One of the questions we're often asked is why professional design costs what it does. It's a great question, and we thought it might be helpful to share a little behind the scenes of what goes into offering this service.
From the outside, it can look like you're paying for "just 30 minutes of work". But the reality is that there's so much more involved than the time spent creating the final artwork.
Before we even start designing, we're investing in:
- Adobe Creative Cloud (4 licences) – around $5,000 per year
- Canva Pro
- Fair Australian wages for our in-house designers
- Superannuation and workers compensation insurance
- Public liability and business insurance
- Cloud storage and secure file backups
- Computers, monitors and equipment that need replacing every 2–3 years
- Design hardware and accessories
- Website and email hosting
- Project management and customer service software
- Accounting software, bookkeeping and accountant fees
- Utilities
- Office rent (around $6,000 per month)
- Merchant and payment processing fees
- Staff training and professional development
- Office cleaning, supplies and general maintenance
- Licences, registrations and compliance costs
- GST and business taxes
And that's before we've even opened your brief.
Once we do, there's the time spent understanding your brand, researching your industry, creating concepts, making revisions, preparing print-ready artwork, quality-checking every file, and communicating with you throughout the entire process.
When you purchase professional design, you're not simply paying for the final artwork. You're investing in years of experience, industry knowledge, professional software, reliable systems, quality equipment, and a team that's genuinely passionate about creating something that represents your business well.
Like most small businesses, our goal isn't to charge as much as possible. It's to provide a high-quality service, pay our staff fairly, invest in the tools we need to do our job properly, and build a sustainable business that will still be here to support our customers for years to come.
We hope this gives a little more insight into what goes on behind the scenes. ❤️