Digital Signage enjoys immense popularity in the advertising and marketing landscape. They are more effective communication platforms for businesses instead of conventional ways of promotions.
Another advantage of considering digital signage is to present your product or services in a more modernized way that drives customer attention and engages them and eventually increases your sales.
The benefits seem lucrative. But, you might be stuck with how much does digital signage cost. Will it be too expensive? Or will it be fit in your budget?
This post will address this question of yours with all the required details. Are you ready to explore the overall cost of a digital signage solution? Let’s delve into it.
Key Elements of a Digital Signage Solution
The cost of digital signage solutions mainly depends on three elements.
- Hardware
- Software
- Licensing
These are very basic components of signage solutions that every digital signage solution provider will deliver to you.
There are a few hi-tech solution providers who offer you digital signage lifecycle management by charging extra. But, investing more is fair enough if you are getting a solution with outstanding performance.
You might be happy after knowing that there are digital signage solutions that are available for free. But, when you get something for free, it doesn’t hold much reliability.
A Complete Breakdown of Digital Signage Cost
Hardware
Display Screens
The display screens are one of the must have parts of a digital signage solution. You can choose your preferred display from different types of display screens.
- Digital Displays/TVs
- Tablets
- Interactive Screens
- Large Format Screens
- Video Wall
- Kiosk
- Menu Boards
Now you might have so many questions when you have so many options like which display platform should I consider?, which brand should I prefer?, which features are necessary and unnecessary?, which screen size should I select? and so on.
You can find the answers to all these questions by yourself. All you need to do is, get better clarity on the below points.
- Define your needs, goals, and budget
- Select a highly impactful location to set up your display
- Based on your location, you can determine the display screen size. Analyze the viewing angle, room size, wall space, etc.
- Perform research on the different brands before making a buying decision about a digital display. Choose the one that provides advanced features within your budget
It is suggested to go for a commercial digital display instead of consumer TV to create a great impact on your target audience. You might find the commercial displays more expensive, but in the long run, your investment will be worth it.
Moreover, commercial displays come with more processing power, longer warranties, and a much longer lifespan. Thus, choosing a commercial display, you can go long.
Approx. Costing
Costing of the digital display depends on the resolution, brand, type of screens (commercial or consumer), and many other factors. But usually, a display screen of a digital signage solution falls anywhere $550 to $3000.
Media Players
Media Player is the basic need to stream your digital content on the display screen. You need to set up a separate media player for each screen on your visual communication network. There are three types of media players are available:
- All in one solution – Such media players are built into tine display so you do not need to integrate any hardware
- Plug and Play sticks – It’s an on the fly option if you want to have an inexpensive media player
- Boxes – Media boxes are the best choice if you are looking for durability, massive storage, and faster processing power
You need to select the right option that fits in the operating systems you prefer, your budget, and the capabilities you look for.
Approx. Costing
The price of media players varies as per the specifications you prefer. An average cost of a reliable media player starts at $150 and ends around $400.
Mounting hardware
In the mounting hardware, you have many options to choose from. You have video wall mounts and titled wall and flat wall mounts, and ceiling mounts. First, you need to decide the location of your digital display screens and you can determine mounting hardware accordingly.
The mounting hardware is available in two different types: commercial and consumer. Again, we suggest you go for the commercial option to leverage better display quality and longer durability. Compared to consumer mounts, commercial mounts are more cost-effective and much easier in terms of installation, servicing, and making adjustments.
Approx. Costing
The consumer mounting hardware is available anywhere from $50 to $200. The commercial mounts are available at more than $200.
Installation cost
The installation cost is quite tough to estimate as every digital signage solutions provider change as per their terms and condition. Additionally, the installation cost depends on the level of customization you wanted to implement.
Digital signage producers understand the scale and scope of your business and deploy the signage solution accordingly. So, there is no standardization when it comes to the installation cost.
Approx. Costing
To install one or two simple screens, the digital signage solution providers charge $150 to $400. If you want to install large and complex signage, then it would cost you around $2500 – $11000.
Software
Device provisioning
Device provisioning is the first and sometimes most complex part of the digital signage installation. It requires to connect all your media players with all the screens to stream your content across all the displays.
As device provisioning is a complicated process, you need to invest more time and money. But if you hire experts, then you can easily connect the different devices. Using Android devices, you can leverage scalability as they support simple USB provisioning.
Approx. Costing
As we discussed above, device provisioning is a complex and time-consuming process, you have to invest a considerable amount for it. Every service provider charges as per their terms so there are no standard rates.
Switching over/integration
Whenever you want to change or integrate a new content management system or digital signage solution, it will be expensive as well as time-consuming. The key reasons for considering switching over/integration are, you need to consider undergoing changes and you need to make sure everything will be fine-tuned during the process of switching over or integration.
