Why the unit price misleads
There are four cost lines and only one of them is negotiable after delivery. Hardware is bought once, artwork is bought repeatedly, installation is bought on site, and running cost is bought every month. Understanding which is which is what makes a restaurant logo projector budget accurate.
- Hardware — the fixture, lens and bracket
- Custom artwork — the gobo, and every re-cut after it
- Installation — access, power and making good
- Running cost — cleaning, power and replacement cycles
What you pay for the fixture
Hardware scales with output and rating. A restaurant logo projector at the bottom of the 20–80 W range for a sheltered indoor position is a different product from one at the top of the range rated IP44 for an exposed facade — same category, very different bill. The jump is driven by the LED, the driver, the thermal design and the housing, in that order.
- 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
The recurring line
Custom artwork is the recurring line, and the one that gets forgotten. Every rebrand, every new branch, every seasonal change means another gobo; if you are running a restaurant logo projector across several sites, that is a standing cost, not an one-off. Standardise the gobo size across the estate and reorders become cheap and quick.
- 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
The surprise lines are access and power. A restaurant logo projector that needs a cherry picker, or a new switched spur run across a finished ceiling, can cost more to install than to buy. Both are visible in a ten-minute survey, which is why the survey is the cheapest part of the job.
- 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
Running cost over three years
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.
| Cost line | Frequency | What drives it |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware | Once | Output and ingress rating |
| Artwork | Every rebrand or new site | Number of sites and change frequency |
| Cleaning | Twice a year | Access method, mostly |
| Power | Continuously | Wattage and daily run hours |
Cuts that cost you later
Save on image size, not on output. Halving the projected area doubles the contrast at the wall for nothing, and it lets a smaller restaurant logo projector do the same job. Do not save on the ingress rating, the bracket, or the artwork file — those three cuts cost more than they save within two years.
