These three terms get used almost interchangeably in casual conversation, but they describe different layers of work — and knowing which one you're actually asking for changes what a project should include.
Brand strategy
The foundational thinking: who you're for, what makes you different, how you're positioned against competitors, and what your business stands for. This is invisible in the final deliverables but determines whether everything built on top of it makes sense.
Brand identity
The full expression of that strategy — visual identity plus voice, messaging and tone. It's the umbrella term for the complete system a business presents to the world, of which visuals are only one part.
Visual identity
The specific visual layer within brand identity: logo, color palette, typography, imagery style. This is what most people mean when they informally say "branding," even though it's technically just one component of the whole.
Why the distinction is practical, not academic
A project scoped as "just visual identity" skips the strategic groundwork, which risks producing a good-looking system built on guesswork rather than research. A project scoped as full "brand identity" should include strategy work first, even briefly, so the visuals have a clear reason behind them.
The short version
Strategy is the thinking, identity is the full system built from that thinking, and visual identity is the picture-based subset of it. Knowing which one you're buying helps you ask for — and evaluate — the right thing.