What does restaurant branding cost in Sydney?
Most agencies will not publish a number, which makes it impossible to work out whether you are being quoted fairly. Here are ours, what each figure buys, and the three things that genuinely change the price.
A full hospitality brand — strategy, visual identity, verbal identity and guidelines — starts at AUD $24,000. A focused scope such as a standalone brand refresh or a website starts at AUD $12,000, which is our floor. Brand plus a complete digital presence typically lands $40,000 to $65,000. A full launch — brand, digital, marketing, AI and ops — runs $60,000 to $120,000. Anything below about $12,000 is not a brand; it is a logo, and you will pay for it again.
What each figure actually buys
The gap between $12,000 and $24,000 is not quality of execution. It is whether anyone did the strategic work before the design work — and that is the part operators try to skip and then repeat two years later at full price.
| Engagement | From (AUD) | What is included |
|---|---|---|
| Focused scope | $12,000 | A standalone website, or a brand refresh on an existing identity. Our floor — below this we would be selling you a logo. |
| Full brand development | $24,000 | Brand strategy and positioning, visual identity, verbal identity, and the guidelines that keep it consistent after we leave. |
| Digital presence | $12,000 | Website build. The complete version — website, Google Business Profile, photography and videography — typically runs $18,000 to $35,000. |
| Brand + digital together | $40,000 – $65,000 | The two engagements above, run as one project rather than sequentially. |
| Environmental branding | $18,000 | Brand applied to the physical venue, working alongside your fitout. Varies significantly with venue size. |
| Full launch (Foundry) | $60,000 – $120,000 | Concept feasibility through to open doors: brand, digital, marketing, AI and operations. |
| Ongoing marketing (Catalyst) | $3,500 / month | Retainer. Paid media spend is additional to management fees. |
The three things that actually move the number
Number of concepts. One venue is one brand. A group with a flagship and two sub-brands is three positioning exercises and three identity systems, not one with variations.
Whether the strategy exists. If you have genuine market analysis, a defined audience and a positioning you can defend, we can price identity work alone. Most operators believe they have this and have a competitor list instead.
How much is already built. Rebranding a trading venue costs more than branding one that has not opened, because everything — signage, menus, uniforms, packaging, the Google listing — has to be transitioned without losing the customers you already have.
What we will not quote from a webpage
Fitout, equipment, lease, licensing and working capital are the largest numbers in opening a venue and none of them are brand costs. They vary so much by site, size and condition that any figure published here would be misleading rather than useful. We cover the ranges we can stand behind and decline the rest — see what it costs to open a restaurant in Sydney for how we treat those.
We also will not quote a brand without a scoping conversation. Not as a sales gate — because the three factors above change the number materially, and a figure given before knowing them is a number designed to win a deal rather than survive one.