How much does it cost to convert a logo to vector in the UK?
Converting a JPG or PNG logo into vector files in the UK costs £0 with free auto-trace software, about £12 to £30 per logo with a budget tracing service (some add VAT), £30 to £100 with a freelancer, £79 for a hand redraw from a specialist studio such as Luxbranding (that is our price for one layout), or £100 to £250 through an agency. Auto-trace works on simple, high-contrast marks but often produces distorted curves and merged letters on real logos. A budget trace suits a simple logo that is already right; a hand redraw is worth paying for when the lettering needs fixing, as with most AI-generated logos, or when the logo is going on signage, vehicles or embroidery.
Prices checked October 2026 on each provider’s own website. Freelance and agency figures are typical UK ranges.
Our Recreate & Vectorise is £79 fixed for one layout, plus £39 for each additional layout, redrawn by hand. See what is included and order online.
Why this £79 job keeps rescuing UK businesses
It’s one of the most common emergencies in small-business branding: the signwriter, printer or embroiderer asks for “vector artwork, AI, EPS or SVG”, and all you have is a JPG from an email years ago. The original designer has moved on, the files are gone, and the job is stuck. This isn’t carelessness, it’s the default outcome of buying a logo from a marketplace or a designer who only ever handed over a web-resolution image. Our guide to logo file formats explains what each file type is for; this page is about what it costs to fix the gap.
What “conversion” actually involves
A raster image (JPG/PNG) is a grid of pixels; a vector file is mathematics, curves that scale to any size with no quality loss. Converting between them isn’t a file-format switch, it’s a redraw. A professional redraws your logo by hand: rebuilding each curve, matching colours precisely, correcting the fuzz and artefacts baked into the low-resolution source, and resetting any text in the actual typeface rather than tracing its blurry outline. That last part is where automated tools fail hardest, traced text looks melted the moment it’s printed at size.
Routes and prices compared
| Route | Typical cost | Turnaround | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auto-trace tool | £0 to £20 | Minutes | Usable only on very simple, high-contrast marks; wobbly curves and merged detail on everything else |
| Budget tracing service | About £12 to £30, some plus VAT | 24 to 48 hours | A person traces the image you send; fine for a simple logo that is already right. Ask which formats and colour versions are included |
| Specialist studio hand redraw (Luxbranding) | £79 for one layout, £39 for each additional layout | 2 to 3 working days | Redrawn by hand and checked side by side against your original; SVG, AI, EPS, PDF, PNG, JPG and ICO in full colour, one colour and reversed, with colour codes |
| Freelancer | £30 to £100 | 1 to 7 days | Varies with skill; check they redraw text in the real typeface rather than tracing it |
| Agency | £100 to £250 | Days to weeks | Same work at overhead prices; usually only worth it inside a bigger project |
| Full redesign instead | £129 flat | 48hr first concepts | The right call when the old logo was never worth keeping |
What should be in the finished file pack
A complete conversion hands back more than one file. Expect vector masters (AI, EPS, SVG), transparent-background PNGs at print-ready resolution, and JPGs for everyday use, each supplied in full colour, all-white (for dark backgrounds and van cut vinyl) and all-black (for single-colour print, stamps and engraving). With that pack, every future printer, signwriter, embroiderer and web developer is served for life. Our Recreate & Vectorise delivers SVG, AI, EPS, PDF, PNG, JPG and ICO in full colour, one colour and reversed versions: £79 for one layout, in 2 to 3 working days.
Why auto-trace fails on real logos (the honest technical bit)
Tracing software works by finding edges between colour regions and fitting curves to them. On a crisp, two-colour geometric mark it can do a passable job. Real logos defeat it in predictable ways: JPG compression halos around every edge become lumps in the traced curve; anti-aliased letterforms merge at small sizes, so “rn” becomes “m”; gradients get sliced into stepped bands of flat colour; and fine details, a thin rule, a serif, a registered-trademark symbol, vanish or balloon. The result often looks acceptable at thumbnail size on screen, which is exactly where nobody needed a vector in the first place. At van-side or shopfront scale, every flaw is a foot wide.
A human redraw sidesteps all of it: curves are rebuilt from what the logo is supposed to be, not what the pixels approximately show, and text is reset in the genuine typeface (or its closest match, agreed with you) so it stays sharp at any size.
Converting an AI-generated logo: does it cost more?
No. A logo made in ChatGPT, Midjourney, Gemini or Canva is converted at the same price as any other: £79 for one layout (£39 per additional layout). The work is slightly different, though. AI images tend to carry wobbly strokes, several near-identical shades where you meant one colour, and lettering that is not really type. All three are fixed as part of the redraw, including respelling the wording in the closest real, licensed font. If you are still deciding whether to redraw, edit or replace an AI logo, our guide to fixing an AI logo compares every route.
Two things can change the job. If the image is too detailed to work as a logo, simplifying it is a Logo Edit at £50. And watch for AI tools that offer an “SVG” download: some of those files simply wrap the same flat image, so they are not true vectors and a printer will still reject them.
Questions to ask before paying anyone
Four questions separate professionals from trace-and-invoice merchants. Is the redraw manual or automated? (If the answer dodges, it’s automated.) Will text be reset in the actual typeface? Which files do I receive, the full AI/EPS/SVG plus PNG/JPG pack, in colour, white and black? And do I own the resulting files outright? Our answers at Luxbranding: redrawn by hand, lettering reset in a real licensed font, the full pack in full colour, one colour and reversed, and every file handed over with no restrictions from us. There is little reason to gamble on a £15 gig listing that answers none of them.
