A rebrand's real cost is admin time, not design fees. The new logo, colors and font get decided once, quickly, by a small team. What actually eats the calendar is applying that decision across every document you already have - one file at a time. That is repetitive, mechanical work, and it is where a rebrand quietly turns from an afternoon into weeks.
The calculator below estimates that cost for your own library. Enter how many documents you need to rebrand, how long each takes by hand, and the rate of the person doing it. Every figure it shows is your own cost maths - your document count, your minutes, your rate. Prefer it on its own page? Open the full ROI calculator.
Your numbers
Everything here is your own cost maths and the tool price you enter - nothing else. Enter your rate in the currency you've picked.
Defaults to 15 minutes - a conservative blended average. A plain memo's quicker; a policy pack with headers, footers, tables and a logo on every page runs to hours.
Limited-time Founders Lifetime deal - US$47
Pre-filled with the one-off Founders price. This is what turns the estimate into an ROI - change it to whatever you'd actually pay.
Working week of 38 hours. Salary conversions use 220 working days/year at 7.6 hrs/day. On-costs, when applied, add your chosen loading to the base rate.
The cost of doing it by hand
That's 3.6 weeks and $6,930 of admin time - before anyone touches their actual job.
550 documents at 15 minutes each, charged at $50/hr (fully loaded, +12%).
137.5
total hours of admin
3.6
working weeks (38-hr week)
$6,930
salary cost of that time
The business case
Spend $47 once, save $6,883 - a 147.4x return.
$6,930
by hand
$47
one-off tool
$6,883
net saving
147.4x
return
It pays for itself after rebranding just 4 of your 550 documents. The rest is saving.
The breakdown
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Documents to rebrand | 550 |
| Minutes per document | 15 |
| Total hours of admin time | 137.5 |
| Working days (7.6-hr day) | 18.1 |
| Working weeks (38-hr week) | 3.6 |
| Hourly rate (fully loaded) | $50 |
| Cost of doing it by hand | $6,930 |
| One-off tool cost | $47 |
| Net saving | $6,883 |
| Return on the spend | 147.4x |
The manual figure is the size of the problem, not the price of any fix. It counts admin time alone: it excludes rework from the old brand slipping through, version-control mistakes, and the opportunity cost of the work that stalls while it runs. Figures are estimates for planning, based on your inputs.
The get-it-approved toolkit
You've got the number. Now here are the words.
You didn't sign up to write a business case. So here's the whole approval pack, done for you - the numbers, the email, and a calm comeback for every “no”.
Optional - fill these in and they'll drop straight into the email and document.
1. The business case, ready to edit
A Word document with the ask, the numbers, the recommendation and the approval email - all in one file. Opens in Word, Google Docs or LibreOffice, so you can tweak the wording before it goes up.
2. The email that asks for the yes
Ready to send, with your numbers already in it. Copy it, attach the document, done.
Subject
Quick approval - $47 tool that saves us ~3.6 weeks of admin
Body
Hi there, Quick one. We need to roll the new brand across 550 of our documents. By hand, that's about 137.5 hours - roughly 3.6 working weeks - which at a loaded rate comes to $6,930 of admin time. There's a tool, BrandSwitch, that does the same job for a one-off $47. It's a one-off cost, not a subscription, and I can put it on the company card today if you're happy. That's a net saving of about $6,883, and it frees up roughly 3.6 weeks I'd otherwise spend reformatting instead of the work I was actually hired for. I've attached a one-page business case with the numbers. Happy to talk it through - can I go ahead? Thanks, [Your name]
3. If the boss pushes back
Calm, professional replies for every likely “no” - each one puts the manual work (and its cost) back on the table. Copy the one you need.
If they say it's not in the budget
Completely fair. Worth noting it's a one-off $47, not a recurring cost - and it offsets $6,930 of admin time that comes out of our salaries either way. Happy for it to be treated as a single line item if that's cleaner.
If they say just do it manually
Happy to take it on by hand - it's around 3.6 weeks of full-time work, so I'd need to pause something else to fit it in. Which of my current priorities would you like me to move back?
If they want to think about it
Of course, no pressure. While we decide, the 550 documents backlog stays as is. It's a one-off $47 whenever you're ready - I've saved the business case, so you can pass it up if that helps.
