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How Much Does Digital Signage Cost

Digital signage has become an efficient tool for advertising and campaigns among marketers. With dynamic messaging being more versatile and efficient than its static counterpart, it is no surprise to see digital signage is taking the business world by storm. However, like many other marketing tools, digital signage is an investment that requires money.

Figuring out how much digital signage will cost you is one of the factors that determine if digital signs belong in your marketing strategy or not. Below, we have provided all you need to know about starting your business up with digital signage- and the best option for your business.

What To Look For In Digital Signage

A digital sign is more than a large TV screen displaying colorful, interactive content. Digital signage is made possible using various elements that include hardware or media player, installation, digital signage software, tech support, and maintenance. In addition to knowing what elements you need to create digital signs, knowing what you want out of your characters is one of the factors that determines the price of the digital signage you wish to integrate into your business.

When looking to shop for digital signage, you need to consider the multiple facets that come into play. Some of these facets include reliability, scalability, and capability.

  • Reliability: The quality of your digital signage components is synonymous with how well your digital signs work. The quality of your digital signage determines its durability. It is essential to go for components that will last their time instead of those that can pack up anytime and require a high degree of maintenance.
  • Scalability: Will your digital signage be able to upscale when necessary? The scalability of a digital sign is vital to prevent subsequent repurchases in the nearest future. Going for scalable digital signage will help you save money in the future.
  • Capability: There is no point in adopting a digital signage service if it isn't going to stimulate the growth of your business. You need to ask yourself if the digital signage option you pick will get the job done every time

Together, these facets of your digital signage needs determine the cost of your digital signage.

How Much Does Digital Signage Cost?

The cost of digital signage depends on a range of factors that vary from brand type to screen resolution and the purpose of the digital sign. If you are looking for a simple layout displayed on a smaller screen, it is safe to say that you will spend less money than you will on a more sophisticated digital sign.

There are different digital signage services, and the products they offer vary wildly. A few of these services provide free digital signage services, but these are often for digital signage with limited features and simple purposes. While these are often cost-effective if you are unwilling to spare some change towards digital signs, they are often basic and limit the flexibility of your digital signs.

Free digital signage software services often do not provide the whole package. There is usually no offline support or maintenance features necessary for the success of your digital.

As tempting as digital signage sounds, it requires purchases that many businesses cannot spare. Thankfully, we at Loop TV recognize the need for quality digital signage and the financial freedom that accompanies it.

Loop TV is a service that offers business TV and signage for unlimited entertainment. Loop TV brings the world of entertainment to businesses, providing over hundred channels for entertainment using the Loop TV player hardware.

This service TV provides advanced digital signage solutions for various businesses to communicate events, promotions, menus, and anything they deem fit. Loop TV delivers a host of digital characters and features that helps enterprises to curate effective and efficient signs.

With many brands, the average cost of digital signage varies by a wide margin. This depends on some components and how they fall into the category of performance and reliability. These components include:

1. Digital Signage Display Screen

Choosing the perfect display screen for your digital signs can be a daunting process. Many thoughts go into this as your choice of digital screens can make or break your digital signs. Your ideal digital signage display often depends on your target audience and the location of the communication.

The digital screen is the first thing that catches an individual’s eyes before the message being communicated registers and digests. When choosing digital screens, you not only need to keep the price of the screen in mind but also note the size, resolution, and other vital features.

Your ideal digital screen depends on your needs. If you plan to display the screen at a location like a lobby, kiosk, or any other place you wish, you need to choose a screen that works well for the task. Essentially, you need to consider:

Screen Size

Let your location determine the size of the screen you need. As a rule, smaller locations thrive with the more economical small screens, while larger areas with significant traffic require large, eye-catching screens. Room size, wall space, and viewing angles are all important factors that come to play when choosing the perfect screen size to communicate with your audience.

Locations like kiosks and outdoor areas with high footfall require suitable screen sizes to make it easier for the audience to decipher the messages when interacting with the screens. It doesn't matter if it is a regular TV screen on wall mounts or video walls, your digital screen should blend in well enough with the surroundings while also remaining visible to create communication and engagement.

Choosing Consumer Or Commercial Displays

The smaller, smart TV or monitor might be a more affordable option, but it is not suitable for every job. Many businesses require the installation of commercial-grade monitors or displays as they are designed to target a large audience at once. Needless to say, commercial displays often require a lot of money when compared to smaller designs.

Despite this financial requirement, commercial displays are often a better choice. These forms of displays are often great for scaling up a business. Consider them a form of investment that will pay off in the long run.

Consumer TVs and monitors are perfect for smaller spaces like stores, while commercial displays are great in instances that require heavy use. Commercial displays are great for imagery and often feature longer warranties, longer lifespans, and better processing power for longer screen time. This enables you to pass your information across with quality videos and pictures, and also makes maintenance easier.

The average cost of a display depends on the type (consumer or commercial), brand, size, resolution, and features and ranges anywhere from a few hundred dollars to thousands.

2. Software

Digital signage software is an integral part of creating digital signs. The software makes it possible to integrate data content from various sources, share the content, manage it, and automate or schedule the content you display. Essentially, digital signage is not feasible without the appropriate software.

Using digital signage software often requires licensing. This gives you full access to features from apps, templates, and tutorial videos to playlist managers, and, sometimes, support. The licensing comes in two options:

  • Cloud-based software license fee, which is often in the form of a monthly payment.
  • Non-cloud installable software, which is a one-time payment.

While the non-cloud option might seem more cost-effective, it requires its users to know the technical aspects of installed software. This would most likely require an IT team for the management and troubleshooting aspects of the software.