What moves the price inside those ranges
Conversion pricing tracks redraw complexity, not business size. A flat two-colour wordmark sits at the bottom of any provider’s range; hand-lettered script, mascots and illustrations take longest because every curve is judgement rather than geometry; gradients and shading need rebuilding as proper vector fills, not traced bands; and the source quality sets the floor, a crisp PNG on white is a quick job, a cropped photo of embroidered workwear is archaeology. Fixed-fee services like our £79 redraw absorb that variance across jobs; hourly freelancers pass it on, which is why their quotes for the same logo can differ threefold. If a quote comes back far above the ranges here, the provider is usually pricing a redesign, not a conversion, worth clarifying which one you asked for.
When the files arrive, check three things before signing off: zoom the vector to 800% alongside your original and compare letterforms; confirm the white version really is white artwork on transparency (not the colour version on a white box); and open the SVG in a browser to make sure nothing renders differently. Two minutes of checking protects the next decade of print jobs.
The five requests that trigger this job
Almost every conversion starts with a supplier asking for something a JPG can’t do. The signwriter wants cut-file vectors, because vinyl is cut along paths, not printed from pixels. The embroiderer wants clean shapes to digitise into stitches, traced fuzz becomes knotted thread. The printer wants 300dpi minimum at final size plus CMYK colour, and a web-resolution JPG at business-card size enlarges into visible blocks on a banner. The web developer wants an SVG so the logo stays razor-sharp on every screen density. And marketplace or franchise onboarding teams increasingly demand EPS as a gatekeeping formality. One £79 redraw answers all five forever; handling each crisis separately costs more in delays than in fees.
How the 2 to 3 day redraw actually runs
The process is simpler than the panic that precedes it. You send the best version of the logo you have, even a photo of a van or a letterhead works if that’s genuinely all that survives. A designer rebuilds the mark manually: curves refitted, colours sampled and corrected to solid brand values, text reset in the true typeface (the closest real, licensed font if the original can’t be identified). We lay the redraw over your original and check it side by side at large size, then the full file pack arrives: SVG, AI, EPS, PDF, PNG, JPG and ICO, in full colour, one colour and reversed. It takes 2 to 3 working days from when we receive your image, because the job is well bounded: match what exists, faithfully.
One honest caveat: a redraw reproduces the logo you have, including its weaknesses. If the kerning was always slightly off or the icon never quite balanced, say so when you order. A light tidy-up of curves and letter spacing is part of our redraw, but changes to the design itself are a Logo Edit at £50, because “pixel-perfect match” is otherwise the definition of done.
Convert, tweak, or start again?
Three situations, three answers. If the logo is right and only the files are missing: convert, £79 for one layout (£39 per additional layout). If the logo is right but needs a modernisation, colour update, cleaner type, a simplified icon for social media, a logo edit at £50 covers surgical changes to an existing mark and returns the full file pack too. If you’ve been quietly embarrassed by the logo for years, don’t pay to preserve it: a full professional logo redesign runs £129 flat, barely more than an agency would charge for a conversion.
Prevention, for next time
Once you’ve paid to rebuild files once, make losing them impossible: keep the full pack in two places (cloud storage plus an email to yourself titled “LOGO MASTER FILES, DO NOT DELETE”), send suppliers copies rather than your originals, and add the file pack to whatever handover happens if staff or agencies change. Every conversion job we see is a backup habit that didn’t exist yet.
To compare real quotes, see the published vectorising prices in our UK price index: services where a person redraws the logo, and auto-trace software, side by side.
One more file most businesses forget
While the vector pack is being rebuilt, it costs nothing extra to think one step ahead: favicons and app icons (your logo at 16 to 512 pixels) come from the same master files, our favicon size guide lists every size you’ll ever need. And if artwork for a specific print job is the real deadline, print-ready artwork setup is £49: correct colour profile, bleed and trim marks for any UK printer. All of these prices, together with every other service, are on the full price list.
Further reading: UK copyright basics (gov.uk) · Illustrator Image Trace docs (Adobe).
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Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to convert a logo to vector in the UK? +
Free auto-trace software costs nothing, budget tracing services charge about £12 to £30 per logo (some plus VAT), freelancers £30 to £100, a hand redraw from a specialist studio such as Luxbranding £79 for one layout (£39 for each additional layout), and agencies £100 to £250. Auto-trace and budget tracing suit simple logos that are already right; a hand redraw is worth it when the lettering needs fixing or the logo is going on signage or embroidery. Prices checked October 2026.
Can I convert a JPG to vector for free? +
Auto-trace tools (Vectorizer, Illustrator Image Trace) are free or cheap, and work tolerably on very simple, high-contrast shapes. On anything with fine detail, gradients, small text or a low-resolution source they produce wobbly edges and merged letterforms that printers will reject.
What vector files should I receive after conversion? +
AI, EPS and SVG as the scalable masters, plus high-resolution PNGs (transparent background) and JPGs for everyday use, ideally in full colour, all-white and all-black versions. If you only get back a single file, the job isn't finished.
How long does logo vectorisation take? +
Ours at Luxbranding takes 2 to 3 working days from when we receive your image. Freelancer timelines vary from a day to a week; agencies usually fold it into larger jobs.
Is it better to convert my old logo or redesign it? +
If the logo still represents the business, convert it (£79) and keep the equity you've built. If it was always a placeholder or the business has outgrown it, a proper redesign (£129 flat) costs little more than an agency conversion and resets the foundation properly.
