Cost per screen: the calculation starts after the purchase

A digital signage quote usually names display, media player and licence. Those are the items that stand out at purchase. Over the years the costs arise that the quote leaves out: content, upkeep, electricity, support and the day a device has to be replaced. Anyone who wants to calculate per screen therefore needs a structure, not a single figure.

Nine kinds of cost

Display. The purchase depends on size, brightness, operating hours and build. A device for continuous operation is a different product from a living-room television.

Media player. Built in, as a stick, a mini PC or a box. It costs once at purchase and then over the lifetime of the device.

Mounting and installation. Wall bracket, stand, cable runs, electrician and, for shop windows, often scaffolding or a lift. This item is easily forgotten and differs for every site.

Software and licence. One-off, as a subscription per screen or as a package per site. It has to be clarified what the licence includes: updates, zones, number of users, interfaces.

Content. Creation, photos, videos, translations, updates. In many projects this is the largest running effort, even though it never arrives as an invoice but as working time.

Operation and upkeep. Who looks after the screens, installs updates, replaces expired content and reacts to failure alerts?

Electricity. Consumption of display and player over the daily operating time. Switch-off times reduce this item noticeably.

Support. Contractual response time, on-site service, hotline. With support the price changes; without it the effort inside the company changes.

Replacement. Displays and players do not last equally long. Anyone calculating over the service life plans for replacing the shorter-lived part.

Separating one-off from running costs

The costs can be sorted into two columns. One-off are display, player, mounting, installation and setup. Running are licence, content, upkeep, electricity and support. A quote with a low one-off price and a high licence can be more expensive over five years than the reverse. Only the total calculation shows it.

A calculation structure with placeholders

The total cost of a screen over its service life can be written like this:

• One-off: A (device and player) plus B (mounting and setup)
• Running per year: C (licence) plus D (content and upkeep) plus E (electricity) plus F (support)
• Total over n years: A + B + n × (C + D + E + F) + G (replacement of a part, if needed before the end)

Everyone fills in A to G from their own quotes and their own experience. The comparison of two solutions becomes interesting when n is varied: for short use the one-off price counts, for long use the running column.

Questions for vendors

• What is included in the licence price, and what costs extra (updates, zones, users, interfaces)?
• How long are updates provided, and how long does the commitment run?
• What happens to content and settings when the licence ends or is cancelled?
• Who fixes faults, with what response time, and what does that cost?
• What minimum term applies, and how is billing handled with more or fewer screens?
• Which hardware is approved, and what has to be bought again on replacement?
• Who creates the first content, and who maintains it afterwards?

Anyone who collects the answers in writing can compare quotes that seem to have nothing in common at first glance.

The invisible item

The hardest item to quantify is working time inside the company. It appears in no quote. Two questions make it visible: who looks after the screen, and how many minutes per week does that take? With an honest answer the item content and upkeep enters the calculation, and the result often differs from what the quote suggests.

This magazine is published by Kapaso GmbH, which develops software for such screens. The article describes general practice and refers to no product.