Quick answer
Looka is the best-known AI logo generator, with published tiers from roughly £16 (basic file) to £52 (full files) and a brand-kit subscription around £77/year. A UK specialist designer runs £129 flat; agencies £500 and up. The honest split: Looka wins on speed and day-one price for a business that’s still an experiment. A designer wins on originality, complete files and ownership for a business that’s real. The interesting question is which one you are, and this guide is the Looka-specific deep dive; for the whole generator category, our AI generator vs designer comparison is the companion piece.
What Looka actually does
You type your business name and industry, pick some styles and colours you like, and Looka’s system assembles logo candidates from its libraries of icons, fonts and layouts, dozens of variations in minutes, editable in a friendly browser tool. Buy a tier and you download files; the higher tiers add vector files, colour variations and a “brand kit” of social and marketing templates built from your mark. As a product experience it’s genuinely slick, and pretending otherwise would be the kind of dishonesty that makes comparison posts useless. The trade-offs live underneath the slickness, in three places: where the design elements come from, what files each tier includes, and what “yours” means.
Side by side, honestly
| Looka (published tiers ~£16–£77/yr) | UK studio designer (£129 flat) | |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | Minutes to candidates, an evening to done | First concepts in 48 hours, done in days |
| Originality | Assembled from shared icon/font libraries, similar marks exist by design | Drawn for you; originality is the product |
| Process | You are the designer; the tool offers options | A professional asks about your customers and competitors, then thinks |
| Revisions | Self-serve editing, as long as you enjoy it | Unlimited rounds with a human who explains choices |
| Files | Depends on tier, vectors arrive at the premium level; check before buying | Full pack as standard: AI, EPS, SVG, PNG, JPG in colour/white/black |
| Ownership | Broad usage rights per published terms; elements remain library-sourced | Copyright in an original work assigned to you on payment |
| Trademark position | Weakened by shared elements | Strong, distinctiveness is the brief |
The library problem, without the scaremongering
Generator marketing implies infinite uniqueness; generator critics imply everyone gets the same logo. Reality is between: Looka’s combinations are vast, but the ingredients, icons and typefaces, are shared, and popular industry + style choices funnel users toward similar territory. Your café’s steaming-cup mark won’t be identical to another café’s; it will be a cousin. For a market stall, that’s irrelevant. For a business building recognition in one town against direct competitors, or one that may want UK trademark registration, where distinctiveness is the legal test, cousins are a real cost. Our copyright and trademark guide covers what registrable actually means.
Where Looka genuinely is the right call
Credit where due, the generator route is rational when: the business idea is still being tested and might pivot next quarter; the total budget is two digits; you need something tonight for a domain, a business card, a market pitch; or you actively enjoy the tinkering and know you’re buying a placeholder. The mistake isn’t choosing Looka, it’s choosing it unknowingly for keeps: building vans, signage and five years of recognition on a £16 template before checking what files and rights you actually hold. Treat it as scaffolding and it serves honourably; our cheap vs expensive logo breakdown shows what each price band really buys.
Where the designer earns the £129 difference
Hiring a designer buys the parts no generator attempts: someone asks what you do, who buys it and who you’re up against before anything is drawn; concepts arrive with reasoning attached; revisions converge because one professional holds the thread; the file pack answers every future printer, signwriter and developer without a tier-checking exercise; and the ownership paperwork is done properly, once. At £129 flat with first concepts in 48 hours, the premium over Looka’s full-file tier is roughly £75, about the price the design being about your business turns out to cost. The wider market context is in what a logo costs in the UK.
The switching bill: what leaving a placeholder later costs
One line item neither route advertises: the cost of changing your mind. Rebranding from a placeholder logo once it’s in the world means reprinting cards and stationery, updating signage and vehicle graphics if you bought them, refreshing every profile and directory listing, and re-teaching customers what to recognise. On a young business that’s a £100–£300 nuisance; on one with a wrapped van and a shopfront it’s four figures. This is the real argument for deciding deliberately at the start: not that the generator is bad, but that “temporary” logos have a habit of hardening into permanent ones precisely when replacement is most expensive. Whichever route you pick, pick it knowing which one it is.