Hire experienced professionals who can take care of your all integrations utilizing their solution expertise.
Approx. Costing
The cost of switching over/integration does vary. It depends on the signage solution provider, what are the best prices they can offer to you.
Software learning
With the increasing usage of digital signage solution, there a lot of intuitive solutions are available in the market. While considering signage solution for your business, you either need to train your existing staff about how to utilize its capability or you need to hire new employees who are familiar with the technology.
Approx. Costing
It is a better option to train your existing staff if you feel they are capable enough to learn the technology and drive the results. Else, you need to hire experts by paying a high salary to ensure the smooth operations of digital signage solutions.
Content creation
To engage the customer, your team needs to create and publish fresh, exciting, and informative content on a regular basis. You also need to use stock images, fonts, graphics, and other digital assets in your content. Well, all these resources are available for free as well as paid. You can go with an option you prefer.
Approx. Costing
The cost of content creation depends on whether you want to utilize free resources or subscribe to the paid ones. If you want to use paid resources, then there are many subscription plans offered by different platforms. You can select the one that fits into your requirements.
Support and maintenance
Once the digital signage installation process complete, you need technical support to keep your software up and running. You need a staff that supports you whenever the solution faces complicated issues by resolving them quickly.
Most of the business owners ignore the support and maintenance services. Eventually, they end up facing service downtime. This impacts their marketing campaigns as the marketing team cannot run the advertisements.
There are a few digital signage solution providers who offer 24/7 support and offer maintenance services to ensure the solutions work effectively.
Approx. Costing
The support and maintenance cost of digital signage depends on various aspects that include the complexity and scale of your network. The service providers offer different plans where you need to pay a small amount for basic implementation, integration, and maintenance and a large amount for taking care of your multi-screen deployment and delivering robust performance.
Licensing
If you want to install a cloud-based digital signage solution, then you need to pay a monthly licensing fee. Such solutions allow you to access a wide variety of features such as templates, tutorial videos, apps, playlist managers, and 24/7 support.
The software is easy to integrate with your existing solutions, is easily scalable across multiple screens, and supports almost all the operating systems. You also need to subscribe to the other services that might be necessary to present your content more effectively such as stock photo libraries, Adobe Cloud, graphic design elements website, Chrome OS kiosk enterprise license, and more.
Approx. Costing
When you choose the high-quality digital signage software, you need to pay anywhere around $8 to $16 per month.
If you go with all in one digital signage solution, then the price starts at $7 per month.
You need to bear additional charges for the subscriptions you want to avail of. You can choose either a professional solution or free software.
Digital Signage Lifecycle
If you are planning to install a digital signage solution, then you cannot overlook the lifecycle of the hardware that is used in the signage software.
After a certain time period, you have to replace, upgrade, or repair the hardware. Of course, you need to invest money to set up IT infrastructure and a team to maintain the hardware compatibility and performance. It is better if you install in commercial hardware than consumer hardware. It might cost you more but you can use them for a long time.
Free Digital Signage Software
There are very few digital signage solution providers who offer the software for free. Well, you might be happy. But, these free solutions come with many hidden costs. They are least scalable, hard to learn, extremely clunky, and offer little to no support.
So, if your business scopes highly limited and you are not concerned about the software performance, then only you can consider this option.
In the nutshell
Xynage is one of the leading digital signage solution providers across the globe. The solution consists of advanced features, functionality, and integration that help businesses run their marketing campaigns and advertisements effortlessly.
We offer integration of the latest hardware and software with the least licensing cost. Moreover, we offer you round the clock support to address any of your concerns. Leverage such robust signage software at a highly reasonable cost.
The software is easy to learn and easy to integrate with your existing business solutions. We have integrated a robust Content Management System in the Xynage that allows organizations to change the content at any point in time and display that across all the display screens regardless of locations.
Are you ready to earn more by investing less in Xynage? Let’s connect
Frequently Asked Questions on Digital Signage Cost
How much is a digital sign?
The lower-cost digital signage solution is available around $15,000-$25,000. If you are looking for a highly customized solution, than it is available around $50,000. You have two options where you can either lease a solution as a way to finance them or purchase the software outright.
What is the best digital signage software?
The best digital signage solutions are Xynage, Scala, UPshow, Raydiant, ScreenCloud, Enplug, Rise Vision, TelemetryTV, ScreenScape, and more.
What is a digital signage player?
The digital signage player is also popular as a media player. It is a small computer that allows to stream the digital content on any public digital display. All the TVs, that you see in public places, are powered by media players such as stadium, airport terminus, hotels, digital menubar, digital directories, etc.
How does digital signage work?
The content you see in the digital signage is powered by a system on a chip or a media player that pushes the content to a digital display. To allow users to manage the content, the software offers a robust content management system either within the cloud or on-site to change the content on the fly.
