Most family businesses that come to us for a rebrand don't actually want a rebrand. They want their company to look as good as it actually is. The logo on the truck is twenty years old. The signage at the shop hasn't been touched since dad ran the place. The website was built by a cousin during a slow season in 2014. And every time a customer pulls up to the shop, the gap between what the business actually does and what the brand communicates costs them a little bit of trust.
That's not a logo problem. That's a brand identity problem, and fixing it costs more than most owners expect because it touches more than they expect.
The honest range
A full brand identity rebuild at Stump & Root runs about $10,000. That includes logo design, color palette, typography system, brand guidelines, StoryBrand messaging work, and a brand story video as part of the package. Timeline is four to six weeks.
If you don't need a new logo, just a refresh of how the identity is applied, we offer a Visual Identity Refresh at $2,500 to $5,000. The lower end is identity work only. The higher end adds StoryBrand messaging.
If you've gotten a quote for $1,500 for a complete rebrand including new logo, you're not getting a rebrand. You're getting a logo, which is a different and much smaller thing. The work that actually changes how your business shows up in the world, which is the strategic positioning, the typography system, the color system, the application across every customer touchpoint, takes weeks to do well. Anyone who tells you it can be done for a few hundred dollars in a couple of days is selling you a logo file, not a brand identity. Look, by all means, if a logo file is what you need, that's fine. But don't pay for one and expect the other.
What's actually in a rebrand
This is the part that most owners haven't thought through. A logo is the visible piece, but it's maybe ten percent of the actual work. Here's what changes when you do a real rebrand.
The logo and its variations. Primary, secondary, monochrome, white, and small-format versions. Each one is built for a specific use case. A logo that looks great on a website header might fall apart when it's stitched on a polo shirt or printed at half an inch on a business card.
The color palette. Primary, accent, and neutral colors, each with hex codes, RGB codes, CMYK codes for print, and Pantone references if the brand has color-critical print needs. Without this, the green on your sign is going to drift over time and the green on your invoice will never quite match the green on your website.
The typography system. A display font for headlines, a body font for paragraphs, and rules about how they pair. Web substitutes and print substitutes if the primary fonts aren't available everywhere. This is what makes your brand feel consistent across the website, the sales deck, and the printed brochure.
The messaging foundation. This is where StoryBrand comes in. We build a one-page document that names your customer's problem, your position as the guide, your three-step plan, the transformation you're offering, and the three to five soundbites your sales team should use to talk about the company. This is the part that changes how everyone in the business talks about the business.
Brand guidelines. A PDF document, usually thirty to fifty pages, that walks through every element above with usage rules. This is the document the print vendor gets when they're producing new yard signs. This is what the next employee gets when they're learning how to write a social post. Without this document, every new piece of work pulls the brand slightly out of alignment, and after a couple of years the cumulative drift is significant.
Brand story video. A two to four minute film that captures the origin of the business, the customer it serves, and why it does what it does. This piece earns its keep on the website hero, in sales meetings, and in onboarding new customers.
What pushes the number up
Multiple sub-brands. Family businesses often have multiple service lines or product divisions that each need their own identity within the master brand. Each sub-brand adds work.
Industries with regulatory or trade considerations. Anything that involves signage permits, vehicle wraps subject to weight requirements, or specialized print finishes adds cost on the implementation side.
Large existing footprints. A business with three locations, ten trucks, twenty employees in uniform, and a print catalog has more touchpoints to rebrand than a business with one office and a website. The brand identity itself is the same cost. The rollout is what scales.
Speed. The default timeline is four to six weeks. Faster than that compresses the strategy work into less time, which usually means weaker decisions, but it can be done when there's a real reason.
What pulls the number down
Phased rollouts. You don't have to rebrand everything on day one. A common play is to do the strategic and creative work all at once, then phase the application over six months. New website first, then trucks at the next service interval, then signage when permits clear. This protects cash flow and gives the team time to absorb the change.
Strong existing assets. If your logo still works but the colors and typography are weak, a Visual Identity Refresh costs less than a full rebuild because we're not starting from zero.
Bundled longer-term work. If a rebrand is the front door to an ongoing relationship that includes content production, social media, and a website build, the per-project cost looks different than a one-off.
The case for doing it once and doing it right
The Hoodzpah sisters, Amy and Jen Hood, run a design studio in Long Beach and they have a phrase I like: buy cheap, buy twice. This applies to rebrands more than almost anything else. A cheap rebrand done in a hurry is going to feel dated within a year, fail to differentiate you from competitors within two years, and need to be redone within three. By the time you've rebuilt it twice, you've spent more than you would have on a real rebrand the first time, and you've lost two years of brand equity in the process.
A real rebrand should last five to ten years before it needs a refresh. The work that goes into making it durable isn't optional. It's the whole point.
If you want to talk through it
If you're a family business in Lancaster County thinking about a rebrand, schedule a strategy call. We'll talk about where the current brand is failing the business, what would change with a proper rebrand, and whether the timing makes sense for where you are. If a rebrand isn't the right move right now, we'll tell you that.
