Four cost lines, not one
The unit price is the smallest line in most outdoor advertising logo projector budgets and the only one anybody quotes. Hardware, custom artwork, installation and the replacement cycle are the other three, and on a five-year view they routinely exceed the cost of the fixture. Price all four or you will be surprised twice.
Hardware
Price follows the thermal and environmental specification more than the marketing category. an outdoor advertising logo projector built for a car park boundary will cost more than one for a roadside wall for reasons that are entirely justified — better seals, better heatsinking, better finish. The saving is real only if you never needed them.
- Output, which sets the LED, driver and heatsink size
- Ingress rating, which sets the sealing and housing design
- Lens quality, which sets how much output reaches the wall
- Finish and hardware, which set how it survives the site
| Specification | Lower cost | Higher cost |
|---|---|---|
| Output | 100 W class | 400 W and above |
| Ingress rating | Indoor rated | IP67 for exposed positions |
| Optics | Fixed lens | Zoom with lockable focus |
| Artwork | Metal gobo | glass gobo with fine detail |
The recurring line
The artwork cost hides in the reorders. Engraving a glass gobo is not expensive per unit, but minimum quantities, shipping and the time spent re-approving artwork add up. Keep the original vector file, record the gobo reference, and every future reorder is a formality rather than a redesign.
- Engraving per unit, and any minimum quantity
- Artwork preparation if the supplied file needs work
- Shipping, especially on small reorders
- Lead time, and the cost of waiting
The line that surprises people
Price the site, not the fixture. Two identical outdoor advertising logo projector installs can differ by a factor of three depending on access, power availability and whether work has to happen outside trading hours. Get that number before the order, not after.
- Access equipment — ladder, scaffold or powered platform
- Power run and any making good afterwards
- Out-of-hours or trading-hours working
- Fixings, bracket and cable management
Total cost of ownership
The three-year picture: hardware once, artwork a few times, cleaning twice a year, power continuously. Of these, the one buyers underestimate is cleaning — and the one that decides it is whether the unit can be reached with a ladder.
- Hardware, once
- Artwork reorders, every rebrand or new site
- Cleaning, twice a year
- Power, continuously
Where to save and where not to
The false economies are the rating, the bracket and the artwork. an outdoor advertising logo projector with an under-specified IP67 rating fails in the first winter; a lightweight bracket drifts and needs re-aiming; a low-resolution artwork file produces an image you will not accept. Save elsewhere.
- Reduce the image size before increasing the output
- Standardise the gobo size across every site
- Choose a surface with lower ambient light
- Keep the original vector artwork file
