Is a trademark a one-time cost?

No. You pay $350 per class up front, then maintenance fees between years five and six and every ten years after. Keep using the mark and filing, and it can last forever. Stop, and it lapses.

Can I file a trademark without an attorney?

You can, and it is legal. It is also where most refusals come from. A flat $500 to $1,000 attorney fee is cheap insurance against losing your $350 filing fee to a bad search or a clumsy description.

How much is a trademark per class?

The USPTO charges $350 per class of goods or services. Two classes is $700, three is $1,050. Attorney fees are usually charged once for the whole job, not per class.

How Much Does a Trademark Cost in 2026?

A US trademark costs $350 per class in USPTO filing fees, plus attorney fees that usually run $300 to $1,500. Most small businesses spend $650 to $2,000 to register one mark in one class.

How much? $350 a class to the government, plus $300 to $1,500 for a lawyer. One name, one category, call it $650 to $2,000 and you are in the right neighborhood.

That headline number hides where the money actually goes. And I have spent years watching people trip over the same few surprises, so let me walk you through it the way I would across my desk.

Key takeaway: the $350 is fixed, and it is per class. The lawyer's fee is where the range lives. Everything else is your own choices coming home to roost.

The part you cannot negotiate

The USPTO wants $350 to file. Per class. A class is just their word for a category, hoodies in one, your app in another. Two categories, two fees, $700. Yes, that surprises people every single time.

Here is the catch nobody mentions. That money is gone the second you hit submit. Refused? They keep it. So filing sloppily is the most expensive thing you can do.

What the lawyer is actually for

Could you file it yourself? Sure. People do it all day. And a fair share of the messes that land on my desk started exactly that way, a rushed search, a description of the goods that made no sense to the examiner, $350 down the drain.

Most of us quote a flat fee. Roughly:

A plain word mark, one class: $400 to $800
A real clearance search, opinion attached: $300 to $600
Fighting an office action later, if one shows up: $400 to $1,200

Get the flat number before anyone lifts a finger. An hourly quote on a routine trademark is a small yellow flag.

What makes the bill grow

Three things. How many classes you are in. Whether your name bumps into someone else's. And whether the examiner writes back with an objection you have to answer. Clean, single class, nobody nearby? Cheap. A name that is a cousin of an existing mark? That is where it gets expensive, fast.

The part nobody tells you

A trademark is not one and done. You file a keep-it-alive document between years five and six, then again every decade, each with its own fee. Do that, keep using the mark, and it can outlive you. Forget, and it quietly dies.