Digital Signage ROI Calculator

This calculator compares the revenue a digital sign can generate against what a single static sign currently earns, then estimates how long the digital hardware takes to pay for itself. Digital revenue is simply the number of ad spots in one rotation loop multiplied by the monthly rate charged per spot — the core economic advantage of digital signage is fitting multiple paying advertisers into the same physical sign face instead of just one. Monthly lift is the digital revenue minus what the static sign currently earns, treating the static revenue as an opportunity cost rather than a cash outlay. A flat $130/month operating cost (roughly split across electricity, maintenance, and content-management software) is subtracted to get net monthly gain, and the payback period is a simple-payback calculation — hardware cost divided by net monthly gain — not a discounted cash flow analysis, so it ignores financing costs and the time value of money.

If net monthly gain isn't positive, payback is reported as an arbitrarily large placeholder (essentially "never") rather than a negative or infinite number. One quirk to watch: annual profit is calculated from digital revenue and operating costs alone — it does not subtract the static-sign revenue you gave up, so it represents absolute yearly profit from the digital sign, not incremental profit over the static baseline reported elsewhere. Real-world payback also depends heavily on ad sales execution, which this tool assumes is filled at the rate you enter.