How Much Does A Logo Designer Usually Get Paid?
whether it's a salary or even business earnings. Let's find out!
Many factors determine how much a logo designer usually earns. Earlier, we know a designer’s earnings can go anywhere from only $50 to tens of thousands or even billion dollars.
However, even some high-earning graphic designers become starving artists. It means that they could only make the bare minimum of their living standards without the ability to fulfill their loved one's needs.
Many times, their lifestyle standards are not the only things that cause them to be starving artists. A designer can get paid more or less than their earnings, depending on several factors.
This article about how much a logo designer usually gets paid will disclose the percentages and the net amounts of payment that a graphic design worker can receive from their works.
Before we delve into the whole “getting-paid” thing, we will debunk the myths about getting paid like someone who works in the graphic visualization industry.
Debunking the myths of how much a logo designer will get paid versus how much they earn. Both earnings and payments involve some sums of money. Often, these two things involve the same currencies regardless of where the clients or the artists themselves are operating.
Another potential thing that people often mistake is the ways graphic artists compute and determine their earnings and payments. Many times, image artists determine how much they earn versus the actual get-paid amounts weekly, monthly, or yearly – that sort of all-in-one benchmark.
However, earnings and payments are two different things. It is no exception for people working in the graphic design industry.
When logo designer earns something from their design-based projects, it can mean their earnings have not yet been deducted. In other words, these things are the things we recognize as the gross income that appears in an image illustrator’s statement or financial report.
Conversely, when we talk about how much an illustrator gets paid for their project, it is equal to the illustrator’s net income. In other words, the get-paid amount is the design worker’s earnings after deducted from many expenses and other related fees.
The unfortunate news for both earnings and get-paid is the same. Professionals in graphic design industries tend to think that the designers should take on as many projects as they can to earn or get paid more. Some people even take it further by stating that sometimes a designer or an artist should take on weekend projects to boost their gross and net incomes.
While it’s true that the more a design worker wins projects, the more likely he/she earns money, the get-paid amounts are not always on par with the on-platform earnings. Remember: The get-paid amounts are the net incomes to the earnings’ gross incomes.
It all depends on the various factors that have involvement with the graphic illustrator and what he/she is doing on the project. First, we’ll look at how the platforms influence the net incomes (or the get-paid amounts) of their design workers.
Factor #1: The platform’s ways of managing their workers
Many graphic design workers are taking on projects on several platforms. These platforms are not only marketplaces for graphic designers to seek remote- or freelance-working opportunities. Rather, these places are the places where a third party meets up the freelancers or remote workers with people who are interested in hiring them.
As a result, there are no design platforms that don’t charge fees to the employers or the employees. Even the cheapest online platforms with occasional promotions will charge at least 2.7% of the deposited amounts from the client's side.
However, such a low deduction percentage is rare among all online platforms. Many online platforms for creative workers these days charge progressive fees to the workers.
For instance, the platform will deduct 5% for the first $50 of the earnings. Then, the remaining other $50 will have the 10% fee deductions. The remaining amounts after ($50 + $50, or $100) will have the 15% fee deductions.
So, let’s say a logo designer’s gross earnings should be $200. The deduction would be (5% * $50) + (10% * $50) + (15% * ($200 – ($50 + $50))) = $22.5. At this point, considering the platform’s deductions alone will make them get paid $200 - $22.5 = $177.5.
The visual designer should still consider the e-wallet fees for receiving and withdrawing their payments to their respective bank accounts. We will discuss this in the next part of this article.
Factor #2: The e-wallets that the designers use to receive and withdraw money
Almost all graphic design projects require the design workers to have e-wallet accounts. The workers need such accounts so they can receive their incomes after they complete their projects. Eventually, they can withdraw the money to their bank accounts.
PayPal is the most frequent e-wallet for all logo designers. Today, even graphic illustrators who work off-platform (or even offline) should have a PayPal account to receive and withdraw their incomes.
