For businesses · 5 min read · Updated August 2026

What does $500 a month buy in local advertising?

$500/month barely covers a fraction of a billboard or truck ad, but it's a full local car-advertising plan — roughly 3 cars on Lunar's Crescent plan.

Five hundred dollars a month sits below the entry price of nearly every traditional out-of-home (OOH) format — a small static billboard alone often starts around $1,500/month — but it's the exact entry point for a full local car-advertising plan. On Lunar (lunarcar.me), $500/month is the Crescent plan: roughly 3 local drivers' cars carrying a business's decal through the neighbourhoods it serves, billed monthly over a 3-, 6-, or 12-month term. In most other local advertising formats, $500 buys a partial placement or a fraction of a month — car advertising is one of the few categories where that budget puts a real, running campaign on the street.

What does $500 buy in traditional out-of-home advertising?

OOH pricing runs on location and format, and $500 rarely covers a full month of any fixed placement. A static billboard typically runs $1,500–$30,000+/month depending on the market and location, with a cost-per-thousand (CPM) around $3–$10. Digital billboards cost more, with CPM closer to $20–$25. A full bus wrap runs $6,000–$12,000/month. Bus shelters and street furniture sit below billboards but still exceed $500 on their own. A mobile-billboard truck costs $800–$5,000 per single day — meaning a $500 monthly budget wouldn't even cover one day on the road. Taxi or rideshare-top ads are the closest comparison, at roughly $300–$800 per vehicle for a four-week run — but that's one vehicle, not a small fleet moving through a defined zone.

What does $500 buy specifically on Lunar?

On Lunar, $500/month is the Crescent plan: about 3 cars in a business's chosen target zone, each carrying a removable vinyl decal on the door. A one-time sticker fee applies at this tier (waived on the higher plans). The campaign runs in a committed 3-, 6-, or 12-month phase, billed monthly rather than charged upfront for the full term, with a roughly four-week grace period to match drivers, print and ship decals, and verify the cars are actually driving. The dashboard then reports active cars, verified mileage, and estimated impressions for the zone — the same estimate-based reporting the rest of the OOH industry uses, presented as a modelled range rather than a fixed count.

How does that reach compare to a fixed sign?

A single advertised vehicle is estimated to generate roughly 30,000–70,000 impressions a day, according to industry figures cited by the OAAA — well above the reach of a stationary ad in the same spot. Outdoor advertising overall carries a CPM around $3–$8, and vehicle-based formats sit at the cheaper end of that range, well below primetime TV's roughly $45 CPM. The difference with a car fleet, compared to a single billboard or truck, is that the ad moves through the streets a business actually serves, day after day, instead of sitting fixed in one location a driver has to pass to see it.

Is $500 a month enough for a real local campaign?

For a business with a defined service area — a few neighbourhoods, not an entire metro — $500/month is enough to put a small, consistent presence on the street rather than a one-off ad buy. It won't out-scale a citywide billboard campaign or a major transit buy, but it's built for hyper-local reach: a handful of real residents' cars, matched inside the zone a business actually draws customers from, running continuously rather than for a few weeks.

Who should consider a bigger plan instead?

Businesses that want reach across more of a city, or that want access to premium zones and higher-mileage drivers, typically move up to Half Moon ($1,000/month, about 7 cars, sticker fee waived) or Full Moon ($2,000/month, about 16 cars, sticker fee waived, premium zones and higher-mileage drivers). Both plans run on the same 3-, 6-, or 12-month structure. Starting at Crescent and scaling up as a campaign proves out is a common path — the target zone, sticker design, and estimated-impression reporting work the same way at every tier.

• Static billboard: ~$1,500–$30,000+/month, CPM ~$3–$10
• Digital billboard/DOOH: higher cost, CPM ~$20–$25
• Full bus wrap: ~$6,000–$12,000/month
• Mobile-billboard truck: ~$800–$5,000/day
• Taxi/rideshare-top ad: ~$300–$800/vehicle for 4 weeks
• Lunar Crescent plan: $500/month, ~3 cars, one-time sticker fee, 3/6/12-month term
• Lunar Half Moon plan: $1,000/month, ~7 cars, sticker fee waived
• Lunar Full Moon plan: $2,000/month, ~16 cars, sticker fee waived, premium zones