas. That should be more than sufficient for most small businesses, those with a large corporate identity and lots of employees may need something a bit more tailored.

 

[KreativeJuice]

I'm sure this could turn into a "well you would say that wouldn't you?" argument, but you would say that wouldn't you?!

Of course I would....but then I'm right....

 

[cafe-central]

Looking through the webpages, i'm not sure if most are priced with the logo design inclusive. I already have quite a big logo (www.bubblelicioustea.com) and i'm guessing the size of my logo limits the space you can use on a business card.

So can a bespoke designer add more if the logo is already there?

 

[bjg123]

I'm sure they'll tell you they can!

If you have looked at free templates from a printing company such as ourselves, and can't find anything you want, then a designer is the way to go, but if you find something you're perfectly happy with, why bother with a designer? I know I have a vested interest in this, but then again we print uploaded cards as well, so it makes no difference to us if our customers use their own artwork or ours, in my experience though, the quality of the designs uploaded are generally no better than ours, obviously sometimes you get the odd genius design, but that's really dependant on the business.

 

[KreativeJuice]

Business card design is a completely different animal when compared to logo design, time taken and research into your market is all incorporated into the fees for your logo, which from our experience takes on average an absolute minimum of 8hrs, which doesnt really include any creation of new concepts if the initial ones are not well received.

Any professional designer will add value, style and confidance inspiring tweaks to your business card design that wont be replicated from a 'pre-made' (how I hate that) template.

The simple test is in the pudding, commission a designer and see what they come up with and if you then feel that the money is well spent.

If you fancy us having a go then we dont charge for artwork until you are 100%
happy, I'll even go so far as to say that if you dont think we have added value above a template then we wont charge. You wont get to use the artwork though
This is how we operate on a daily basis for all our work, not just as a one off...

Kind regards
Karen
[email protected]

 

[akirk]

the simple problem with a template - in any area of design is that while 100s may be on offer, some tend to be the most popular... when two different companies turn up with the same design it does look rather cheap, and says something about the company (and I have seen it happen!)

on the other hand it can indeed save money...

it all depends on your approach for your company - do you wish to say something about your company which is unique to you - have your own identity?

if that is not important, and for some it is not, then go the cheapest route

Alasdair

 

[bjg123]

the simple problem with a template - in any area of design is that while 100s may be on offer, some tend to be the most popular... when two different companies turn up with the same design it does look rather cheap, and says something about the company (and I have seen it happen!)

on the other hand it can indeed save money...

it all depends on your approach for your company - do you wish to say something about your company which is unique to you - have your own identity?

if that is not important, and for some it is not, then go the cheapest route

Alasdair

This much is true, although, with different fonts, colours and your logo, it's unlikely your card will be similar enough to someone elses to be easily noticable. It really depends on your business, we sell a lot to salons, tradesmen, people like that. They're obviously not going to be as fussed about having something other people do as a marketing company or an artist.

 

[S-Marketing]

This much is true, although, with different fonts, colours and your logo, it's unlikely your card will be similar enough to someone elses to be easily noticable. It really depends on your business, we sell a lot to salons, tradesmen, people like that. They're obviously not going to be as fussed about having something other people do as a marketing company or an artist.

I dont think a Marketing company would be using template based cards. I would hope not anyway.

 

[bjg123]

I dont think a Marketing company would be using template based cards. I would hope not anyway.

That was my point, although I can assure you that we get plenty of orders from marketing companies using our designs for their cards, even more commonly, marketing companies are using our designs for clients printed products.

 

[KreativeJuice]

Maybe you should point them in the way of a professional design company....

 

[KreativeJuice]

For £10, how much care, attention and time can you possibly give to make it a viable business service, I can't imagine more than 10mins and surely this would be reflected with the design.

 

[bjg123]

For £10, how much care, attention and time can you possibly give to make it a viable business service, I can't imagine more than 10mins and surely this would be reflected with the design.

£10 is to edit one of our templates, so i they supply a logo or graphic, we'll place it on their template wherever they want it. The "care and attention" has already gone into the design of our template, if a customer wants one of our templates changed, they pay either £5 or £10 depending on the request.

