What does pedicab advertising cost?
Across the market, pedicab advertising works out to roughly a $3 to $12 CPM — three to twelve dollars per thousand impressions. That puts it at or below what a mobile billboard truck costs to run in the same city on the same night. What you actually pay depends on how many cabs, how many days, and which week of the Austin calendar you're buying.
The numbers a media buyer wants first
- Pedicab CPM: roughly $3–$12 across the format.
- Static vinyl billboard truck: $800–$2,400 per day.
- Digital LED billboard truck: $1,200–$3,600 per day.
- We quote campaigns individually. No published rate card, and the reason is below.
How do the formats compare on price?
Set them side by side before you argue about creative. The daily rates below are market ranges for mobile out-of-home; the CPM column is what those rates translate to once you divide by reach.
Market ranges, not a quote. Every CPM in out-of-home rests on an impressions estimate — ours included. Here's how those estimates are actually built, and how much weight to put on them.
Why don't we publish a rate card?
Because a rate card for this format would be fiction. The same twelve cabs cost wildly different amounts depending on whether you want them on a random Thursday or across the full run of SXSW, and pretending otherwise just wastes a call.
Six things set your number, roughly in order of impact.
The week. SXSW and ACL are the two most expensive stretches on the calendar for a reason — SXSW brought $377 million into Austin in 2024, and ACL just under $500 million in 2023. That demand shows up in every line item, ours included.
Fleet size. Two cabs is a presence. Our campaign capacity runs up to 100 pedicabs, and the per-cab cost falls as the count climbs.
Duration. A one-night activation and a ten-day run price differently per day, because the wrap production cost spreads across the run.
Creative build. Rear panels are the light option. A full wrap on every surface — what National Geographic ran across 24 cabs for the entire run of SXSW — costs more to produce and looks like an order of magnitude more.
Staffing. Free rides, sampling, brand ambassadors on the cab, a scan mechanic at the curb. All optional, all real money.
Territory and exclusivity. Locking a district, or locking out a competing brand for the week, is a legitimate ask that prices accordingly.
What are you paying for that a truck can't do?
One structural difference decides most of these buys. When Austin closes streets, a billboard truck is excluded and a pedicab is not.
That matters because the closures happen exactly when the audience is densest — Sixth Street on a weekend night, the streets around a festival footprint, the walk-out crowd after a headliner. A truck spends those hours circling the perimeter it is allowed on.
The second difference is speed. A truck moving at traffic speed passes you in two seconds. A pedicab moves at walking pace through a crowd on foot, which is a longer look at the same creative.
When is a pedicab campaign the wrong buy?
Plainly, because you'll figure it out later anyway and we'd rather you heard it now.
You need broad geographic reach. Pedicabs cover downtown Austin and festival footprints. If your target lives in the suburbs or across three states, buy something that goes there.
Your procurement process demands audited reach figures. Street-level out-of-home cannot hand you the kind of independently verified number a programmatic buy can. If a contract hangs on that documentation, this format will frustrate everyone involved.
Your message needs more than a glance. A wrap is a logo, a line and a reason to act. Complex propositions that need thirty seconds of explaining die on the side of a moving vehicle, ours or anyone's.
Your budget only stretches to two cabs on a quiet week. Thin coverage reads as coincidence rather than campaign. Concentrate a small budget into one dense weekend instead — better a crowd that sees you five times than a city that sees you once.
How should you brief us so the quote means something?
Give us four things and you'll get a real number rather than a range: your dates, your budget ceiling, the single action you want people to take, and whether you need staff on the cabs.
Bring the truck quote too, if you have one. Comparing against a live $800–$3,600 per day alternative is the fastest way to see whether this format is right for your campaign — and occasionally the answer is that it isn't.
Comparing formats for an Austin buy?
Start with how mobile billboards work here, then look at the two weeks that drive most demand: SXSW and ACL.
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