What Branding Actually Costs in Saudi Arabia, Deliverable by Deliverable

Branding in Saudi Arabia costs SAR 8,000-30,000 for a logo on its own, SAR 20,000-200,000 for a full brand identity, SAR 50,000-250,000 for identity plus a complete guidelines system, and SAR 300,000-1,500,000 for giga-project and enterprise work; a bilingual website sits at SAR 25,000-180,000 and packaging at SAR 20,000-150,000. Those figures are ex-VAT, and four variables decide where you land inside each band: custom Arabic and Latin type, the number of applications designed, the depth of the guidelines, and the tier of studio you hire.

The spread inside each band is not vagueness. A SAR 22,000 identity and a SAR 180,000 identity are different products: one hands a founder a mark, a palette and a type pairing to give a printer; the other gives a 40-branch operator a system that survives 200 people using it across two scripts, six cities and four media with no designer in the room.

Add 15% VAT to every number below, since Saudi studios quote ex-VAT by convention. Paying a studio outside the Kingdom adds withholding tax at source: 5% on technical and consulting services, 15% where the contract reads as a royalty or IP transfer. Trademark registration with SAIP is a separate legal cost and belongs in no design fee.

What each band actually buys, from a single mark to a giga-project system

Logo only, SAR 8,000-30,000: two to three weeks, one primary mark, an Arabic lockup set in a licensed retail family rather than drawn, a small palette, a type pairing, export files. Full brand identity, SAR 20,000-200,000: six to ten weeks, positioning, a logo system with responsive and single-colour variants, bilingual lockups, colour and typographic hierarchy, 10 to 30 designed applications. Brand plus guidelines, SAR 50,000-250,000: that, plus a 60-140 page bilingual brand book, explicit RTL layout rules, a Figma component library, tone of voice in both languages, and brand architecture if you run sub-brands. Giga-project and enterprise, SAR 300,000-1,500,000: naming, a commissioned bilingual typeface, environmental and wayfinding design, sub-brand systems, six to twelve months, multiple stakeholder committees.

Websites split the same way. SAR 25,000-60,000 buys a five to eight page bilingual marketing site with RTL handled properly. SAR 60,000-120,000 buys 15-30 pages, a CMS a marketing team can actually run, custom motion and integrations. Past SAR 120,000 you are buying commerce, booking or a design system. Packaging: SAR 20,000-40,000 for one SKU with dielines and print-ready artwork, SAR 50,000-90,000 for a six to twelve SKU range with structural work, SAR 90,000-150,000 for a luxury range with material prototyping, foil and emboss specification, and SFDA-compliant Arabic labelling checked before plates are cut.

The expensive mistake is buying a band below your operating reality. A clinic group opening its fifteenth branch on a SAR 12,000 logo package pays the difference twice over in redone signage, mismatched Arabic on delivery bags, and the retainer it hires to clean that up.

Match the band to your operating reality, not your ambition

Single outlet, fresh commercial registration, one owner deciding: SAR 8,000-35,000. A specialty coffee shop in Al Khobar needs a mark that holds on a cup, a sign, Instagram and a two-script menu: a logo, a palette, two licensed typefaces, roughly eight applications. Anything above SAR 50,000 at that stage is scope the business cannot use yet. Funded scale-up, 10-60 staff: SAR 40,000-120,000 for identity plus SAR 40,000-90,000 for the site. A Series A fintech working toward a SAMA licence needs an app UI kit, a bilingual site, a deck template, and guidelines strict enough that two contractors produce the same thing.

National operator or regulated group, 30+ locations, media in both languages: SAR 80,000-250,000. PIF portfolio companies, giga-project destination brands, ministries and multinationals standing up a Riyadh regional headquarters under the RHQ programme: SAR 300,000-1,500,000, driven less by design hours than by governance, naming, custom type and the volume of applications an entity that size generates in year one.