If they raise quality or risk
Good question - though the manual route is actually the riskier one. Editing 550 documents by hand is exactly where the old brand slips through and versions get mixed up. The tool applies the same rules to every file, identically. Happy to run one document first so you can see the output.
If they ask why a junior can’t just do it
We can hand it to anyone - but it's still 137.5 hours of someone's time at their loaded rate, and it's mechanical work that pulls them off their actual role. The tool does the same job once, for $47 flat.
If they say the agency should handle it
The agency sets the new brand - they don't reformat our existing 550 documents. That part lands with us either way, and this is the fastest way to clear it.
If it's still a no - keep the timeline honest
All good, we'll keep it manual. Could we lock in a realistic timeline of around 3.6 weeks, and take one of my routine tasks off my plate while I do it, so the rebrand doesn't derail my other deadlines?
Got the yes? Point it at your worst document first, then run the rest.
Open BrandSwitch →Next step
The number is only half the job. The sign-off is the other half - and we've written it for you.
Add the one-off tool price above and the toolkit hands you an editable business case, a ready-to-send approval email with your figures in it, and a script for every likely "no".
How to get BrandSwitch approved by your boss →How we calculated this
The method is deliberately simple, so you can check it. Total admin hours are the number of documents multiplied by the average minutes per document, divided by 60. Those hours are converted into working weeks using a 38-hour week, and into a dollar figure using the hourly rate you enter - or an annual salary converted over 220 working days at 7.6 hours per day.
The default starting point is 550 documents at a blended 15 minutes each. Both numbers are stated openly and both are yours to override. The 550 is a real, verified batch size - a mid-sized organization easily holds that many across policy, governance, learning materials, HR, comms and forms. The 15 minutes is a conservative blended average: a plain one-page memo is quicker, while the fiddly documents - a policy pack with headers, footers, tables and a logo on every page - run closer to two hours each. Blended across a mixed library, 15 minutes lands the default result inside the verified two-to-four week range for a manual rebrand.
Change the minutes to match your own document set - a library heavy on complex, formatting-dense files will pull the average up, and the estimate will move with it.
"That same real 550-document batch, which takes two to four weeks by hand, completed in 11 minutes through an automated pass."
The reason automation collapses the timeline is not that it works faster at the same task - it is that it removes the task's biggest weakness. A person rebranding 550 documents over three weeks gets careful and methodical in week one and rushed and inconsistent by week three. An automated pass applies the identical brand settings to document number 1 and document number 550 the same way. For the full picture of where the manual hours go, see our breakdown of what a rebrand costs in admin hours, and the proof page for the verified batch results.
What the number does not include
The calculator is deliberately conservative. It counts admin time alone. It does not price in the rework when the old brand slips through and has to be fixed, the version-control mistakes that come from editing hundreds of files by hand, or the opportunity cost of the actual work that stalls while someone spends three weeks on document formatting. The real cost of a manual rebrand is higher than the figure shown - this is the floor, not the ceiling.
It also does not show the price of automating the work, because that is not the point of the tool. The tool measures the size of the problem. If you want to see the faster side of the comparison, the FAQ answers the practical questions, and the app lets you run a real document through it.
FAQ
What does a rebrand actually cost in admin time?
A document rebrand costs admin hours, not design fees. The real cost is the time to apply the new brand across every existing document by hand - roughly the document count multiplied by the minutes each file takes, converted into working weeks and salary cost. A library of 550 documents at a blended 15 minutes each is well over a hundred hours of admin time, which typically lands in the two-to-four week range.
How is the rebrand cost calculated?
Total admin hours equal the number of documents times the average minutes per document, divided by 60. That is converted to working weeks using a 38-hour week, and to a dollar figure using the hourly rate you enter (or an annual salary converted over 220 working days at 7.6 hours per day). Every figure is your own cost maths, based on the inputs you choose.
Why is 15 minutes per document a fair default?
Fifteen minutes is a conservative blended average across a mixed library. A plain memo is quicker; a policy pack with headers, footers, tables and a logo on every page runs closer to two hours. The blend lands the default 550-document result inside the verified two-to-four week range. You can override the minutes to match your own document set.
How long does the same batch take when it is automated?
The same real 550-document batch that takes two to four weeks by hand completed in 11 minutes through an automated pass, because the same brand settings are applied identically to every file rather than depending on how careful the reviewer is on document number 300.