Let us deal with the obvious thing first: this page does not have a price list on it, and we are going to explain why rather than pretend the question is complicated. Velo4U quotes every campaign individually because a fleet of three cars in Werribee for one month and a fleet of twenty across four regions for a year are not the same product with a different multiplier, and a published rate card for one of them would be a wrong answer for the other.
What this page does have is everything you need to judge the quote when it arrives, from us or from anyone else. The pricing model, every lever that moves the number, the arithmetic for comparing it against the rest of your media list, and the specific things that should make you suspicious.
How vehicle advertising is priced
Almost all vehicle advertising in Australia is sold as a flat weekly rate per car. You are buying a vehicle-week: one car, carrying your brand, for seven days. That is the unit, and it is a good one, because it is the only outdoor format where the thing you buy and the thing you get are the same shape.
A vehicle-week normally bundles:
- Design and print of the panels
- Fitting them to the car
- The driver’s pay for that week
- Tracking, verification and reporting
- Removal at the end of the campaign
What it does not include, and what you should always ask about, is artwork. If you do not have a logo in a usable format and a clear idea of what the panel should say, someone has to design it, and that is either a line on the quote or a job for your own designer.
The five things that move the number
1. Fleet size
The single biggest lever, and it moves in your favour. Per-car rates drop as the fleet grows, because the fixed costs, account handling, artwork setup, reporting infrastructure, spread across more vehicles. The difference between three cars and fifteen is not five times the price.
2. Campaign length
The second biggest. Print, fitting and removal are one-off costs paid whether the campaign runs four weeks or fifty-two, so a longer booking amortises them across more vehicle-weeks. This is why a one-month campaign has the highest weekly rate you will ever be quoted, and why it is still usually the right way to start.
3. Vehicle type
A van carries several times the printable area of a sedan and is read from further away, so it prices above a car. Van advertising is the right call when your message needs more than a name and a phone number, or when you want the vehicle itself to read as commercial.
4. How specific your suburbs are
“Anywhere in Melbourne’s west” is easy to staff. “Only Brighton and Hampton, and only cars newer than 2020” is a recruitment problem, and recruitment problems cost money or time. If your targeting is tight, expect either a higher rate or a longer lead time while the right drivers are found.
5. Season
Smaller effect than the others, but real. Retail-heavy periods compress driver availability at the same time as advertiser demand peaks. Booking a Christmas campaign in September is cheaper than booking it in November, for the same reason it is with every other medium.
Comparing it to everything else on your list
The only comparison that survives contact with a spreadsheet is cost per thousand impressions, or CPM. It is one division and you can run it on any quote you are holding:
CPM = (total campaign cost ÷ total impressions) × 1,000
The trap is that the denominator is not audited. Every medium reports its own impressions, and outdoor advertising in particular has a long history of counting generously. Before you compare two CPMs, make sure both numerators are measuring the same thing.
| What to check | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Is it circulation or OTS? | Circulation counts everyone who passed. OTS counts those actually positioned to see the ad. The gap between them is large, and quoting the first while calling it the second inflates a number by two or three times. |
| Is it measured or modelled? | A GPS log is measured. “Up to 70,000 views a day” is modelled, usually from a best case. Ask which one you are being shown. |
| Per car or per fleet? | Some vendors quote the fleet total in the headline and the per-car rate in the fine print. Read both. |
| Does it survive a bad week? | A driver on holiday should not silently cost you a week of coverage. Ask what the minimum weekly activity floor is and what happens when a car misses it. |
We take this seriously enough that we rebuilt our own estimator against the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning’s traffic data and published what it did to our numbers. They came down by roughly a factor of ten. That rebuild is written up here, including the parts that were unflattering.
Where vehicle advertising sits against the alternatives
| Medium | What you are actually buying | Where it beats vehicles |
|---|---|---|
| Static billboard | One fixed point, high volume past it, no targeting | Sheer scale on a single corridor, and prestige on a landmark site |
| Radio | A metro-wide audience in defined time slots | Fast to launch, and it can carry a complex message |
| Paid social | Precise targeting, instant measurement, instant off-switch | Testing, retargeting, and anything needing a click |
| Letterbox drop | Guaranteed household delivery in chosen postcodes | Coupons and offers that need to be physically held |
| Vehicle advertising | Repeated local exposure across suburbs you choose | Frequency in a defined catchment, ad-blocker-proof, and the only one of these that lets you prove where it went |
The honest read: vehicle advertising is not the cheapest impression you can buy and we would not claim it is. It is a frequency medium in a defined catchment. If your customers live within fifteen minutes of your door and you need them to see your name repeatedly rather than once, it does something a billboard on the freeway and a Facebook ad both do badly.
What we do instead of a rate card
You fill in the quote form, suburbs, rough fleet size, how long, and within 24 hours you get a real number for that campaign, with the coverage it would produce. No obligation attached, and no call required to unlock it.
Campaigns run month to month. Cancel at the end of any billing month with seven days notice, and if you prepaid further out than that we refund the balance. That is the whole commercial arrangement.
Common questions
How much does car advertising cost in Melbourne?
Vehicle advertising is normally sold as a flat weekly rate per car, covering the printed panels, the driver, the tracking and the reporting. What moves the number is fleet size, campaign length, vehicle type and how specific your suburb requirements are. Velo4U quotes per campaign rather than publishing a rate card, and comes back within 24 hours.
Is car advertising cheaper than a billboard?
Per week, a small fleet usually costs less than a comparable static billboard site in Melbourne, and it reaches a spread of suburbs instead of one fixed point. Per thousand impressions the two can land closer together than people expect, because honest vehicle advertising numbers are smaller than the inflated ones the industry often quotes.
What is included in a car advertising campaign?
With Velo4U: design and print of the panels, fitting, the driver's weekly pay, GPS tracking of every kilometre, weekly photo verification of the sticker, and a coverage report every seven days with a heatmap, distance, estimated views and suburbs reached.
Do I have to sign a long contract for vehicle advertising?
Not with Velo4U. Campaigns run month to month and you can cancel at the end of any billing month with seven days notice. Longer bookings get better rates, and any prepaid balance is refunded if you stop early.
Next: car advertising against billboards, in detail , or see which parts of Melbourne we cover.