About Billboard Guide
Billboard Guide is a research resource for advertisers, agencies, in-house marketing teams, media owners, and anyone trying to work out how billboard advertising actually works - and what it actually costs.
We research locations, formats, pricing, technology, measurement, buying platforms, and campaign planning, then write it up in plain English. No gated quote form standing between you and a straight answer.
What we cover
01
The districts, arterial roads, transit environments, and individual sites that carry outdoor advertising - from Times Square and the Sunset Strip to the commuter routes that quietly do the heavy lifting.
02
Realistic planning ranges, the variables that actually move a rate, production and installation costs, contract lengths, buying models, and where there is usually room to negotiate.
03
Static and digital out-of-home explained side by side: screen specs, programmatic DOOH, audience measurement and attribution, creative requirements, and the ad tech underneath it all.
Why Billboard Guide exists
Search for the price of a billboard and you will mostly find range-of-ranges estimates, lead-capture forms, pages that have not been touched in five years, or trade writing that assumes you already know what a TAB score is.
The underlying market is genuinely messy. Inventory is split across hundreds of operators. Two boards a mile apart can differ several times over in price. Digital screens are bought on completely different models than static faces. Audience measurement changes by country. Even basic vocabulary shifts depending on who is doing the selling.
Billboard Guide pulls that scattered information into one place and turns it into something you can plan against.
Our approach
Terminology is defined the first time it appears rather than assumed. A guide should make sense whether you plan media every day or are pricing your first board.
We separate editorial research from planning estimates, operator-supplied figures, and anything commercial. If a page carries a paid or affiliate relationship, that page says so.
A billboard cannot be judged by its dimensions. Audience, sightlines, dwell time, traffic composition, surrounding inventory, local demand, and permitting rules all change what a site is worth.
Guides are built from operator rate cards and spec sheets, permit and zoning records, measurement bodies, platform documentation, market data, and direct observation - not recycled summaries.
How a guide gets made
01
Operator materials, public records, measurement standards, platform documentation, and market reporting are collected for the specific city, format, or product in question.
02
Figures are checked against more than one independent source wherever they exist. Anything we cannot corroborate is labelled as an estimate or left out entirely.
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Numbers are published with the context that makes them meaningful: which market, which format, which period, and what the figure does and does not include.
04
Pricing pages, directories, and market guides are reviewed on a schedule. Material changes refresh the page's update date so you can see how current it is.
Editorial accountability
Billboard Guide Editorial researches, writes, reviews and updates guides, explainers and news analysis using the source standards described below.
Pages are reviewed for source attribution, market context, pricing caveats, commercial independence and correction handling before material updates are published.
Explore Billboard Guide
Locations
Site-level guides to the landmarks and advertising districts brands ask for by name.
Markets
Inventory, pricing factors, key districts, transit options, and local buying considerations, market by market.
Education
Courses, tutorials, terminology, and planning walkthroughs for people getting up to speed.
Directory
Free calculators alongside a directory of marketplaces, planning platforms, measurement products, and DOOH tech.
Industry
Conferences, awards, summits, webinars, and submission deadlines across the OOH calendar.
Editorial
What is changing across operators, technology, measurement, regulation, and notable campaigns.
Standards
These rules apply to every guide, directory listing, and news piece on the site.
Billboard Guide is not a media owner, a broker, or a reseller. We do not take a commission on media you buy, and no operator can pay for a better write-up. Where a page carries advertising, an affiliate link, a sponsorship, or any other commercial relationship, that relationship is disclosed on the page itself.
Billboard rates move with market conditions, availability, flight length, seasonality, audience delivery, format, operator, and negotiation. Unless a figure is explicitly identified as a quoted rate, treat pricing on Billboard Guide as a planning estimate for budgeting - not a guaranteed media quote.
Articles draw on media owners, government and permitting records, industry bodies, technology vendors, press releases, public filings, databases, and original reporting. Substantive sources are linked inline or listed on the page so you can check the underlying material yourself.
We do not sell billboard space, rank operators in exchange for payment, or publish vendor claims as verified fact. When a company's own numbers are the only ones available, we attribute them rather than presenting them as independent findings.
Correction requests are reviewed against the available source material and the page's revision history. Material corrections and significant updates change the article's stated update date, and consequential fixes are noted on the page.
Get in touch
We want corrections, market data, pricing you have actually been quoted, new tools, event submissions, noteworthy campaigns, and location tips from people working across the outdoor advertising industry. Operators and platforms are welcome to send updated specs and rate information for the pages that cover them.
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