I agree with most of what’s being said here with a few exceptions. I charge a flat rate with a set number of concepts and revisions. This helps clients be more decisive with their requested changes because they understand if they go over they will be charged more.

I generally don’t give the client more then 3 to 5 concepts at a time. I have found that giving them more choices at the start actually makes their decision harder rather then easier. It’s like going to the store, if you go to buy a particular product and there’s a large variety of the same product it’s harder to make a choice because you end up liking more then just one. With your logo designs, you’re asking your client to narrow it down from how ever many you conceptualized to one and this becomes more difficult the more choices they have. If the client doesn’t like any of the first set of concepts this can actually be a good thing. Now you can find out what it is they don’t like which can give you better direction in your next set of concepts. This will save you time and effort especially when dealing with clients who don’t know what they want.

As far as Pricing go’s, this really depends on the client, the type of logo, and the foreseen exposure of the logo. In most cases, for smaller established companies and new start up companies I charge $450 to $700. For larger corporations, high exposure projects, and time sensitive situations I’ve charged up to $3500. If you are good at what you do and you offer excellent quality designs don’t be afraid to charge more, it adds value to your designs. I just recently finished a logo redesign for a large corporation that paid me $2700. I was talking with the CEO who had decided to hire me and I asked him why he chose me because I know there was another designer they were considering at the beginning. He told me, other then the quality of work shown in my portfolio, the main factor was the other designers quote was way to low and they didn’t take him seriously. Larger companies aren’t afraid of big numbers so don’t be afraid to quote them big numbers. A logo is not just another fly by the night design; it is the face of the company you are designing. It will be on the web, all their print media, commercials, and billboards. The complicity of the design does not determine the cost but the use of the design does.

One more thing I’d like to say based off some of the comments I’ve read here. All logo designs should start out as CMYK Vector based. After which if you need to do a few alterations for the web that’s fine but you should always design a logo with the idea that it can be large enough to go on a billboard and small enough to go on a business card. If you just design a logo with a high 300dpi that’s not good enough; anything raster based just limits what you can do with it.