How Much Does a Trademark Cost in 2026? Full Breakdown

You can find a trademark for $99 or $5,000, and both numbers are "real." The gap between them is where most brand owners get burned. Figuring out how much a trademark costs isn't about hunting for the lowest ad — it's about understanding what you're actually paying for, so a bargain doesn't turn into a dead application six months in. Here's the honest breakdown of what goes into the price, from someone who files them. For help protecting a brand the right way, see our trademark practice.

First, separate the two costs nobody separates

Every trademark price is really two numbers stacked together, and the cheap ads work by hiding one of them:

• The government filing fee — what you pay the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to file. This is fixed, non-negotiable, and the same whether a lawyer files it or you do.
• The professional fee — what you pay an attorney (or a filing service) to actually do the work: clearing the name, picking the right classes, drafting the description, and handling what comes back from the examiner.

When an ad screams "$99 trademark," it's quoting a sliver of the professional fee and quietly leaving the government fees — and everything that goes wrong later — off the sticker.

What the USPTO charges

The USPTO's fee is charged per class of goods or services, not per trademark. That single fact drives most of the sticker shock.

• The base application fee starts at a few hundred dollars per class — you can see the current numbers on the USPTO fee schedule.
• If your brand covers, say, both a clothing line and an online store, that can be two classes — and you pay the fee twice.
• The USPTO's newer fee structure also adds surcharges when an application uses free-form (custom) descriptions or leaves required fields incomplete — costs a rushed DIY filing tends to trigger without the filer realizing it.

These fees are also non-refundable. If the application is refused, that money is gone — you don't get it back to try again.

What an attorney is actually charging for

The professional fee is where "cheap" and "sound" separate. A real attorney's fee is buying you the work that decides whether the mark survives:

• A clearance search — checking whether someone already has rights that would block you, before you spend the filing fees. Skipping this is the single most expensive mistake in trademarks.
• Class and description strategy — filing in the right classes with a description broad enough to protect you but narrow enough to get approved.
• Handling the Office Action — if the examiner pushes back (and they often do), someone has to write a legal response. Filing mills frequently charge extra for this, or simply don't do it.

This is why a flat, all-in attorney fee usually beats a "$99" quote: you're paying once, up front, for the whole job — not getting a low number that balloons the moment the work gets real.

The hidden costs that turn a "cheap" filing expensive

The lowest quote often ends up costing the most. The usual culprits:

• Per-class math. A "$99" price is per class; a two- or three-class brand multiplies fast once the government fees are added on top.
• Office Action responses. Billed separately by most mills — and if you don't respond correctly and on time, the application goes abandoned and the fees are lost.
• Refiling. A mark refused for a fixable reason (wrong specimen, bad description) often means starting over — new fees, new wait.
• Monitoring. A registration doesn't enforce itself. Watching for copycats is an ongoing cost some owners don't budget for.

So what's the real number?

The honest answer is a range, because the two things that move the price the most are how many classes you need and how complicated the mark is to clear and describe. A single-class, clean-to-clear brand filed properly is a modest, predictable cost. A multi-class brand, or one that draws an Office Action, costs more — and a bargain filing that dies and has to be redone costs the most of all.

The number to watch isn't the headline price. It's the all-in price: government fees, professional fees, and what happens if the examiner says no — quoted up front, before you pay.

When to call ELN

If you're comparing trademark prices, don't shop the sticker — shop the all-in. ELN Law files trademarks for Michigan founders, creators, and small businesses on a flat fee, quoted up front: the clearance search, the class strategy, the filing, and the examiner response, in one price with no "new attorney" calling next week for more. See our trademark and copyright practice or the flat-fee packages, and schedule a free consult to get a real number for your brand — not a teaser.

You Call You Win.