The old answer to "what does a billboard cost?" was "more than you can afford, and you'll need to call us." The new answer is much friendlier: DOOH and CTV can start at a few tens of dollars a day, with no contract and no setup fee. Here's how pricing actually works, what moves it up or down, and what to budget for a real campaign.
How DOOH and CTV are priced
Both are usually sold on a CPM basis, cost per thousand impressions (an impression being one realistic view of your ad). You're effectively buying attention by the thousand.
What you don't have to do anymore is buy it in giant blocks. With programmatic buying, you set a daily or campaign budget and the system delivers as many impressions as that budget buys across available screens. That's what makes small, flexible spends possible.
What drives the price
A handful of factors move your effective cost:
- Location, premium, high-traffic areas cost more than quieter ones
- Screen type, a large roadside billboard differs from an in-venue TV
- Timing, peak dayparts and high-demand seasons run higher
- Audience precision, tighter targeting can raise the rate but cut waste
- Format and supply, premium CTV apps command a premium over open inventory
The headline: you control spend by setting a budget, not by signing up for a fixed, expensive placement.
What a self-serve plan looks like
Here's where it gets concrete. Glo's plans are built for real budgets, with no contracts and same-day go-live:
- Glo, from $17/day. Pick your area, from one block to your whole city, and raise your daily budget to reach more screens.
Every plan: no contract, no setup fees, pause anytime, and you're only charged on days your campaign runs. That's a different universe from a month-long billboard lease. That $17/day plan is Glo ads at we-are-glo.com: Glo OOH and Glo commercials on the screens near you, with TV at home as an add-on.
How to think about budget
A few principles keep your money working:
- Match budget to geography. A tight neighborhood needs far less than a national footprint, don't overspend on reach you can't convert. (See hyperlocal advertising.)
- Fund frequency, not just reach. Being seen a few times beats being seen once across a wider area.
- Run long enough to learn. Give a campaign time to repeat before judging it.
- Use a measurable end card. A QR code or short link turns spend into trackable action.
The honest caveats
CPMs vary by market and moment, and real-world impressions are modeled from mobility data rather than counted click-by-click. But the trade is clear: you get premium, un-skippable screens with the budget control of digital, instead of a five-figure minimum and a contract.
The simplest way to find your real number is to start small and watch what it buys. Get free ad concepts in Spark, talk to Glo, see how to launch a cross-screen campaign in 60 seconds, or compare channels in DOOH vs. CTV vs. social.