BrandingUpdated August 2026

Best Branding Agencies in 2026

Pentagram leads on range and independence, with 20 owner-partners working across identity, packaging and digital. Koto suits technology brands at scale, Red Antler launch and DTC, Focus Lab B2B software positioning, and Moving Brands enterprise SaaS identity. Budgets in this list run from €25,000 to well past €500,000.

Most published branding rankings are written by branding agencies that appear in them, so we built this one from agency records we hold and verify, scoring each firm on client evidence, specialisation and fit, independent recognition, tenure, commercial transparency and documented outcomes. SaaSInsight owns none of the firms listed here, no placement was paid for, and where a firm belongs to a holding company we say so. Read the full method. No entry on this list is a paid placement.

What you are actually buying

A branding engagement is not a logo. At the price points in this list you are buying a position, the language that expresses it, an identity system that other people can apply without you in the room, and the governance that stops it drifting within eighteen months.

That last part is what separates the firms below from a freelance designer at a tenth of the cost. A logo is a deliverable. A brand system is a set of rules that has to survive a new marketing director, three agencies of record and a product line nobody has thought of yet.

It also explains why the price range here is so wide. A studio of twelve people delivering positioning and an identity for a Series B software company is doing genuinely different work from a 500-person consultancy running a naming programme across nine markets and two regulators. Both are on this list. Only one of them is right for you.

The ownership question nobody asks

Three of the most recommended brand consultancies in the world, Interbrand, Siegel+Gale and Wolff Olins, are all owned by Omnicom, and all three sit in the same internal group. None of them says so on its own website.

That matters practically rather than morally. A buyer who runs a competitive pitch between those three believes they are testing three independent points of view. They are testing three subsidiaries of one holding company, with shared incentives above them. It is worth knowing before you spend six weeks on a process.

Where a firm on this list has a parent company, we name it in the entry. Where a firm is independent, that is a scored advantage rather than a footnote.

How we weighted this list

Every SaaSInsight ranking uses the same six criteria in the same order. Only the weights move between categories, and for branding they sit here:

Client evidence · 30 · whose brands the firm has actually built, and whether those companies look like yours
Specialisation and fit · 25 · the dominant failure in this category is mis-fit, not incompetence. A consumer packaging house cannot do B2B software positioning, and the reverse is equally true
Independent recognition · 15 · third-party awards and standards, not self-assessment
Tenure · 15 · a brand system has to outlive several marketing directors, so longevity signals more here than on a website build
Commercial transparency · 10 · roughly two thirds of the firms in this category publish nothing at all. It still counts, because a firm that names a number is more predictable to buy from
Documented outcomes · 5 · almost nobody publishes measured results on a rebrand, so this separates very few firms

Specialisation is weighted higher here, and transparency lower, than on our web design ranking. Both moves are deliberate and the reasoning is above. The criteria themselves never change, which is what makes two SaaSInsight rankings comparable. The full framework is at our methodology page.

One rule we apply to pricing: a figure counts only if the firm publishes it itself, or declares it on a named third-party profile. Estimates and numbers contradicted by the firm's own site are left out rather than printed. Two firms in this list carry entry-level figures in third-party directories that are plainly not real floors for organisations of their size, so we have not repeated them.