If somebody asks me to point them in the way of a designer I can reccomend then I do, who, in turn, will always reccomend us for the printing!

 

[KreativeJuice]

will always reccomend us for the printing!

I'm sure they do, I've read a number of good reports from your printing.

 

[bjg123]

I'm sure they do, I've read a number of good reports from your printing.

Thanks

I think the main problem is I've had too many people tell me they've paid 100s of pounds for a design which is so basic, it could have just as easily been created by using one of our upload range templates and uploading a logo. Really, top quality business card design can look brilliant, but it can also be too expensive to be viable unless you're going to be ordering cards very frequently. As in the OP, for £45 I doubt you'll get a design better than you could do on our site for free.

 

[KreativeJuice]

but it can also be too expensive to be viable unless you're going to be ordering cards very frequently.

Sorry to come across as argumentative, but again I've got to disagree.
It is even more important to get the best first impressions out of say 100 cards to make the sales that you would from 1000s of less impressive ones....

Good design is an investment in your business, get it right and the sales that you get from it far outweigh any initial outlay, don't and you'll forever be paying for it by losing out on the sales you could have clinched.

 

[bjg123]

Sorry to come across as argumentative, but again I've got to disagree.
It is even more important to get the best first impressions out of say 100 cards to make the sales that you would from 1000s of less impressive ones....

Good design is an investment in your business, get it right and the sales that you get from it far outweigh any initial outlay, don't and you'll forever be paying for it by losing out on the sales you could have clinched.

Obviously it depends on the cost, if you're paying 150 quid for a design, and you're going to hand out 100 a year, which cost 25 quid to print, you've paid £1.75 a card. If you sell high-value services/products, then the increase in your conversion rate over a stock template might make it cost-effective, but if you're selling something of low-value, it probably won't be, unless you're able to hand out thousands of cards.

 

[Faevilangel]

It's all good saying "our templates are well used, blah blah blah" but they will only be used by those who just want a cheap generic business card IMO. If someone has a website or a type of brand then they will look for a professional design to complement their brand. I did this when I had mine done.

A professional print and design can do wonders for you, a business card is your opportunity to leave a lasting opinion on potential clients / customers. Now if you went shoddy (vista print style) you would leave the opposite impression than that above ...

Don't think about the cost, but think about the impression the card will give, make sure your name is the first in their mind when needing your services.

 

[akirk]

For £10, how much care, attention and time can you possibly give to make it a viable business service, I can't imagine more than 10mins and surely this would be reflected with the design.

I can easily see the business model - and £10 is easily enough to tweak a couple of bits of info as with a template no design would be changed...

my debate is purely around why / when companies would use a template as their identity...

Alasdair

 

[bjg123]

I would think that a lot of our desgins can be changed enough that they fit in with a company's brand identity, although not all obviously. Uploading a logo to template is simple enough anyway, other than that, it's just the layout of the text and the colours used which are neccessary to fit corporate identity, and that's easy enough to do with a template.

Obviously templates aren't for everyone, but they are good for more than just "cheap" business cards.

 

[akirk]

I would think that a lot of our desgins can be changed enough that they fit in with a company's brand identity, although not all obviously. Uploading a logo to template is simple enough anyway, other than that, it's just the layout of the text and the colours used which are neccessary to fit corporate identity, and that's easy enough to do with a template.

Sorry - that is too simplistic - corporate design / branding is usually far more detailed than that. - Yes, for some companies that will be fine, but for anyone who is paying attention to brand / design then a design company will be masterminding a complete look / style / brand - and a business card for them will be tiny amounts of cost in addition to the brand work - rarely is a business card originated purely on its own.

Obviously templates aren't for everyone, but they are good for more than just "cheap" business cards.

Sorry - that is exactly what they are but that doesn't mean that they are not right for some people who just need a smart way of sharing their details and the look is not important.

Alasdair

 

[jamesjones]

Everything is important in your card design, especially your name should be striking, so the palce and the front should not be complex. When you order your cards' design in a design firm don't rely on them completely.