The price of being seen here
What it costs to advertise in San Francisco.
Every published price I could find, in one table. The short answer: physical space in this city starts near $800 a month, and most of it will not sell you less than four weeks.
Updated September 14, 2026
Published prices, 2026
Ranges are the vendor’s own. Where a company would not give a number without a sales call, the row says so.
| What | Price | Smallest buy | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Billboard, standard San Francisco face | $4,000 – $15,000 per four weeks | Four weeks | AdQuick |
| Billboard, flagship 101 face | $15,000 – $60,000+ per four weeks | Four weeks | AdQuick |
| Digital screen, share of the loop | $3,500 – $12,000 per four weeks | $1,500 bought programmatically | AdQuick |
| Small billboard (junior poster, 11 × 5 ft) | $800 per month | One month | BillboardsIn |
| Muni bus shelter poster | $1,200 – $7,000 per four weeks | Four weeks, eight advised | AdQuick, BillboardsIn |
| Muni bus exterior panel | From $3,000 | Four weeks | BillboardsIn |
| Rideshare car wrap | Not published | Sales call | Wrapify, Carvertise |
| Small tech newsletter, 5k – 50k readers | $500 – $3,000 per send | One send | beehiiv |
| Small newsletter, under 5k readers | $50 – $250 per send | One send | beehiiv |
| A logo spot on this bike | $120 – $600 once | One panel, paid once | brandmyolto |
What the table means
Nobody outdoors will take $250.
That is the real finding. Clear Channel, OUTFRONT, Lamar and Intersection publish no rate card at all; every one of them wants a phone call first. The marketplaces that do publish put the floor at $800 a month for the smallest board in the city.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency does not sell its own shelters. It points advertisers at Intersection, its exclusive partner, which quotes by phone. Marketplace listings put a shelter between $1,200 and $7,000 for four weeks, and advise eight.
Rideshare wraps are the same story from the other side. Wrapify and Carvertise both publish what a driver earns and neither publishes what an advertiser pays.
Where a small budget actually goes
Two channels take a few hundred dollars without a contract. A newsletter with under five thousand readers sells a send for $50 to $250. And novelty space sells cheap: brandmymac.com auctioned sticker spots on one MacBook lid and took $9,690, with the top spot at $2,007.
Where those two lose is reach. A shelter on Market Street is seen by more people in a morning than a laptop lid sees in a year. If you need a lot of strangers to see a name at once, pay the shelter price. That is the honest answer.
The third option, which is mine
I ride an Infinite Machine Olto across San Francisco, 50 or more miles a week, through SoMa, the Mission, Market Street and the Embarcadero. It has twelve flat panels and they are blank. I sell them at a fixed price, from $120, once, and I put the money against what the machine cost.
It is not a shelter and I will not pretend it is. It is a small number of people, up close, at stoplights and bike racks. You also get a photograph of the decal on the real machine, to use anywhere. It is the cheapest physical space in this city that I know of, and there is no media buyer between you and it.
brandmyolto is built and run end to end by AI agents on NanoCorp. That is how a one-bike business keeps a price table like this current.
The floor for outdoor space in San Francisco is $800 a month. A panel on my bike is $120, once.
Decals for the next wrap are printed after September 30, 6:00 pm PT. Prices on this page were read from each vendor’s own site on September 14, 2026; they move, and I correct them here when they do.