The agencies, ranked

#01
Pentagram
London, UK
Year established
1972
Team size
250–999
Pricing model
Project-based
Hourly rate
$50–$99/hr
Typical budget
Starts at $5,000
Notable clients
Pfizer, Mozilla Foundation, St Paul's Cathedral, The Obama Presidential Center, Jetour, Queens Tourism Council
Best for
Enterprise brands, cultural institutions, government, large tech, global organisations
About Pentagram
Pentagram is the world’s largest independently owned design studio and one of the most influential branding firms globally. Founded in 1972, the studio operates as a partnership of 20 renowned designers, each leading their own creative team across offices in London, New York, Austin, and Berlin. This unique structure gives Pentagram both the scale of a global agency and the craftsmanship of an independent practice. Their work covers every major design discipline, from brand identity and packaging to digital experiences, environmental design, and large-scale communication systems. Pentagram’s portfolio includes some of the most iconic rebrands in modern design history.
Each of the twenty partners runs their own team with its own sensibility, so fit depends a good deal on which partner takes the brief. Worth asking early who would lead your project. We found no published pricing, so budget expectations are best set in the first conversation.
Featured work
- Mastercard
  A globally recognised redesign that distilled Mastercard’s identity into a modern minimal symbol system used across digital and physical environments. Widely regarded as one of the most iconic brand simplifications of the 21st century.
  - Brand Strategy
  - Brand Identity
- Slack
  Pentagram reimagined Slack’s brand system with a cleaner symbol, reduced color palette, and a scalable visual language suitable for global enterprise expansion.
  - Brand Identity
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#02
Koto
London, UK
Year established
2015
Team size
50–100
Pricing model
Project-based
Hourly rate
Not publicly disclosed
Typical budget
Typically mid-range to enterprise budgets
Notable clients
Amazon, Microsoft, Lyft, Tripadvisor, Coinbase, WhatsApp, GoFundMe, Workday
Best for
Tech startups, SaaS brands, consumer brands, food & beverage, lifestyle & wellness companies, global scale-ups
About Koto
Koto is a global branding studio known for building bold, contemporary identities for some of the world’s fastest-growing companies. Founded in 2015, the agency has quickly expanded into a multi-office international studio working across London, Berlin, Los Angeles, New York, and Sydney. Koto specializes in high-growth brand environments, from tech startups to established global consumer brands with a strong emphasis on clarity, personality, and modern expression. Their work spans strategy, naming, identity, digital design, and brand voice, often helping companies establish a differentiated market position at pivotal moments of growth.
Founded in 2015, so it has a shorter track record than the long-established consultancies further down this list. Pricing is not published. The studio also has a recognisable visual signature, which is a strength where it fits and worth weighing if you want something further from its existing work.
Featured work
- Amazon
  Koto partnered with Amazon to develop brand systems that support clarity and consistency across a complex, global ecosystem. The work focused on creating flexible design frameworks that can scale across products, teams, and touchpoints while maintaining a coherent brand experience.
  - Digital Brand Systems
- Workday
  Koto worked with Workday to evolve the brand’s visual identity and digital expression as the company continued to scale. The project centred on building a clear, adaptable system that supports a wide range of product and marketing needs while reinforcing Workday’s positioning as a trusted enterprise platform.
  - Visual Identity
  - Digital Experience
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#03
Red Antler
New York City, USA
Year established
2007
Team size
50–100
Pricing model
Project-based
Hourly rate
Not publicly disclosed
Typical budget
€40000+
Notable clients
Casper, Allbirds, Hinge, AllTrails, Ramp, Cotopaxi, ThredUp, Eight Sleep, Archer, Supergoop!
Best for
Startups and scaleups that need a strong brand foundation, positioning, identity, and narrative—built quickly and designed to grow with the business.
About Red Antler
Red Antler is a New York–based branding agency best known for helping early-stage and high-growth companies define who they are at critical moments of launch and scale. Their work focuses on building brands from the ground up, shaping positioning, identity, and voice in a way that resonates with modern consumers and investors alike. The agency is particularly strong at translating business ideas into clear, distinctive brand narratives that work across product, marketing, and culture. Red Antler’s approach blends strategic rigor with expressive design, making their brands feel confident, relevant, and human from day one. This has made them a go-to partner for startups looking to establish credibility quickly while building brands that can evolve as the business grows.
The portfolio is weighted toward consumer and DTC brands, so in a regulated or deeply technical B2B category it is worth asking to see the closest comparable work. The clear strength is the launch and early-growth moment, which a long-established company should test against its own situation.
Featured work
- Hinge
  For Hinge, Red Antler led a brand repositioning to help the dating app stand apart in a crowded category dominated by casual, swipe-first narratives. The challenge was to articulate a clearer emotional promise, one focused on intention, connection, and outcomes while evolving the brand without losing existing recognition. Red Antler refined Hinge’s positioning and translated it into a more mature, expressive identity system that could scale across product, marketing, and cultural touchpoints. The work aligned visual language, tone of voice, and brand behaviour around a single, resonant idea. This project demonstrates Red Antler’s strength in shaping brands through meaning and narrative, not just aesthetics.
  - Brand Strategy & Positioning
  - Brand Identity Design
  - Verbal Identity
  - Brand System Development
  - Creative Direction
- Casper
  For Casper, Red Antler built the brand from the ground up, helping launch what would become one of the most influential direct-to-consumer brands of its time. The challenge was to turn an undifferentiated, opaque category into something approachable, human, and emotionally engaging. Red Antler developed a clear brand strategy and identity that reframed sleep as a lifestyle conversation rather than a technical purchase. From naming and tone of voice to visual identity and launch execution, the brand was designed to feel friendly, confident, and culturally relevant. Casper is a defining example of Red Antler’s ability to create category-shaping brands through clarity, storytelling, and disciplined execution.