About that brand-kit subscription
Looka’s ~£77/year kit tier bundles social templates and marketing assets around your generated mark, and judged as a bundle, it’s decent value if you use it. Two comparisons worth making before subscribing, though. Against a one-off purchase: the subscription re-bills annually for as long as you want access, so by year two you’ve paid £154 for assets a one-off kit delivers once. Against the designed alternative: a custom social template kit runs £79 one-off, built around your actual brand rather than a generated one. The subscription’s genuine advantage is integration, everything in one dashboard. Its cost is the same as every subscription’s: it never finishes.
The portfolio test (works on us too)
Whichever way you lean, apply the same final check. For Looka: search real examples of logos made with it in your industry, not the marketing gallery, actual businesses, and ask whether you’d be happy sat between them. For any designer or studio: read the portfolio for businesses like yours and ask the same question, then confirm the practical three, full file pack, copyright assignment, revision terms, in writing. A provider that passes both the eye test and the paperwork test, at a price you can afford twice over, is the right answer regardless of which column of this article it sits in.
Three questions that settle it for you
Is the business proven? Pre-revenue and experimenting: generator, no shame in it. Trading, invoicing, being recommended: designer territory. Where will the logo live? Screen-only (website, social, email): a generator mark can cope. Vans, signage, workwear, packaging: you’ll need the full file pack and the legibility judgement a designer builds in. Does exclusivity matter? If competitors’ customers need to recognise you, or trademark is on the roadmap, shared-library marks are the wrong foundation. Two or more answers pointing the same way is your answer.
The upgrade path most businesses actually take
In practice this is rarely either/or forever, it’s a sequence. Year zero: generator logo, £16–£52, perfectly sensible. Then traction arrives, and with it the tells: the signwriter asks for files your tier doesn’t include; the logo looks thin next to established competitors; trademark crosses your mind. That’s the £129 moment, and done then, it’s a modest cost against a business that now exists. What to avoid is the expensive middle path: years of small payments patching a placeholder (extra file exports, template subscriptions, a paid “redesign” inside the generator) that add up to designer money without ever buying a designed mark. Every price of ours mentioned here is public on the price list; Looka’s are on theirs, compare like for like, tier for tier.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Looka worth it for a UK small business? +
As a fast, cheap placeholder — yes, genuinely. Looka's published tiers (roughly £16 for a basic logo to £77/year for the brand kit) buy a tidy, template-assembled mark in an evening. As the long-term identity of a growing business, its shared icon and font libraries mean distinctiveness is the trade-off.
How much does Looka cost compared to a designer? +
Looka's published pricing runs from around £16 (basic file) to around £52 for the full file package, with a brand kit subscription near £77/year. A UK specialist studio charges £129 flat including unlimited revisions, all file formats and copyright assignment; agencies run £500 upwards.
Do you own the logo Looka makes? +
You get broad usage rights to the generated design, per Looka's published terms — sufficient for most everyday use. But the mark is assembled from libraries of icons and fonts other users also draw on, which matters if you ever want to trademark or need genuine exclusivity. A designer assigns copyright in an original work to you.
Can a Looka logo be trademarked in the UK? +
Sometimes — registrability depends on distinctiveness, and that's exactly where generator output is weakest, since elements come from shared libraries. If trademark protection is part of your plan, an original designed mark starts from a much stronger position. Our logo copyright and trademark guide covers the detail.
When should I upgrade from a generator logo to a designed one? +
The common triggers: the business found traction and the logo now embarrasses you on bigger applications; a printer or signwriter needs files the tier you bought doesn't include; or you're investing in vans, signage or serious marketing and want a mark that's actually yours. At £129, most businesses upgrade around year one or two.
