How much should I budget for typography in my design projects?

Typography can cost anywhere from nothing to a few hundred dollars, and for most projects it is a small slice of the overall budget. What you spend depends on whether you use system fonts or license a commercial typeface family.

• System fonts: Arial and other defaults ship free with virtually every operating system
• Single weight license: a commercial font like Helvetica Neue often starts around a few dozen dollars per weight for desktop use
• Full family license: complete families with multiple weights and styles can run into the hundreds
• Web vs desktop: licensing is usually priced separately for web embedding versus desktop design

For a print project, remember that most printers render any font you supply at no extra charge, so the cost is the license itself, not the printing.