  - Brand Strategy
  - Brand Identity Design
  - Naming Support
  - Verbal Identity
  - Go-to-Market Branding
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#04
Focus Lab
Remote, USA
Year established
2010
Team size
10–49
Pricing model
Mixed
Typical budget
Project budgets banded from under $30,000 to $250,000 and up, plus a monthly retainer option
Notable clients
Zuora, Salesoft, Fabricators & Manufacturers Association
Best for
B2B and SaaS companies that have outgrown their original identity and need brand strategy and visual identity rebuilt together rather than a website refresh.
About Focus Lab
A rare thing in our current pool: an agency that is explicitly and only B2B. Positioning is brand identity and strategy for companies wanting to stand out as industry leaders, delivered by a stated mix of brand designers, strategists and writers.
The pricing signal is unusually good for an agency site. The contact form exposes real budget bands running from under $30,000 up to $250,000 and above, alongside a monthly retainer option, which is enough to place it confidently for buyers with a stated budget. Copyright dates from 2010 and the site claims more than a decade of operation.
Operating remotely across the US, with no single office stated. Team size is not stated, though the team page pictures more than thirty people. The B2B focus and the SaaS client work make this a strong candidate for the SaaS branding and B2B cuts.
A remote US team, smaller than the network firms, so a simultaneous multi-market rollout is worth discussing up front. The B2B focus is deliberate, which does mean there is little consumer, retail or cultural work to review if that is where you are heading.
Featured work
- Braze
  Brand identity work for a customer-engagement platform that later went public. An example of Focus Lab operating at the scale where a rebrand has to survive an IPO-stage communications programme, not just a marketing site refresh.
  - Brand Strategy
  - Visual Identity
- LaunchDarkly
  Brand and identity work for a developer-tools company. Shows the agency handling a technical, developer-facing audience where the identity has to read as credible to engineers rather than to a marketing buyer.
  - Brand Strategy
  - Visual Identity
  - Web Design
- PolyAI
  Branding for a conversational-AI company. Representative of the newer AI-category work in their portfolio, where the brand has to differentiate in a crowded and fast-moving market rather than describe an established category.
  - Brand Strategy
  - Visual Identity
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#05
Moving Brands
London, UK
Year established
1998
Team size
51–200
Pricing model
Project-based
Hourly rate
Not publicly disclosed
Typical budget
Typically mid-to-enterprise budgets
Notable clients
Asana, Vanta, Netflix, Google, BBC, Gong, Khan Academy, Cruise, Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1, Microsoft Advertising
Best for
SaaS & tech companies, consumer electronics brands, mobility companies, enterprise digital transformation, brands needing a strong motion identity
About Moving Brands
Moving Brands is an independent global creative company founded in 1998 and known for unifying brand, story, and experience into cohesive identity systems. With offices across London, Zurich, New York, and San Francisco, the agency works at the intersection of branding and digital product design making it a strong fit for high-growth technology companies and global brands undergoing transformation. Their work emphasizes motion, systems-thinking, and digital-first identity, supported by a multidisciplinary team spanning strategy, design, product, and creative technology.
Now sized like a consultancy, and pricing is not published, so mid to enterprise budgets are a fair expectation. Early-stage companies may find the process more thorough than their stage needs, which is worth raising in a first call.
Featured work
- Netflix
  Moving Brands contributed to Netflix’s brand evolution by developing design systems and digital experience expressions that helped the streaming giant scale globally across platforms.
  - Brand identity systems
  - Motion Design
- HP
  The agency created a modern, minimalist identity system for HP, including the iconic “HP Inc.” monoline symbol, a major global rebrand recognized for its simplicity and future-facing design.
  - Brand Strategy
  - Brand identity systems
  - Brand Architecture
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#06
Fuzzco
Charleston, South Carolina, USA
Year established
2005
Team size
11–50
Pricing model
Retainer
Hourly rate
$100 – $149/hr
Typical budget
Starts at $5,000
Notable clients
Notion, Ramp, Figma, AssemblyAI, Maven, Carbon Health, Nuuly
Best for
SaaS and fintech companies that want a small senior studio on brand and website rather than a large agency team.
About Fuzzco
The client list is the reason to take this seriously for our purposes. Notion, Ramp, Figma and AssemblyAI are exactly the companies our readers benchmark themselves against, and a studio that has done brand work for all four has stronger SaaS proof than most of the larger firms in our pool.
Self described as full service agency expertise with a small studio practice, which is the useful shape for a funded startup that wants senior attention. Retainer clients are mentioned explicitly, so ongoing work is part of the model. Stated sector spread covers fintech, productivity software, AI and machine learning, healthcare and consumer.
The record has real gaps: no headquarters, team size, founding year or pricing is stated anywhere on the site, so `location` is blank rather than guessed and must be confirmed before this is used in a US filtered list. Custom typeface work suggests genuine craft depth on identity.
A small team, so parallel capacity is limited and a global rollout is likely beyond its shape. The retainer model suits an ongoing relationship, so if you need a fixed scope delivered to a firm date, confirm early how that would be structured.
Featured work
- Stytch
  A full rebrand of a developer-facing authentication and fraud-prevention product after its Series B. The engagement ran from brand narrative through visual identity, a custom illustration system for abstract security concepts, and a web design system built to carry both brand storytelling and product marketing. It shows Fuzzco working inside a technical category where the audience is engineers, not consumers.
  - Brand identity
  - Web design
  - Illustration
  - Animation
- Monarch Money
  Identity and website work for a personal finance app during the window when Mint shut down and Monarch was absorbing its users. Scope covered an expanded colour palette for both marketing and in-product accessibility, motion, photography and video, and continuity from homepage into the dashboard across a major product update. It demonstrates handling brand and product surfaces together rather than handing off at the marketing site.
