Brand mark: a logo doing a watermark's job
A brand mark is the vendor's own logo applied to output. It identifies which tool made the file rather than stating that the file was generated, and it is almost always something a plan removes. As of 2026-09-22.
| The term | Brand mark |
|---|---|
| What it names | The vendor's own logo, applied to output |
| What it is not | A statement that the content was generated |
| Where the register uses it | The free-tier and paid-tier columns, on most entries |
Inclusion rule. Words this site uses in a narrow sense, where the ordinary sense would lead a reader to misread a cell. No vendor statement appears on this page. Order. Fixed order: what the word names, what it excludes, then where it is used here.
1Advertising and disclosure are not the same function
A logo on a free user's output is advertising with a secondary effect. It tells viewers which tool was used, which is useful to the vendor, and it incidentally signals that the clip was machine-generated, which is useful to a viewer. Only the first of those is the reason it exists, and the second disappears the moment somebody pays.
That is why a register tracking marking has to distinguish a brand mark from a disclosure mark even though they look identical on a frame. A disclosure mark that a plan removes is not doing disclosure; it is doing packaging, and one vendor here publishes a disclosure rationale for a mark it also sells the removal of.
2How a vendor's own vocabulary gives it away
Pages that call the mark a logo, or name it after the company, are describing branding. Pages that call it a watermark are using a word with a provenance history, whatever the mark actually does. Neither noun settles the question, and the pairing of noun and behaviour is often the most informative thing on a grid.
The register keeps the vendor's own word rather than normalising it. Translating every logo into watermark would tidy the table and destroy a real signal, and it would hide the day a vendor started distinguishing the two.
3Why this matters to a reader of the free-tier column
If the mark is branding, its presence tells you the file came from a free or entry plan and nothing about whether the content is synthetic. If it is disclosure, its absence on a paid plan means disclosure has been switched off. A reader who conflates the two reads both directions wrongly.
Almost every mark in this register is on the branding side of that line: named after the vendor, removed by payment, described in a feature list. The entries that sit on the other side are the ones whose mark is invisible, which nobody advertises with.
Nothing on this page is a vendor statement; the values it helps read are on the support table, with the page and the date each one was read from. See also the free tier column, metadata against watermark. Nearby terms: invisible watermark, content credentials, provenance manifest.