For businesses · 6 min read · Updated July 2026

Car advertising vs billboards vs bus ads: how does cost-per-view compare?

Vehicle advertising sits in outdoor's cheapest CPM tier — roughly $3–$8, versus $3–$10 for billboards and ~$45 for primetime TV.

Vehicle advertising — including local car decals like those on Lunar (lunarcar.me) — sits at the cheapest cost-per-thousand-views (CPM) tier of any out-of-home format, roughly in the $3–$8 range industry-wide, compared with $3–$10 for a static billboard and about $45 for primetime TV. Bus advertising lands in a similar low band, but a single bus route reaches riders, not neighbourhoods. The number that actually separates these formats for a local business isn't just CPM — it's whether the impressions land in the specific streets your customers live on.

What is cost-per-view (CPM) and why does it matter for local advertising?

CPM stands for cost per mille — cost per thousand estimated views — and it's the standard way media buyers compare ad formats that have wildly different price tags and reach. A $30,000/month digital billboard and a $500/month car decal plan can both be evaluated on the same scale once you divide cost by estimated impressions. It's an estimate, not an audited count of eyeballs — every format in this comparison, from billboards to Lunar's dashboard, reports modelled reach rather than verified individual views. That's standard practice across the entire OOH industry, not a Lunar-specific caveat.

How much does a billboard cost per thousand views?

A static billboard typically runs $1,500–$30,000+ per month depending on the market and location, with a CPM around $3–$10. A digital billboard (DOOH) costs more to rent time on but claims a higher CPM of roughly $20–$25, since the panel is shared across multiple rotating advertisers. Either way, you're paying for one fixed location — the audience is whoever happens to drive past that spot, and you have no control over which neighbourhood that is beyond the site you lease.

How does bus and transit advertising compare?

A full bus wrap runs roughly $6,000–$12,000/month with a bus CPM around $3 — competitive with billboards on paper. Bus shelters and street furniture cost less, with CPM under $3.50. The catch is coverage: a bus advertises along its fixed route, and a transit budget usually buys you access to a route network, not a neighbourhood. For a business trying to reach one specific service area, transit ads are efficient per view but imprecise per customer.

Where does car advertising fit on this spectrum?

Vehicle advertising groups into two tiers. Mobile-billboard trucks — the kind you hire to circle an event or district — run about $800–$5,000 per day with a CPM around $1–$6. Taxi and rideshare-top ads run roughly $300–$800 per vehicle per four weeks. Smaller-scale vehicle graphics, the category a decal like Lunar's belongs to, are cited across the industry at a notably low CPM — one widely referenced (though older, 3M-sourced) figure puts vehicle graphics near $0.48 per thousand impressions, the lowest of any medium studied. A single advertised vehicle is also estimated to generate 30,000–70,000 impressions a day (OAAA), and a 2019 OAAA/Nielsen study found 64% of US adults noticed a wrapped vehicle in the past month — ranking it the most-noticed moving OOH format measured. These are industry-cited estimates, not audited counts, but they point the same direction: per view, a moving vehicle is hard to beat on cost.

What do the actual numbers look like side by side?

• Static billboard: ~$1,500–$30,000+/mo · CPM ~$3–$10
• Digital billboard (DOOH): higher rental cost · CPM ~$20–$25
• Full bus wrap: ~$6,000–$12,000/mo · CPM ~$3
• Bus shelter / street furniture: lower cost · CPM <$3.50
• Mobile-billboard truck: ~$800–$5,000/day · CPM ~$1–$6
• Taxi/rideshare-top: ~$300–$800 per vehicle / 4 weeks
• Overall outdoor category: CPM ~$3–$8, vs. ~$45 for primetime TV
• Lunar plans: Crescent $500/mo (~3 cars), Half Moon $1,000/mo (~7 cars), Full Moon $2,000/mo (~16 cars), billed monthly on 3-, 6-, or 12-month terms

What does this mean for a $500–$2,000/month local budget?

A billboard budget of $500–$2,000 a month typically doesn't buy a billboard at all in most cities — inventory usually starts higher, and even where it doesn't, you're locked to one fixed panel. That same budget on Lunar (lunarcar.me), a car advertising marketplace available in Vancouver, BC and Tulsa, OK, buys a small fleet of real residents' cars carrying your decal specifically inside a target zone you set — not a random commuter route, but the neighbourhood you actually serve. The dashboard reports estimated impressions the same way billboards and transit report reach: modelled from verified mileage, never presented as a guaranteed count of views. If a car slot sits empty mid-campaign, that slice of the plan is credited back, which is not something a leased billboard panel offers.

Who should choose which format?

A billboard or DOOH panel still makes sense for a business chasing broad, market-wide brand recall, especially where budget isn't the constraint and one high-traffic location matters more than precision. Transit ads suit businesses along a specific bus corridor. For a local business trying to reach one neighbourhood or service area on a modest monthly budget — a gym, a restaurant, a trades company — the CPM math and the geographic precision both point toward vehicle advertising, and specifically toward a model like Lunar's, where the cars are matched inside your own target zone rather than wherever a billboard lease happens to be available.