There are two PayPal account types, which are Personal and Business accounts. Creating a PayPal Business account is more complicated unless you are a company representative who deals with the financial parts as well as the visual design parts. So, that’s why more graphic illustrators use the Personal PayPal account.
After all, they can link their PayPal accounts with their banks and credit cards in their account. As a whole, PayPal itself charges around $1 for every withdrawal that is below $100, even though the minimum withdrawal amount for USD (the most universal currency) is $10.
It still doesn’t consider other miscellaneous expenses that may arise in PayPal users. There are times when the users input the wrong bank accounts. For each revision on the bank account details, PayPal will charge some more amounts when the money has been reflected in the allegedly false bank account.
So, it’s normal for any graphic workers to wait for their PayPal balance to reach $100. Or, they may want to increase their on-platform fees and adjust them to their experiences and the tools they have to use.
Today, more clients are paying through non-PayPal accounts. Some examples include Coinbase, Ethereum, or other cryptocurrency-based payment portals. Cryptocurrency’s overall upsurging trends make the charges more expensive to PayPal. So, some other more economical (yet unpopular) examples include Skrill and Payoneer.
Next, we will discuss how the bank transfers, debit cards, and the likes process and deduct the logo designer’s earnings. Eventually, these things also play a part in determining the net amount of how much these designers usually get paid.
Factor #3: Bank transfers, debit cards, and the others
The money that goes to a worker’s PayPal (or Skrill, Payoneer, Coinbase, and the likes) has not been the ones that a worker can enjoy.
After all, these money amounts often stop becoming the money for paying for things on e-commerce. Not to forget that some countries don’t issue PayPal cards nor accept e-wallet payments on their e-commerce.
So, that’s why a visual artist should eventually withdraw their e-wallet incomes to their bank accounts or credit cards. Bank accounts or credit cards from overseas have around 5-10 times more fees than when we issue them in-country.
Some developing countries also tend to have weak currency positions in the money market, which makes the transfer fees more expensive. Normally, a conventional bank transfer will cost $8-$10 for a one-time transaction. It will take around 8-10 business days to complete the transactions.
Today, there are lots of debit cards that waive administration and annual fees to the bearers. However, the users should still pay small fees when they use the money in an EDC or withdraw them through different ATM links. The ATMs will typically charge around $2.5-$3.5 if the location is within the country.
On the other side, withdrawing money through overseas ATMs (in which logo designers who frequently travel to conduct their jobs) will deduct $2-$7, even when looking at the balance information, is the only transaction we do in the ATM. Such deductions exclude the percentage for currency conversions, which is usually around 3% of the total income.
Another thing we should bear in mind about withdrawing money from e-wallets like PayPal to debit cards is that these things typically take longer times than when we do the same things to our bank accounts. On average, local bank account transfers require up to four business days, while transfers to debit cards require around 7-10 business days.
Factor #4: The applicable sanctions
One of the myths about sanctions for designers is that it only comes from the platform. While the platform can deduct some fees regarding the projects that the graphic artists have executed (including the entire sanctions, see factor #1), it is the clients who play the largest parts in determining sanctions for their chosen workers.
Clients come from diverse backgrounds, which makes the applicable sanctions vary from one client to another. Consequently, the more experience the designers have in conducting visual design projects, the more they have to adjust the responsibilities and the losses (a.k.a the sanctions) they are willing to bear in difficult situations.
Some frequent examples of the sanction include late fees, overpayment from the previous periods; the logo designers cannot complete the jobs while the clients have transferred the money, and more.
On some rare occasions, clients can impose charges for designers who vanish after they pay or stop in the middle of work for unacceptable reasons with/or supporting pieces of evidence. At some points, the charges will potentially make logo designers lose their income, especially when there are involved authorities.
Typically, a logo designer should reimburse the overpaid amounts or according to the percentage of completion. As for the latter, take an example of the client who has paid for 100% project completion. Then, for any unacceptable reasons, the designer can only complete 50%. So, the designer should pay the client back 50% of the total fees.
