Can I Use Client Logos on My Website? The Rules

Usually yes, but "usually" is doing real work in that sentence. Displaying a client's logo to identify them factually as a customer can qualify as nominative fair use, the trademark doctrine that lets you refer to a brand you do not own. That is a defense you raise after someone objects, not a permission you hold in advance. If the relationship matters to your marketing, get written consent, ideally through a clause in the contract itself.

This comes up constantly for B2B companies building a customer logo strip or a testimonial wall, and it gets muddled because two entirely separate permissions are in play at once. Publishing what a customer said is one question. Displaying their trademark is a different one, decided under different law, and frequently by a different person inside the customer's organization.

The two permissions people conflate

A champion who happily gives you a glowing quote has authorized their words. They have not authorized their employer's brand assets, and in most companies they do not have the standing to. Keeping these separate in your own head is the single change that makes the conversation with a customer's legal team go smoothly.

Notice the asymmetry in that last row. Testimonial permission is best asked for when the customer is delighted, which is unpredictable. Logo permission is best agreed at signature, when goodwill is at its peak and nobody has any reason to think hard about it.

What is nominative fair use?

Nominative fair use is the principle that you are allowed to use someone else's trademark to refer to that person or company, because there is often no other way to talk about them. Courts applying it look at three conditions, all of which have to hold:

• The company or product is not readily identifiable without using the mark.
• You use only as much of the mark as is reasonably necessary to identify them.
• The use does not suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark owner.

Identifying a company as your customer is a factual statement, and courts have accepted that identifying customers and business partners can fall inside this doctrine. If you want to see how the test has actually been applied rather than how it is summarized, the case law is worth reading in plain English before you rely on it, because the outcomes turn heavily on presentation.

Why the third factor is where logo walls get uncomfortable

The first two conditions are easy for a customer logo strip. You genuinely cannot identify Acme Corp without saying "Acme Corp," and a single logo at a reasonable size is no more of the mark than necessary.

The third condition is the problem. A grid of logos under a heading like "Trusted by" is, read plainly, suggesting something about those companies' relationship to you. There is a real difference between a factual statement that a company is a customer and an implication that they endorse, partner with, or vouch for you. The safest presentations are the boring ones: a neutral heading such as "Companies using Testimonials," accurate use of the current logo without recoloring or distortion, and no arrangement that implies a formal partnership where none exists.

Things that push you toward trouble: using a logo larger or more prominently than your own branding, placing a customer logo next to words like "partner" or "certified" when neither is true, keeping a logo up after the company stops being a customer, and modifying the mark to fit your design system.

Can I use a company logo on my website without permission?

You can, and many companies do, and most of the time nothing happens. The realistic risk is not a lawsuit. It is a takedown email from the customer's brand team, and the awkward conversation that follows with an account you would rather keep happy. Trademark owners tend to enforce logo policies administratively long before they involve lawyers.

The practical calculus is straightforward. If you are a small company listing a handful of customers factually, the risk is low and the doctrine is on your side. If you are running a prominent logo wall on your homepage, if any customer is in a regulated industry, or if a customer is large enough to have a written brand policy, ask. The cost of asking is one email. The cost of not asking is a removal request at the worst possible time, usually while a prospect is on the page.

What a marketing clause should say

The efficient fix is to stop negotiating this per testimonial and put it in your contract template. A short clause, agreed at signature, removes the most common objection you will hit six months later.

The elements worth including: an explicit right to identify the customer as a customer by name and logo, the channels it covers (website, sales materials, press), a requirement that you use the current approved logo files and follow their brand guidelines, a right for them to revoke on written notice with a reasonable window, and language making clear that identification does not imply endorsement.

Two notes on how this actually goes. Enterprise customers will often strike the clause outright, and that is fine, because a struck clause tells you where you stand at signature instead of after you have built a page around them. And a marketing clause covers the logo, not the words. You still need a separate release for a testimonial, which we cover in the testimonial release form guide.

Does a logo permission cover the testimonial too?

No, and assuming it does is the most common mistake here. A contract clause letting you name a company as a customer does not authorize you to publish an individual employee's quote, their name, their photograph, or their job title. Those engage the individual's own interests, and in the United States the right of publicity is a matter of state law that varies meaningfully from state to state.

There is also an FTC dimension once a statement becomes an endorsement. If the person giving the quote is not a straightforward customer, the relationship has to be disclosed. Under 16 CFR 465.5, part of the FTC rule on consumer reviews and testimonials that took effect on October 21, 2024, a business may not disseminate a testimonial from an officer, manager, employee, or agent without clearly and conspicuously disclosing that material relationship where it is not otherwise apparent. In B2B that language reaches reseller partners, implementation consultants, and affiliates on a revenue share, all of whom are easy to mistake for neutral customers. The wider rule is broken down in FTC testimonial rules.

One more editing trap worth naming. 16 CFR 255.1(b) says an advertisement need not present an endorser's message in their exact words unless it represents that it is presenting the exact words, such as through the use of quotation marks. B2B quotes routinely get rewritten by the customer's communications team before approval. If the published version is not what the person actually said, either keep it verbatim or drop the quotation marks.

What to do when permission is refused

A refusal on the logo is rarely a refusal on everything. Regulated customers in banking, healthcare, and defense frequently have a flat policy against appearing on vendor websites, and their champion may still be willing to be quoted at a lower attribution level: a job title and industry, a company size, and a real number, without the name or the mark.

That is worth publishing. Business buyers discount unattributed proof, but they do not dismiss it, particularly when the substitute detail is specific. The condition is that the testimonial has to be genuine and you have to be able to show, if challenged, that a real named customer gave it. Inventing detail to make an anonymized quote sound more concrete is a different category of problem entirely. We laid out the full attribution ladder, from full name and logo down to role only, on our B2B customer testimonials page.

Common mistakes, and what to do instead

The short version

Using a client logo to state factually that they are a customer is often defensible under nominative fair use, provided you use no more of the mark than necessary and the presentation does not imply endorsement. But a defense is not a permission, and the realistic downside is a brand team's takedown email rather than a courtroom. Ask at signature through a marketing clause, keep logo permission and testimonial permission as two separate asks, and when a customer will not be named, publish the proof at the highest attribution level they will approve rather than nothing at all.