Independent studio · Remote · Worldwide
The branding and marketing studio for small businesses
KM Studio is a branding and marketing agency for small business owners and startups: eight fixed-scope services, published pricing, and every piece of our research free to read before you spend a dollar.
Numbers you can check
Proof you can verify, not proof you have to trust
Agencies love unverifiable claims: star ratings with no source, logo walls, invented case studies. Every number below is checkable on this site right now.
8
Fixed-scope services, each with a public page
6
Industries with a dedicated playbook
40+
Free, cited guides published on this site
100%
Of our research public, none behind a paywall
KM Studio is a small independent branding and digital marketing studio serving small businesses and startups worldwide, remotely. It offers eight productized, fixed-scope services covering brand and marketing, backed by a free public research library and published pricing.
Brand services
Build the brand: strategy, name, identity, logo
The brand side comes first: who you are for, what you are called, and how you look. Four services, each fixed-scope and priced on the pricing page before you ever book a call.
Brand Identity Design
A complete visual system: logo, colour, type, and the guidelines to keep it consistent.
Logo Design
A logo built on strategy, delivered in every format you will ever need, owned outright by you.
Brand Strategy
Positioning, messaging, and audience clarity before a single pixel gets designed.
Business Naming
A shortlist of names checked against trademarks, domains, and real-world pronunciation.
Marketing services
Grow the brand: SEO, content, social, email
Once the brand holds up, marketing gives it reach. Four channels, sized for a small team's time and budget.
SEO
Search visibility built on real keyword research and content that answers what buyers ask.
Content Marketing
Guides and articles that earn rankings and trust, planned around your actual expertise.
Social Media Marketing
A sustainable posting system sized for a small team, not a content factory.
Email Marketing
List building, newsletters, and automations that keep customers coming back.
All eight services, plus who each one fits, live on the services hub.
Industries
Playbooks for the businesses we know best
Branding advice lands differently for a SaaS founder than for a restaurant owner. Six industries get their own page, with the pitfalls specific to each.
Industry
Startups
Branding for startups that need investor-grade polish on a pre-seed budget.
Read moreIndustry
SaaS
SaaS branding and positioning for products competing on trust as much as features.
Read moreIndustry
Ecommerce
Ecommerce branding that makes a small store look like the obvious choice.
Read moreIndustry
Restaurants
Restaurant branding, from name and logo to the menu and the room.
Read moreIndustry
Coaches & Consultants
Personal-brand systems for experts selling their own judgment.
Read moreIndustry
Real Estate
Real estate branding for agents and agencies competing in crowded local markets.
Read moreNot on the list? Most engagements still fit; browse the industries hub to see how we adapt.
Process
What happens after you get in touch
The process is four steps, and none of them is a hard sell. The full standards, including how we scope and what we refuse to do, are public on how we work.
- 1
Tell us about your business
Send an enquiry through the contact page. You get a reply within two business days, every time.
- 2
Scoping call, if it makes sense
A short call to understand what you actually need. If we are not the right fit, we say so and point you to the free guides instead.
- 3
A fixed-scope proposal in writing
Exact deliverables, timeline, and price, stated before you commit. No open-ended retainers, no meter running.
- 4
Delivery against the stated scope
You get what the proposal says, when it says. The standards behind that are public on how we work.
Pricing
Published pricing, not a quote wall
Fixed scope, stated price, before you commit
Most agencies answer "how much does branding cost" with a contact form. We answer it with a page. Every service has a stated scope and a stated price on the pricing page, so you can rule us in or out in five minutes.
No open-ended retainers, no surprise line items. If the scope changes mid-project, the price changes in writing first.
Why this matters
- Every price public before the first call
- Written proposal with exact deliverables
- Market benchmarks cited in our cost guides
The research is the portfolio
Judge our thinking before you pay for it
KM Studio publishes all of its research: 40+ cited guides on branding, logos, naming, strategy, and startup marketing, free. That library is how we prove competence without inventing testimonials.
Brand Identity
What a brand identity is, the parts that matter, and how to build one on a real budget.
Logo Design
Costs, file formats, the seven logo types, and how to get a logo you truly own.
Brand Strategy
Positioning, brand equity, and mission, plus how to tell whether any of it is working.
Marketing for Startups
Low-budget marketing that fits a founder: channels, budgets, and the numbers to track.
Still comparing options?
Agency, freelancer, or do it yourself
The honest comparison, including when not to hire us
A studio is not always the right answer. DIY logo makers win at the very low end, a good freelancer wins on a single deliverable, and an agency earns its fee when brand and marketing have to fit together and stay consistent.
We wrote the comparison we would want to read: real cost ranges, real tradeoffs, and the situations where each option is the smart call. Start with agency vs freelancer.
Shortcuts
- Agency vs freelancer: the full breakdown
- Best logo makers: the DIY route, reviewed
Asked and answered
How much does branding cost for a small business?
Branding for a small business splits into three practical bands: under $500 to do it yourself with logo makers and a font pairing, $1,000 to $5,000 to buy a designed identity, and $5,000 and up to sequence strategy, identity, and one marketing channel together.
What moves you between bands is not quality of taste, it is scope: how many deliverables are named, whether a written strategy phase is included, and whether source files and ownership transfer to you. Our pricing page lists what sits in each band here, and what a logo costs covers the logo-only benchmark.
How much does a marketing agency typically cost for a small business?
Marketing agencies usually sell either a monthly retainer or a fixed-scope project. For a small business the honest comparison is not the headline number but the hours behind it: a cheap retainer that buys four hours a month of a junior's time is more expensive than a project that ships a finished asset.
Three questions expose the real price: what specifically ships each month, who does the work, and what happens to your accounts and files if you leave. We publish fixed scopes and prices rather than retainers — see our services and the agency vs freelancer comparison.
Can a marketing agency help my small business?
Yes, when the engagement is scoped to a specific bottleneck rather than sold as general "marketing". Agencies earn their fee on problems with a clear shape: a brand that undersells your prices, a site nobody finds, or a channel with no system behind it. They waste money on businesses that have not yet validated an offer.
The test is whether you can name the outcome. "Get more customers" is not scopeable. "Our identity looks amateur next to the three competitors we lose to" is. Where the answer is that you need less than we sell, we say so on the call.
Do you need an LLC for a marketing agency?
Not to start one — a sole proprietorship can trade legally in most US states — but an LLC is the common choice because it separates business liability from personal assets and makes contracts and banking cleaner. Requirements and fees are set by your state, and this is a question for an attorney or accountant, not a branding studio.
The branding-side question that does travel with it: your registered legal name and your trading brand name do not have to match, but they should not conflict with an existing mark. Our guides on checking name availability and trademarking a business name cover the clearance chain.
Questions small business owners ask us
Why are there no testimonials or client logos on this site?
Do you work with businesses outside the US?
What happens after I contact you?
Should I hire an agency, a freelancer, or do it myself?
Tell us about your business
Send an enquiry and get a reply within two business days, a scoping call if it makes sense, and a fixed-scope proposal in writing. If we are not the right fit, we will say so.
Last updated by the KM Studio Editorial Team.