Choosing a supplier
Eleven questions to ask any digital signage supplier before you sign, including the ones that are uncomfortable for us to answer.
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What Does Digital Signage Cost in New Zealand?
Any supplier who answers this with one number is hiding two of them. There are three separate costs in a screen project, they behave completely differently, and you can drop any of them independently. Here is the structure, so you can price anyone against it.
The three costs, and why they are different
The first is hardware and installation: a one-off capital cost covering displays, players, mounts, cabling and the labour to put it in. This is the number people fixate on and it is usually the least interesting of the three, because once it is paid it is paid.
The second is the platform licence, charged per screen per month. It is small per screen and it scales linearly, so it barely registers on four screens and becomes a real line on four hundred.
The third is content and management, and it is the one that decides whether the project works. It is also the one most commonly left out of a quote entirely, which is why so many networks are quietly abandoned: the screens were funded and the reason to look at them was not.
What moves the hardware number most
- Screen size, and it moves faster than you expect at the large end
- Brightness — a window-rated display costs substantially more than a standard indoor one
- LED pixel pitch, where a finer pitch can multiply the price of the same physical area
- Whether cabling and power already exist at the exact position, which in an older building is often the largest single surprise
- Structural work, engineer sign-off and out-of-hours installation
- Whether spares are held, which costs money up front and saves far more the first time something fails
The question worth asking every supplier
Ask for the three costs separately, in writing. A supplier who will not separate them is either bundling a margin you cannot see, or has not costed the content and intends to have that conversation after you have signed.
Then ask what happens in year two. The first-year number is easy to make attractive. The honest comparison is the five-year total including licensing, content, support and one hardware failure, because that is the period you are actually committing to.
Questions people actually ask
Is it cheaper to buy the screens ourselves?
Sometimes, on the hardware line. What it usually costs you is specification and warranty. We have been called to sites where a well-intentioned purchase of consumer televisions has to be replaced within eighteen months, and the second purchase costs more than doing it once properly. If you want to buy the hardware yourself, ask us for a specification and we will give you one.
Can we spread the cost?
Usually. Hardware can be leased or financed, and the platform and management are monthly by nature. Many customers phase a network by site or by zone, which spreads the capital cost and has the added advantage of letting you learn what works before committing everywhere.
What is the cheapest way to start?
One screen in the position that does the most work, with proper content and a real publishing rhythm. It will teach you more than four screens with a loop nobody maintains, and it costs a fraction as much to find out.
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Start a project
Tell us about the space. We will tell you what belongs in it.
A first conversation costs you nothing and usually takes twenty minutes. Bring a photo of the wall and a rough idea of what you want it to do.
- A written specification you can price against anyone
- The platform we would run, named before you sign
- Hardware and content costed separately, so you can see both
- No obligation, and no pressure to buy screens you do not need