  - Rebrand
  - Web design
  - Motion
  - Art direction
- Figma.com homepage redesign
  A redesign of Figma's homepage structured around three stages of the creative process, introduced to give Figma and the newer FigJam product a clear shared architecture. Content strategy, responsive design, and still and motion assets were all in scope. It is evidence Fuzzco can work on a high-traffic page for a company with a strong in-house design team, which is a different constraint from building a brand from nothing.
  - Content strategy
  - Web design
  - Animation
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#07
Wolff Olins
London, UK
Year established
1965
Team size
51–200
Pricing model
Project-based
Hourly rate
$100 - $149/hr
Typical budget
Starts at $10,000+
Notable clients
Lloyds, TikTok, Uber, Instacart, Patreon, Decathlon, The Economist, McKinsey, GSK, LG Electronics, The Met
Best for
Large organisations, government, global companies, complex brand architecture challenges, digital transformation
About Wolff Olins
Wolff Olins is one of the world’s most well-known brand consultancies, recognised for shaping major global brands for over five decades. Founded in 1965, the studio works at the intersection of strategy and creativity, helping organisations redefine themselves, transform customer experiences, and adapt to new markets. With teams in London and New York, Wolff Olins partners with enterprises undergoing large-scale brand and digital evolution. Known for bold, provocative work, the agency has delivered some of the most widely-discussed rebrands in modern design history including major corporate, tech, public sector, and nonprofit transformations.
Part of Omnicom since 2001, alongside Interbrand, Siegel+Gale and Sterling Brands. That is not stated on its own site, and it is worth knowing if you are pitching more than one of them. Enterprise scale also brings enterprise process, which smaller teams sometimes find heavier than they need.
Featured work
- Decathlon
  Wolff Olins partnered with Decathlon to modernize one of Europe’s largest sporting retail brands, simplifying the identity and creating a more dynamic, distinctive visual language.
  - Brand Strategy
  - Brand Architecture
  - Visual Identity
  - Verbal Identity
  - Research
  - Physical Environment
- Uber
  The studio helped Uber evolve from a ride-sharing app to a global mobility brand through a bold new identity system, designed for clarity, scalability, and global recognition.
  - Brand Strategy
  - Brand Architecture
  - Visual Identity
  - Verbal Identity
  - Research
  - Employer Brand
  - Culture Strategy & EVP
  - Physical Environment
  - Digital Experience
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#08
Instrument
Portland, USA
Team size
350+
Hourly rate
$200 – $300/hr
Typical budget
Starts at $250,000
Notable clients
Google, Spotify, Electronic Arts, ServiceNow, Uber, Oura
Best for
Enterprise and late stage technology companies running brand and product work at a scale that needs several hundred people behind it.
About Instrument
The largest firm in this batch by a wide margin at more than 350 staff, based in Portland with a New York office. Client roster is enterprise technology at the top end: Google, Spotify, Electronic Arts, ServiceNow, Uber and Oura.
That scale is the whole consideration when placing it. For an enterprise brand or product programme it is a credible answer and belongs on the enterprise cuts. For the boutique to mid market buyer who reads most of our lists, a 350 person agency is likely to be the wrong shape and the wrong budget, and saying so plainly is more useful than ranking it highly everywhere.
Services are stated only at the top level as brand, marketing and product. Founding year is given as more than twenty years ago without a specific date. No pricing, sector focus or engagement model is stated.
The published $250,000 starting point puts it beyond many budgets, though stating it plainly is more useful than leaving it vague. Its breadth across brand, marketing and product also means it is not a pure identity specialist, which is a fit question rather than a shortcoming.
Featured work
- Oura — smart ring site and commerce experience
  Instrument rebuilt how Oura's site explains and sells the ring, running consumer research, user story mapping and qualitative and quantitative testing before design. Instrument reports a 42% increase in sales per day and a 3% increase in funnel progression one month after launch. It is the one project on their site with published commercial numbers, which makes it the most useful evidence for a buyer judging whether the work moves revenue rather than wins awards.
  - Product
  - E-commerce
  - UX Research
- Electronic Arts — brand system for a games publisher repositioning as an entertainment company
  A full identity programme covering brand architecture, a custom typeface in serif, mono and text styles, an icon and motion toolkit, subbrand systems, voice and tone, and rollout training. Instrument also built custom brand interface tooling for auto-cropping, logo generation and colour styling. The scope shows the agency handling strategy, design and the engineering that keeps a system usable after handover, rather than delivering guidelines alone.
  - Brand
  - Design System
  - Tooling
- Nike — digital design system across Nike.com, Nike App, SNKRS, NRC and NTC
  A component library and unified visual language spanning five consumer platforms, delivered over a partnership Instrument describes as running more than a decade and beginning with a Nike.com redesign. The work covers UX strategy, information architecture, user testing, UI and motion design, and UI copy. It is evidence of sustained enterprise-scale engagement with one client rather than one-off campaign work.
  - Design System
  - Product
  - Enterprise
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#09
Ramotion
San Francisco, USA
Year established
2009
Team size
50–100
Pricing model
Project-based
Hourly rate
Not publicly disclosed
Typical budget
€30000+
Notable clients
Firefox, Salesforce, Clearbit, Turo, Descript, Stripe, Okta, Adobe, Island, Cellebrite
Best for
Product-led startups and technology companies that need strong visual identity and UX/UI design delivered as a unified, scalable system.
About Ramotion
Ramotion is a brand and product design agency that helps technology companies define their identity and translate it into digital products and platforms. Their work is highly execution-driven, combining brand strategy, visual identity, and UX/UI design into cohesive systems that scale across apps, websites, and marketing touchpoints. The agency is particularly known for its strong visual craft and system-oriented approach, making them a popular partner for fast-growing startups and product-led companies. Ramotion often works at moments of transition, launch, rebrand, or rapid growth where consistency between brand expression and product experience is critical. Their projects typically balance bold visual language with practical design systems that support long-term use and iteration.