The late fees are almost there regardless it is from the platform, the clients, or both. It can deduct the paid fees from a flat $10 for every 30 minutes late to the applied progressive rates as explained in the illustration in factor #1. These entire things also become the things that deduct the get-paid amounts that a logo designer can accept.
Factor #5: The tax regulations for design workers
All workers are taxation subjects in their respective regions, and logo designers are no exception. In general, some taxes are directly deducted from the platforms where the logo artists work in.
There are also tax elements where the design workers should report to the government, either through self- or automated reporting. Nonetheless, all taxes are prone to deduct some amounts from the logo designer’s earnings.
Since taxation is something integral to a country’s government, many logo designer platforms today ask for tax information from their workers. At some points, the taxpayer status declaration becomes the additional thing for verifying a platform account after a verified e-wallet status, such as a verified PayPal account.
Logo artists all over the world tend to pay around 6.25-8.25% tax for every their old logo. In addition, the tax basis versus the tax-free parts is usually either 80:20 or 70:30. Again, it greatly depends on the country where the design workers are working and the location of the working platform.
For example, a logo designer’s earnings for a single, non-complicated vector project is $350. If the tax basis versus the tax-free parts of the earnings is 70:30, the amounts subject to tax would be 70% * $350 = $245.
Then, the logo designer should pay 7% * $245 = $17.15 sales tax if the percentage for sales tax is 7%. Finally, the get-paid payment for the logo designer in this illustration is $350 - $17.15 = $332.85.
Some countries provide tax returns for everyone, including things that the designer does to execute their logo-making projects. These tax returns will impact the taxes that the logo designer should pay. Here, we’re going to give you another similar example.
Supposed the logo designer earned $1,500 this month, and spent $700 for the whole equipment. In some countries, people can claim tax refunds if they purchase more than $700.
Let’s say the refund percentage is 10% of the total purchase in this illustration. The logo designer got to claim 10% * $700 = $70, which goes to the designer’s savings. So, their monthly earnings before tax become $1,500 – ($700 - $70) = $870.
In this illustration, supposed the sales tax for the logo and the ratio between tax basis versus tax-free parts are the same as in the illustration before. So, the logo designer pays 7% * (70% * $870) = $42.63 sales tax, which makes him/her get paid the amount of $870 - $42.63 = $827.37.
Factor #6: The willingness of the customers to pay
Many times, designers are too busy to compute the tax amounts, the fees for their banks and e-wallets, and many others. Then, they compare these whole elements with their earnings and get-paid projections for the following weeks or months. Sometimes, they do these things almost obsessive-compulsively.
Don’t mistake us: We are not saying the five factors before this section is not important. In contrast, the whole deduction factors are integral to determining how much a logo designer usually gets paid.
Instead, we want to add one more point that most people (including workers in the design industry) forget, and that point (or factor) is the willingness of the customers to pay.
“ What do you mean? The customers are posting their job ads on the platform, so, what do you mean by ‘the willingness’?”
The sad truth is that not all customers are posting real job ads. Sometimes, they are crying wolves who turn out to be scammers. At some points, they are clients with limited budgets who have yet to find a balance between decent-quality logo designers and the budgets that fall into their ranges.
A logo designer cannot expect to get paid for the first category. Instead, avoid clients who keep on asking for extra work with little to no pay, like a plague.
The second category is a little bit tricky on the designer’s side. These customer types can be a lot trickier when their payment statuses are verified, and their ratings are consistently above average.
A logo designer will have to record the income and expenses more regularly when he/she faces clients in the second category. These clients frequently include things like “long-term work potentials” and the like and divide their projects into parts to avoid overpays.
Final Words
A lot of deductive elements are involved in determining how much a logo designer usually gets paid. The elements themselves range between the platform’s fees and taxes to the fees from banks and e-wallets.
Still, the most important determinant in the get-paid amounts that a logo designer can receive is the client's willingness to pay. The more willing the clients are to pay, the more likely a logo designer will receive larger sums of money.
