Quick answer
Converting a JPG or PNG logo into proper vector files costs £39 as a flat-fee professional redraw, £30 to £100 with a freelancer, or £100 to £250 through an agency in 2026. Free auto-trace tools exist, but on most real logos they produce distorted curves and merged letters that print shops reject. A specialist redraw is manual, pixel-perfect and typically back within 24 hours.
Why this £39 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 traces your logo manually: 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–£20 | Minutes | Usable only on very simple, high-contrast marks; wobbly curves and merged detail on everything else |
| Specialist studio redraw | £39 flat | 24 hours | Manual pixel-perfect rebuild; AI, EPS, SVG + PNG/JPG in colour, white and black |
| Freelancer | £30–£100 | 1–7 days | Varies with skill; check they redraw text in the real typeface rather than tracing it |
| Agency | £100–£250 | Days–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. It’s exactly what our £39 logo reproduction service delivers in 24 hours.
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.
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? At £39 with a 24-hour turnaround there’s 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 £39 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 £39 redraw answers all five forever; handling each crisis separately costs more in delays than in fees.
How the 24-hour 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 (agreed with you if the original can’t be identified). You approve a proof against the original, side by side at large size, and the full file pack arrives: AI, EPS, SVG, layered source, plus transparent PNGs and JPGs in colour, white and black. From brief to files is typically inside 24 hours, because the job is well-bounded: match what exists, perfectly.
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 at the brief stage, small corrections are usually free inside the job, but they have to be asked for, since “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, £39. 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.
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? +
A professional manual redraw costs £39 flat from a specialist studio, £30–£100 from freelancers, and £100–£250 through agencies. Free auto-trace tools exist but produce lumpy, unusable curves on most real-world logos.
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? +
A specialist redraw is typically delivered within 24 hours. 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 (£39) 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.