The clear strength is execution. If your hardest problem is positioning rather than expression, consider pairing them with a strategy partner. Only the entry point is disclosed on pricing, so the range above it is worth establishing early.
Featured work
- Mozilla Firefox
  For Mozilla Firefox, Ramotion worked on a brand redesign aimed at modernising one of the world’s most recognisable open-source technology brands. The challenge was to refresh Firefox’s visual identity while preserving its values around openness, privacy, and accessibility without alienating an existing global user base. Ramotion developed a refined visual system that strengthened clarity, scalability, and consistency across digital touchpoints. The redesign focused on simplifying forms, improving recognisability at small sizes, and creating a flexible system that could adapt across products and platforms. This project demonstrates Ramotion’s ability to evolve established brands through thoughtful system design rather than surface-level aesthetic change.
  - Brand Identity Redesign
  - Visual System Development
  - Iconography & Logo Refinement
  - Digital Brand Guidelines
  - Creative Direction
- OPPO
  For OPPO’s ColorOS 7, Ramotion designed a comprehensive iconography system for a mobile operating system used by millions of users worldwide. The challenge was to create an icon set that felt contemporary and expressive while remaining highly functional across devices, resolutions, and contexts. Ramotion approached the project by developing a cohesive icon system grounded in consistency, clarity, and scalability. Each icon was designed as part of a broader visual language, reinforcing the ColorOS brand through everyday user interactions. This work highlights Ramotion’s strength in branding through detail where consistent micro-design decisions play a critical role in shaping brand perception at scale.
  - Brand Visual Language Development
  - Iconography System Design
  - UI & Interaction Design Support
  - Design System Components
  - Creative Direction
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#10
Kurppa Hosk
Stockholm, Sweden
Year established
2009
Team size
30-50
Pricing model
Project-based
Hourly rate
€100–€160
Typical budget
€40,000 – €200,000+
Notable clients
Scania, Zalando, Bungie, Nike, Meta, Bobbi Brown, Clas Ohlson, & Other Stories
Best for
Global brands, growth-stage companies, teams needing scalable brand systems, organisations operating across multiple markets
About Kurppa Hosk
Kurppa Hosk is a Stockholm-based brand and design studio founded in 2009, known for its ability to combine strategic clarity with strong, contemporary visual identities. The studio works across brand strategy, identity, and design systems, helping organisations define who they are and how they show up across digital and physical touchpoints. With a collaborative, strategy-led approach, Kurppa Hosk partners with both global brands and growing companies to create identities that feel clear, confident, and adaptable. Their work often balances bold visual expression with structure and restraint, making it practical as well as distinctive. Kurppa Hosk is particularly well suited for brands that need a strong identity foundation that can scale across markets, platforms, and audiences without losing consistency.
The portfolio leans consumer, retail and beauty, so there is less B2B software work available to review. If your programme depends on US time zone coverage, it is worth confirming how the team would staff it.
Featured work
- Bobbi Brown
  Kurppa Hosk worked with Bobbi Brown to evolve the brand’s visual identity, bringing greater clarity, confidence, and consistency to its global presence. The project focused on refining how the brand communicated its values across packaging, digital channels, and brand communications. The updated identity balanced modernisation with familiarity, ensuring the brand remained recognisable while feeling more contemporary and relevant.
  - Brand Strategy
  - Visual Identity
  - Brand System Development
  - Art Direction
- Meta
  Kurppa Hosk partnered with Meta on brand-related design work focused on clarity, structure, and consistency across communication touchpoints. The project required a flexible design system that could support a large, complex organisation while remaining clear and accessible. ‍ The studio’s work emphasised scalability and usability, ensuring the design system could be applied across teams, products, and global markets.
  - Brand System Design
  - Visual Identity Support
  - Design Frameworks
  - Art Direction
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#11
Further
London, UK
Year established
2009
Team size
100–200
Pricing model
Project-based
Hourly rate
Not publicly disclosed
Typical budget
Typically mid-to-enterprise budgets
Notable clients
Airbnb, Deliveroo, Depop, Eurostar, Wimbledon, HSBC SVNS, UFC, EA Sports, Borussia Dortmund, Royal Ballet & Opera, Squarespace, GetYourGuide, Panasonic, The Other House
Best for
Tech scale-ups, global brands, sports & entertainment, modern consumer brands, companies seeking expressive, motion-led identity systems
About Further
DesignStudio is a global branding agency founded in 2009 and known for its bold, expressive identity systems and high-impact brand storytelling. Operating across London, Sydney, San Francisco, and Shanghai, the studio partners with ambitious companies looking to redefine their category, express a clearer purpose, or scale their brand globally. Their multidisciplinary team blends strategy, design, and motion to create brand experiences that work across digital products, physical environments, and global communication campaigns. From hyper-growth startups to global household names, DesignStudio is recognised for brand transformations that feel energetic, modern, and culturally relevant.
The house style is expressive and confident. In more conservative categories, insurance or enterprise infrastructure for instance, it is worth testing that against how your own buyers respond. Pricing is not published and sits in mid to enterprise territory.
Featured work
- Airbnb
  DesignStudio created the now-iconic Airbnb “Bélo” identity, repositioning the platform around the idea of belonging. The project included strategy, brand identity, motion, product design, and a global brand system.
  - Brand Strategy
  - Brand Identity
- Deliveroo
  The agency redesigned Deliveroo’s identity to introduce a bold new logo, colour system, and visual language built for scale across delivery gear, restaurants, packaging, and digital products.
  - Brand Strategy
  - Brand Identity
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#12
DixonBaxi
London, UK
Year established
2001
Team size
51–200
Pricing model
Project-based
Hourly rate
Not publicly disclosed
Typical budget