Four variables decide where you land inside a band

Bilingual type is the biggest swing. Setting your name in a licensed Arabic retail family, such as 29LT Zarid, the TPTQ Arabic catalogue or a well-built Google family like IBM Plex Sans Arabic, costs SAR 3,000-15,000 in licences plus a few studio days. Drawing a bespoke Arabic wordmark matched to your Latin mark in weight, rhythm and counter shape costs SAR 15,000-45,000. Commissioning a full bilingual family in three to six weights from a specialist foundry costs SAR 60,000-300,000 over four to nine months. All three are legitimate; only the first fits inside a SAR 20,000 quote.

Application count and guidelines depth take the rest. Price application work at roughly SAR 800-3,000 per artefact, then count yours honestly: card, letterhead, invoice, email signature, six social templates, packaging, uniform, vehicle livery, exterior sign, wayfinding, POS, app icon, deck, report. Twelve artefacts and 120 artefacts are not the same project. A 24-page usage PDF is a SAR 8,000-15,000 deliverable; a 120-page bilingual brand book with RTL grid rules, motion principles and a maintained component library is SAR 40,000-80,000 on its own.

Studio tier sets the floor. Capable Saudi and GCC freelancers run SAR 8,000-35,000 per identity. Boutique studios of three to fifteen people, including European studios working into the Kingdom, sit at SAR 40,000-250,000. Network agencies with Riyadh or Dubai offices, Landor and Interbrand among them, start near SAR 400,000 and pass SAR 2,000,000 on giga-project work. The gap is overhead and governance, plus how many senior hours are contractually guaranteed on your file.

Why Riyadh sits above Dubai and far below Paris

Every asset ships twice. Arabic is not a translation layer over a finished Latin design; it is a second drawing with its own baseline, joining behaviour, proportions and optical weight. A designer who can judge both scripts is scarce in a market where Vision 2030 programmes, Diriyah, NEOM, Red Sea Global, AlUla and the RHQ relocation wave recruit at once. Saudi clients also run three-bid processes, bilingual proposals and long approval chains, and studios price that load in.

The arithmetic: a scope a Dubai boutique quotes at AED 95,000, about SAR 97,000, returns at SAR 110,000-125,000 in Riyadh, 10-30% higher at the same quality tier, and lands around QAR 55,000-170,000 in Doha. Riyadh is still far below Europe. A Paris studio of matching size quotes that identity at EUR 70,000-90,000, roughly SAR 285,000-365,000. That gap is why European studios opened Gulf practices and why Saudi clients buy European-trained senior design at Gulf project prices instead of network rates for junior execution.

How to read a cheap quote before you sign it

A SAR 4,500 complete branding package delivered in 72 hours is not a discount, it is a different transaction. Test the Arabic first: open the lockup large and check that letters join correctly, that dots and diacritics are drawn rather than defaulted, and that the Arabic was not made by horizontally squeezing a Latin typeface or typing the name in an unlicensed font. That check disqualifies most cheap Saudi quotes in under a minute.

Then read the contract for six things: source files, not only PNGs; font licences issued in your company name rather than the studio's, because studio-licensed fonts mean paying again the day you scale; VAT stated explicitly; revision rounds defined by number instead of unlimited concepts, which buys volume rather than thinking; a named senior designer who is the person actually drawing; and a price that changes when you add 40 applications, because a quote that does not move has not read the brief. Screen the name at SAIP before it is locked, not after signage is ordered.

A serious proposal is dull to read and easy to check: a scope table with artefact counts, fixed fees against named deliverables, defined revision rounds, a font licence line item, an IP transfer clause, a payment schedule, dates. GLDS prices projects as fixed fees for that reason and keeps a senior designer on every file; founder Gaelle Lamirault trained at Strate Ecole de Design in Paris and spent a decade across Balenciaga, jewellery house Joomi Lim and eyewa before building the studio bilingual practice from Dubai.