How much does branding cost in Dubai?

Branding is three different purchases sold under one word: a logo, a visual identity and a brand strategy. A branding company in Dubai may quote for any of them, and the quotes can't be compared, which is why prices look so scattered. Our own branding projects start from AED 45,000 and the rest of this post explains what moves a price above or below that.

What are you buying when you buy branding?

Each of the three answers a different problem, and the cheapest quote is often a quote for the smallest of them.

Magnetic Keys' branding projects are scoped around the third row, and they're fixed-fee and staged against milestones. The scope depends on the entity count and rollout depth, and you get a timeline before work starts.

Eight things move a branding price

Eight things change the price, and none of them is the size of the logo.

• Discovery depth. Interviews, a category audit and competitor research take senior time before any design starts. A project that skips them costs less and starts from your assumptions.
• Directions and revisions. Every concept route shown to you is design time, so ask how many routes and how many revision rounds sit inside the price.
• Languages. A bilingual identity needs Latin and Arabic type chosen as a pair, an Arabic voice written natively and every layout tested in both directions. Arabic is a design decision here and not a translation step.
• Naming. A name that must work in English and Arabic needs checking in both, which is covered in the next section.
• Entities and sub-brands. One brand and a group of five need different systems, and the number of entities changes the brand architecture.
• Rollout depth. Guidelines on paper are one price, and templates, signage, stationery, a website and decks are others. One of our own projects, an enterprise brand system for a Dubai real estate company in 2024, ended in a 45+ page guideline that set standards across every department.
• Rights and handover. Ask what you own at the end: source files, fonts and their licences, and the right to change the system without the studio.
• Speed. A compressed timeline puts more people on the work at once, and that costs more than the same work done in order.

Why does bilingual naming add work?

Because a name has to survive being read, said and typed in two languages, and it can fail in either. A name that reads well in English can be awkward to say in Arabic, can resemble an unintended word, or can be transliterated several ways, which splits search and word of mouth between spellings.

Check four things before you fall for a name: how an Arabic speaker pronounces it, what it means or resembles, how it's written in Arabic script and in transliteration, and whether it's available as a trade name, a domain and a handle. Trade names are the business of your licensing authority, so ask it, because no fee or lead time can be quoted here that we could verify. The post on naming a brand for English and Arabic goes through the checks.

The UAE government portal names Arabic as the official language and says the expatriate community outnumbers UAE nationals, with no official share given. A name often has to work for Arabic readers and for English readers from many backgrounds at once, and that audience mix is why bilingual naming takes more checking.

A brief that gets quotes you can compare

1. 01Who the brand is for in one sentence, and who it isn't for.
2. 02Where the brand will appear in the first year: website, signage, vehicles, packaging, uniforms or a launch event.
3. 03The languages: English, Arabic and any others.
4. 04The number of entities and sub-brands, and how they relate.
5. 05What must stay: a name, a colour or a mark that people already recognise.
6. 06Two brands you admire and one you want to look different from.
7. 07The deadline and the reason for it, such as a launch date or a licence renewal.
8. 08Who approves, and how many people must agree. Each extra approver adds revision rounds.
9. 09What you can spend. Naming a figure lets a studio tell you what it buys, and that's a better start than guessing blind.

Briefs that cover these nine points get quotes you can set side by side. The same quote logic applies to websites, and the website brief template shows it in another format.

When not to buy a full brand project

Not yet, if you can't say in one sentence who the business is for and why they'd choose it. A new logo won't fix a position that hasn't been decided. Buy the strategy first, even a short one, or wait until the decision is made.

And not from us, if your budget sits below our AED 45,000 start and all you need is a clean mark. A freelance designer with a clear brief can deliver a logo alone, which is a smaller scope than a full project, and you can add the system later. Where a company already has a position and only looks inconsistent, buy an identity and brand guidelines without a strategy phase, and ask for it by name.

Whichever you choose, ask for the fee staged against milestones with sign-off at each stage, so you never pay for a stage you haven't approved. Ours is fixed-fee and staged that way, and the post on what a branding agency delivers shows what each stage should hand you.