Typically mid-to-enterprise budgets
Notable clients
TikTok, Formula 1, ESPN, Hulu, Roblox, Headspace, Audible, AC Milan, IMAX, ITV, TNT Sports, Everton, DailyPay
Best for
Streaming platforms, sports brands, entertainment & media, large-scale digital identity rollouts, motion-led identities
About DixonBaxi
Founded in 2001, DixonBaxi is a global brand and design consultancy known for bold, cinematic brand identities and large-scale transformation work for broadcasters, streaming platforms, and global brands. Their approach blends strategy with high-impact motion, storytelling, and digital design, resulting in distinctive brand experiences that feel modern and expressive. The studio collaborates with major organisations across entertainment, sports, tech, and lifestyle sectors creating brand systems that scale across digital interfaces, TV, physical environments, and global campaigns.
Strongly weighted to entertainment, streaming and sport. If motion and on-screen identity are not central to how your brand is experienced, a good part of what this studio does best may go unused.
Featured work
- Hulu
  DixonBaxi redesigned Hulu’s global identity system, creating a bold, energetic design language used across product, marketing, and on-air environments.
  - Brand Strategy
  - Visual Identity
  - Design Systems
- British Land
  The studio reimagined British Land’s identity to reflect a more human, modern, and community-focused vision, a major shift for one of the UK’s largest property development companies.
  - Brand Identity
  - Brand Strategy
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#13
Lava
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Year established
1989
Team size
30–50
Pricing model
Mixed
Hourly rate
Not publicly disclosed
Typical budget
€30000+
Notable clients
Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, KLM, UNStudio, Randstad, SABIC, DSM, Lightyear, Museumkaart, KRO-NCRV, Waternet, Techniek Nederland
Best for
B2B organisations, scaleups, and established companies that need strategic clarity translated into robust, long-term brand systems.
About Lava
Lava is an Amsterdam-based branding agency that focuses on helping organisations clarify who they are, what they stand for, and how they show up in the world. Their work is rooted in strategic positioning, with a strong emphasis on aligning brand identity with business ambition and organisational culture. Lava is particularly experienced in working with complex, knowledge-driven organisations where clarity, credibility, and differentiation are critical. Rather than treating branding as a purely visual exercise, Lava approaches it as a system that connects strategy, identity, and experience across digital and organisational touchpoints. Their identities are designed to scale supporting growth, change, and internal adoption over time. This makes Lava a strong partner for companies navigating transformation, repositioning, or the need to communicate expertise in a clear and compelling way.
Better known within the Netherlands than internationally, and the portfolio leans toward Dutch institutions and corporates. We found less technology and SaaS work than the stated industry list suggests, so it is worth asking to see it directly.
Featured work
- NUDUS
  For NUDUS, Lava created a brand identity system for a fashion label rooted in sustainability and material innovation. The challenge was to reflect the brand’s experimental philosophy while avoiding fixed or decorative visual tropes that would limit long-term expression. Lava developed a generative identity system inspired by wind behaviour, using movement and variability as core design principles. Instead of relying on static assets, the brand is defined through dynamic forms and rules that adapt across applications. This approach allows the identity to remain fluid while maintaining coherence, mirroring NUDUS’s commitment to experimentation and responsible production. The project showcases Lava’s strength in translating abstract concepts into usable, scalable brand systems.
  - Brand Strategy
  - Generative Identity Design
  - Visual System Development
  - Creative Direction
  - Digital Brand Expression
- Museumvereniging
  For the Museumvereniging (Dutch Museum Association), Lava developed a brand identity to represent and strengthen a diverse national network of museums. The challenge was to create a unifying system that could speak for hundreds of institutions while respecting their individual identities and cultural significance. Lava approached the project by designing a flexible identity framework that emphasises connection, accessibility, and shared purpose. The system balances clarity with openness, allowing the association to communicate effectively across policy, advocacy, and public-facing platforms. By focusing on structure rather than rigid visuals, the identity supports both internal alignment and external communication. This project highlights Lava’s ability to design for complex, multi-stakeholder organisations.
  - Brand Strategy
  - Brand Identity Design
  - Visual Systems
  - Stakeholder Communication Design
  - Creative Direction
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#14
Made Thought
London, UK
Year established
2000
Team size
51-200
Pricing model
Project-based
Hourly rate
Not publicly disclosed
Typical budget
Not publicly disclosed
Notable clients
Chanel, Pinterest, Nothing, Dolce & Gabbana, Charlotte Tilbury, adidas, MoMA, Rapha, Feeld, Ableton
Best for
Lifestyle brands, consumer goods, retail & hospitality, startups needing high-brand polish, products focused on design & user perception
About Made Thought
Made Thought is a creative studio based in London, celebrated for its thoughtful, design-led approach to branding. The agency specializes in crafting distinctive brand identities and visual systems that combine aesthetic richness with strategic clarity. Their work spans packaging design, art direction, digital interfaces, and brand storytelling making them a strong fit for consumer-focused, lifestyle, and retail brands that value craft, beauty, and cohesive identity. With experience across multiple industries including FMCG, hospitality, consumer goods, and tech-startups, Made Thought has developed a reputation for elevating brand experiences with high-end, refined design and cultural sensitivity. Their studio emphasizes collaboration, creativity, and a holistic view of brand expression across physical and digital environments.
No pricing is published, and craft-led work at this level carries the cost you would expect. The strength is refinement of expression, so a company whose core problem is explaining what it does may want strategy-led help alongside.
Featured work
- Adidas
  Made Thought worked with Adidas to develop brand expressions that balance performance, culture, and innovation across a global audience. The project focused on creating a flexible visual language that could adapt across campaigns, products, and digital platforms while staying true to Adidas’ core identity and values.