Although the cloud-based software option still requires a team of IT specialists on seat, it is often minimal as the monthly subscription includes payment for maintenance and updates.

The amount needed for your software depends on your choice of software and the service you choose to patronize. This can cost anything from $10 (or even cheaper) above. While this is true for many brands, Loop TV makes an exception for its users.

Loop TV provides fully licensed digital signage solutions to its users, regardless of their business.

3. Media Player

The media player is the bridge between your software and screen that helps to upload the content from the software and display it to the audience. The digital signage player hardware or media player is an integral part of your digital signage.

The brand, quality performance, reliability or security of your hardware determines how much you'll pay for it. There are various prices of digital signage hardware in the market, but it is important to note that the success of your digital signs hinges on the type of hardware and, of course, your budget

When choosing your hardware, you should consider your operating system, processing power, storage, and other requirements. Digital signage media players often come as media boxes, plug-and-play sticks, or all-in-one solutions. Media boxes are great options because of their processing power and storage, plug-and-play sticks are cheaper, and all-in-one solutions are more affordable but perform lower than their counterparts.

The prices of digital signage media players vary significantly. Depending on its qualities, a media player can cost anywhere from $150 to a few thousand.

Loop TV eliminates the need to worry about purchasing a media player separately by sending you free hardware. This hardware, known as the Loop TV player, works with the Loop TV digital signage service and can be used to create customizable content.

The Loop TV player helps to upload images, videos, and customizable texts to be displayed on the screen.

4. Mounting Hardware

Mounting hardware comes in consumer and commercial types. Like digital screens, it is advisable to go with commercial-grade options as they are more durable, flexible, and cost-effective to maintain.

The mounting hardware comes in various forms like flat wall mounts, tilted wall mounts, ceiling mounts, and video wall mount. The type of mounting hardware you need depends on your screen type, digital signage location, and viewing angles.

The price of mounting hardware varies with its brand and type. This usually runs from $50 to $400, or even more.

5. Installation

The cost of installation labor varies widely. The amount you spend while installing your components depends on your location, the professionals, and the scale of your business.

It is a no-brainer that the bigger the scope of your business is, the more you spend installing your digital signage. Installing a small, consumer-grade screen is cheaper than mounting a large wall screen.

Regardless of what size of screens and components you might be installing, it is always essential to go for quality service. Only choose to work with experienced professionals. Simple installs might cost you $150 or more, while more complex installs might cost you thousands of dollars.

6. Provisioning

Provisioning is signage-specific work, and so it requires the attention of experts. Digital signage provisional involves configuring the digital signage components to be utilized for proper digital signage jobs.

Provisioning involves networking and enabling internet access for seamless digital signage processes and easy access to the digital dashboard. The price required for provisioning varies with the scale of your business and the type of component. This can cost anything from as low as $300 to figures in thousands of dollars.

7. Personal Costs

Personal costs in digital signage include the processes of creating content, maintenance, and other vital expenses. This determines the smooth-running and impact of your digital signs. Some of the crucial personal costs are:

IT Team:

An IT team should be put in place to oversee all the technical aspects of using digital signage. They will be in charge of actions like software creation and integration, maintenance, and troubleshooting processes.

The type and complexity of digital components put in place will determine the expertise of the IT team needed in your establishment. While many digital signage services are intuitive and require minimal attention from professionals, some need to be handled with a level of expertise.

Regardless, it is essential to set aside money for regular use in the IT department. This will include training and any necessary purchase.

With Loop TV, the need for an IT team is almost nonexistent. The Loop TV player is easy-to-use hardware that features intuitive components and characters to create digital signage. This, when compared to other brands, severely reduces the need for extra budget.

Content Creation:

The amount spent on content creation depends on your strategy. It is cheaper to create content uniquely through a marketing and communications team than outsourcing to digital signage experts.

With some brands, it is also cheaper to transmit static digital signs than dynamic and interactive signs. While this might be severely limiting, it provides a medium to limit the costs of using digital signage.

It is almost impossible to put a pin on the cost of content creation using digital signage. It is a variable that is determined by your choice of content and how you prefer to go about content creation.

Loop TV makes creating content using digital signage more accessible than ever. The Loop TV digital signage provides an interactive dashboard accessible on your computer where you can customize signs using pictures and videos with different templates.

Creating content with the assistance of a small marketing team takes away the need for an extra addition to your budget.

Maintenance:

Like every other digital system, digital signage requires regular maintenance to ensure durability. An IT team usually does this by troubleshooting problems, regular updates, and keeping an eye out for nuances in the system that can lead to loss of data or other complications.

Maintenance of your digital signage components will reduce downtime and help your digital signs reach their full potential. Maintenance will also reduce wear and tear or depreciation, helping your components last longer.

Some digital signage solutions offer a 24/7 support team at an added cost, while some do not. This causes the maintenance fee in digital signage to vary widely.

Loop TV recognizes the need for on-seat technical support and provides its users with a support team accessible 24/7. This makes it easier for Loop TV users to solve technical problems faster and carry on business without delay- at no added cost, too!

Price of Digital Signage

Before deciding on your digital signage options, it is essential to note that prices vary by a wide margin. Apart from the costs, you might encounter with digital signage components, unforeseen costs might creep up in the future. Ultimately, it is essential to find quality working software, hardware, and other components that will yield the best interest of your business.

How Loop TV Helps

Digital signage might seem expensive, but it doesn't have to be. Loop TV offers a world of unlimited digital signage abilities to its users without the need for royalty payments, services charges, or license fees.

Loop TV digital signage is a premium service placed at its users' fingertips. It is the perfect option to save money that would otherwise be spent on expensive digital components while also getting paid for doing nothing. Digital signage has never been this easy until now.