• Logo design software helps business owners create a strong brand identity and lets agencies do the same for their clients.
• With the variety of design tools available, business owners don’t need to spend a fortune to design a professional logo. Many of the best logo design software programs already incorporate templates with balanced designs, font pairings, and color palettes for any type of business.

Best Logo Design Software Programs of 2021

• Adobe Illustrator: Best Overall
• Logo Design Studio Pro: Runner-Up, Best Overall
• Designhill: Best for Beginners
• Canva: Best Price
• Tailor Brands: Best Features
• Canva: Best for Collaborating Across Teams
• Hatchful: Best Free Software

Best Overall: Adobe Illustrator

• First launched in 1985, Adobe Illustrator remains the leading vector editing software in the market, allowing users to create drawings that can be scaled to any size. We chose it as the best overall because it makes it easy to control every aspect of logo design with shape-building tools, brushes, perspective grids, gradients, and more.
• One of Illustrator’s most powerful features is the ability to import a scanned image. This is great for users who’ve sketched a few ideas on paper but don’t want to start from scratch on the computer. Geometric shapes can then be laid over the drawing and manipulated with ease. Illustrator also offers a variety of templates and vector logo objects to help get users started.

Runner-Up, Best Overall: Logo Design Studio Pro

• Founded in 1993 as a consulting firm, Summitsoft expanded into the publishing space in 2001 with a suite of graphic design software. Its Logo Design Studio Pro platform has consistently been the top-selling logo design software for two decades. We chose it as our runner-up since it offers slightly less powerful vector illustration features than Adobe Illustrator but in an easier-to-use and more affordable format.
• Logo Design Studio Pro comes with 2,000 logo templates and 6,000 shapes and fonts users can choose from. Shapes can easily be stretched and manipulated and users get professional-grade coloring and styling options, including gradients, shadow, blur, glow, and emboss effects.

Best for Beginners: Designhill

• Designhill started as a design crowdsourcing platform in 2014 and has grown into a community of over 125,000 graphic designers and artists from nearly 52 countries. Its online logo maker has resulted in the creation of nearly 2 million logos for over 1 million customers. We chose it as the best for beginners because its unique AI-powered tool lets anyone create professional logos with no design skills needed.
• Getting started with Designhill is easy. Just enter the name of the business and the basic logo style and color palette. The software then offers up hundreds of design options that can be previewed on business cards, t-shirts, signboards, and more. Any part of the templates Designhill creates can be tweaked and edited as needed, including colors and fonts.

Best Price: Canva

• Canva is a web-based, drag-and-drop graphic design tool created in 2012 to help users make social media graphics, presentations, posters, and more. We chose it as the best price because it makes it easy to create professional logos for free or at just $1 per premium element and offers an affordable monthly subscription with additional features.
• Canva’s free logo maker features a very visual and easy-to-use interface. Users start by entering their business name, business type, and choosing five template designs they like. Canva then automatically creates a sample logo using all of that information.

Best Features: Tailor Brands

• Readers of The Balance SMB can use the promo code thebalance for 15% off with Tailor Brands.
• Tailor Brands was founded in 2014 to help anyone get their business off the ground by making branding and design widely accessible. The company boasts 14 million users worldwide and over 500 million designs created. We chose it for the best features because its logo design tool integrates with print, social media, and website tools to create a unified brand.
• Tailor Brands’ logo maker works very similarly to Designhill. Users simply enter their business name and design preferences and the software offers up a number of designs to choose from. Users can then change the font, color, and size of any element to create the design they envisioned. The final logo can be downloaded as a high-quality vector file that can be used on a website, or for business cards and merchandise.

Best Free Software: Hatchful

• Hatchful is a free logo design tool made by Shopify, one of the leading e-commerce platforms. It allows users to create a professional logo with hundreds of templates to choose from with just a few clicks. We chose it as the best free software since it can deliver clean and professional logos and social media elements with no design skills required, all at no cost.
• Creating a logo with Hatchful couldn’t be easier. Just enter the business type, creative style, business name, and where the logo will be used (website, social media, business cards, or merchandise.) The platform then uses AI to create hundreds of logo variations in the chosen style. From there users can customize the colors, icons, or fonts of any design.
• Unlike other “free” logo makers that charge to download a high-quality logo, Hatchful lets users download logo packages that contain images of different resolutions for websites, social media profiles, and other uses absolutely free. Hatchful only charges for premium logo templates starting at $8.99.