  - Brand Identity
  - Packaging Design
- Herman Miller Gaming
  Made Thought partnered with Herman Miller Gaming to shape a distinct brand identity at the intersection of performance, design, and gaming culture. The work established a clear, scalable system that differentiates the gaming line from the core Herman Miller brand while maintaining credibility, clarity, and premium design standards across digital and physical touchpoints.
  - Branding
  - Digital Design
Socials:LinkedIn Instagram
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#15
Siegel+Gale
New York, USA
Year established
1969
Team size
201–500
Hourly rate
$100 – $149/hr
Typical budget
Starts at $5,000
Notable clients
Solventum, Micron, CVS Health, HPE, U.S. Army, Tether, H&R Block, Bristol Myers Squibb
Best for
Large enterprises and regulated businesses running a brand repositioning or naming programme across multiple markets.
About Siegel+Gale
An enterprise brand consultancy rather than a studio, organised around a single stated idea that the simplest brands win. Headquartered at 622 Third Avenue in New York with offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Dubai, Shanghai and Tokyo, which gives it genuine multi market delivery that almost nothing else in our pool can match.
Stated sector coverage is broad and enterprise weighted: healthcare, manufacturing and industrial, financial services, consumer and retail, technology, professional services, energy, and travel and hospitality. Naming is offered as a distinct service, which is comparatively rare and worth noting on brand cuts.
The caveat is fit. This is a large global consultancy, and for the boutique to mid market reader who makes up most of our audience it will be the wrong scale and budget. It belongs on enterprise and naming cuts, not on startup ones. No team size, founding year, client names or pricing is stated on the site.
Part of Omnicom since 2003, alongside Interbrand and Wolff Olins, which its own site does not state. The approach is consultancy-led rather than design-led, so if visual ambition is the priority it is worth reviewing recent identity work closely.
Featured work
- Solventum
  Full brand creation for the health care company spun out of 3M — strategy, the Solventum name, visual identity, messaging and a Frontify-based brand centre, plus employee listening and an EVP for the transitioning workforce. It shows the firm can run a corporate separation end to end rather than deliver a logo and hand off, including the internal rollout that decides whether a spin-off brand actually lands.
  - Brand strategy
  - Naming
  - Identity
- Tether
  Repositioning for the stablecoin issuer, moving it to a digital infrastructure story spanning energy, communications and education. Scope ran from stakeholder interviews and competitive analysis through positioning, identity, tone of voice, AI-assisted imagery guidelines and website architecture — evidence they will take on a crypto-native client and carry strategy through to the digital experience.
  - Repositioning
  - Identity
  - Digital
- H&R Block
  Verbal and visual identity refresh for the tax preparation chain, covering typography, photography and colour, an employee value proposition, and a five-phase associate journey mapped for both corporate and seasonal hiring. Demonstrates work on a legacy consumer brand where the constraint is modernising without discarding recognition — the square logo was retained.
  - Brand refresh
  - Employer brand
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#16
Verve
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Year established
2004
Team size
30–50
Pricing model
Mixed
Hourly rate
Not publicly disclosed
Typical budget
€30000+
Notable clients
Miro, Bynder, Flutterwave, Lebara, Ecommpay, Zenchef, Insify, The Org
Best for
B2B, healthcare, and technology organisations that need strategic clarity translated into robust, scalable brand and digital systems.
About Verve
Verve is an Amsterdam-based branding agency focused on helping organisations clarify their positioning and translate strategy into clear, usable brand systems. Their work sits at the intersection of strategy, design, and digital execution, with a strong emphasis on building brands that function effectively across real-world touchpoints. Rather than creating decorative identities, Verve prioritises structure, logic, and consistency ensuring that brand decisions are grounded in insight and can scale over time. They frequently work with complex organisations, including B2B, healthcare, and technology-driven companies, where clarity, trust, and internal alignment are essential. Verve’s approach makes them particularly well suited to brands undergoing change, growth, or the need to communicate expertise with confidence.
Smaller and less internationally known than most of this list, and we found no independent awards or standards on record. The work is also weighted to Europe, so for a US-first launch it is worth asking how that is supported.
Featured work
- Ecommpay
  For Ecommpay, Verve delivered a comprehensive brand and digital redesign for a global payment service provider operating in a highly technical and regulated space. The challenge was to clarify a complex offering while building trust with enterprise clients, partners, and developers across international markets. Verve approached the project by strengthening Ecommpay’s positioning and translating it into a clear, confident visual and digital system. The identity balances professionalism with approachability, while the redesigned digital experience prioritises clarity, hierarchy, and ease of navigation. The result is a brand that communicates credibility without feeling distant, demonstrating Verve’s ability to make complex fintech services accessible and coherent through design.
  - Brand Strategy
  - Brand Identity Design
  - Visual System Development
  - UX/UI Design
  - Digital Experience Design
- Inbox Monster
  For Inbox Monster, Verve created a mascot-led brand identity for an email deliverability platform looking to stand out in a crowded, technically driven category. The challenge was to differentiate the brand without undermining credibility, while making a complex product more engaging and memorable. Verve developed a distinctive visual system built around a character-driven identity that adds personality and approachability to the brand. The mascot functions as a flexible brand device, supporting storytelling across digital touchpoints while remaining grounded in a structured design system. This project highlights Verve’s strength in using expressive branding tools—like illustration and character design within disciplined, scalable frameworks.
  - Brand Identity Design
  - Mascot & Illustration System
  - Visual Language Development
  - Creative Direction
  - Digital Brand Expression
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How to choose the right one for you

The ranking answers "who is strongest overall". It does not answer "who is right for us", and in branding those questions diverge more than in almost any other category. Work down by constraint instead.

If budget is the binding constraint

Under €40,000, your realistic options are Verve, Lava and Ramotion, all of which start around €30,000, plus Focus Lab at its lower band. Below roughly €25,000 you are not buying a brand system from anyone on this list, and you would do better with a small independent studio or a strong freelance team than with the junior end of a large agency.

If you have a launch or a funding date

Red Antler exists for this. It is built around the moment a company becomes public-facing and it moves at that tempo. Focus Lab is the B2B equivalent. Avoid the large consultancies here, not because they are slow by incompetence but because their process is designed to be thorough rather than quick, and you will pay for thoroughness you cannot use.

If the hard requirement is naming

Start with Siegel+Gale. Naming across markets involves trademark clearance, linguistic screening and regulatory review in a way that pure identity studios are not staffed for. This is one of the few cases where the consultancy shape is genuinely the right shape.

If you are rebranding across several markets at once

Wolff Olins, Siegel+Gale and Further all have the offices and the headcount. So does Instrument, at a $250,000 floor. What you are buying at this tier is not better taste, it is the operational capacity to roll one system out through dozens of teams without it fracturing.

If your brand lives inside a product

Ramotion and Moving Brands treat identity and interface as one problem. For a software company whose brand is experienced mostly as a logged-in screen rather than a homepage, that integration is worth more than portfolio prestige.

If you want senior people rather than a big team

Fuzzco and Focus Lab put experienced practitioners directly on the work. The trade is capacity: neither can run four workstreams in parallel. Ask specifically who will be on your project day to day, because at larger firms the people in the pitch are frequently not the people in the work.

Questions worth asking every shortlist

Who is on this project day to day, and what else are they on?
Can we see a brand system you built at least five years ago and how it has held up?
What exactly do we own at the end, and in what file formats?
Who owns the parent company, if there is one?
What happens when we need to apply this to something you did not design?

A note on published cost figures

Rebranding cost guides in the wild commonly quote $90,000 to $180,000 for a small business and $250,000 upward for a mid-sized company. Those numbers usually include implementation across signage, packaging, uniforms and property, not the agency fee alone. The stated floors on this page are for the branding work itself, which is why they look considerably lower. Budget for both.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a rebrand actually cost?

The agency fee and the rebrand cost are different numbers. Firms on this list state floors from about €25,000 to €40,000, with mid-market identity programmes commonly landing between €60,000 and €200,000 and enterprise work starting around $250,000. Published rebranding guides quoting $150,000 to $350,000 for a mid-sized company are usually counting implementation too: signage, packaging, print, vehicle livery and property. Ask any agency explicitly whether rollout is in or out of the quote, because that single line moves the total more than the agency you pick.

How long does a branding project take?

Three to six months is normal for a positioning and identity project at a mid-market company. Full enterprise rebrands with naming, research and phased rollout run six to twelve months and sometimes longer. The most common cause of overrun is not the design work but decision-making on the client side, specifically not agreeing early who has final sign-off. Expedited timelines are possible and are priced accordingly.

What is the difference between a branding agency and a design studio?

A branding agency starts with the position, which is the argument for why you exist and who you are for, then designs an identity that expresses it. A design studio typically starts with the visual system and takes the positioning as given. Both are legitimate, and the right one depends on whether you already know what you stand for. If you cannot write your positioning in two sentences that your sales team recognises, you need the strategy work first.

Do I need a branding agency or would a freelance designer do?

A freelancer is genuinely the better choice if you need a mark, a colour palette and a type system for a business that is not yet complicated. Agencies earn their fee on complexity: multiple audiences, several products, a naming architecture, regulated markets, or an organisation large enough that the brand will be applied by people who never meet the designer. The test is whether the difficulty is aesthetic or structural.

What is normally included in a brand identity project?

Positioning and messaging, a logo and its variants, a full colour and type system, layout and photography direction, and guidelines that let other teams apply it correctly. Better engagements add naming, verbal identity and tone of voice, motion behaviour, and templates for the things you produce most. Website design and build are usually a separate line, and often a separate vendor. Confirm this early, because the assumption gap here is expensive.

Should I hire an independent studio or a network consultancy?

Independents give you the senior people directly and generally move faster. Network consultancies give you multi-market operational capacity, legal and trademark infrastructure for naming, and the institutional weight that some boards want behind a decision this visible. The practical dividing line is scale of rollout rather than quality of thinking. If you are applying the brand in one market and one language, the independent is usually the better value.

Do branding agencies build the website too?

Some do, most do not, and several will design it but hand the build to a development partner. This is worth resolving before you sign anything, because a beautiful identity delivered to a team with no route to implementing it online is a common and avoidable outcome. If you want brand and site from one engagement, ask for two live examples where the same team did both.

How do I know whether I need a full rebrand or just a refresh?

A refresh is right when the business is still what the brand says it is and the expression has simply aged. A full rebrand is warranted when the position has genuinely changed: a new audience, a merger, a shift from one product to a platform, or a name that now actively misdescribes what you sell. If the honest problem is that leadership is bored of the logo, that is a refresh at most, and often nothing.

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What you are actually buying

The ownership question nobody asks

How we weighted this list

The agencies, ranked

Pentagram

About Pentagram

Featured work

Mastercard

Slack

Koto

About Koto

Featured work

Amazon

Workday

Red Antler

About Red Antler

Featured work

Hinge

Casper

Focus Lab

About Focus Lab

Featured work

Braze

LaunchDarkly

PolyAI

Moving Brands

About Moving Brands

Featured work

Netflix

HP

Fuzzco

About Fuzzco

Featured work

Stytch

Monarch Money

Figma.com homepage redesign

Wolff Olins

About Wolff Olins

Featured work

Decathlon

Uber

Instrument

About Instrument

Featured work

Oura — smart ring site and commerce experience

Electronic Arts — brand system for a games publisher repositioning as an entertainment company

Nike — digital design system across Nike.com, Nike App, SNKRS, NRC and NTC

Ramotion

About Ramotion

Featured work

Mozilla Firefox

OPPO

Kurppa Hosk

About Kurppa Hosk

Featured work

Bobbi Brown

Meta

Further

About Further

Featured work

Airbnb

Deliveroo

DixonBaxi

About DixonBaxi

Featured work

Hulu

British Land

Lava

About Lava

Featured work

NUDUS

Museumvereniging

Made Thought

About Made Thought

Featured work

Adidas

Herman Miller Gaming

Siegel+Gale

About Siegel+Gale

Featured work