"How much will it cost?" is almost always the first question we get. The honest answer is: it depends — but not on as many variables as vendors make it sound.
This post breaks the actual cost into four buckets so you can estimate a budget before you start talking to anyone.
1. The screen (TV) — NPR 30,000 – 90,000+
If you already have a TV at the location, you can usually keep it. Any HDMI-input TV from the last decade will work. If you're buying new:
- Standard 43" commercial-grade TV: NPR 35,000–55,000
- 55" commercial TV: NPR 60,000–90,000
- Outdoor or high-brightness screens (for windows facing the sun): NPR 200,000+
The "commercial-grade" qualifier matters mostly for screens running 14+ hours a day. Residential TVs work fine for 8–10 hours daily.
2. The player device — one-time
The player is the small box that plugs into your TV and runs the signage software. It's the brain of the system.
- Entry-level Android player: NPR 8,000–12,000
- Mid-range (4K-capable): NPR 14,000–20,000
- Industrial-grade (lockdown, kiosk mode, certified): NPR 25,000+
Pro tip: Cheap "Android TV box from the market" players exist and they're tempting. They tend to fail in two ways — random reboots and no remote management. For a single home setup, fine. For a business, the lifetime cost of someone driving across town to reboot a player is higher than the device's price.
3. Software — the one most people get wrong
This is where vendors differ wildly. There are three pricing models in the Nepali market:
- Monthly subscription: NPR 800–3,000 per screen per month. Common with global brands. Predictable but adds up — five years on five screens is NPR 240,000–900,000 on software alone.
- Player + annual renewal: a one-time player cost plus a small per-display annual fee. SignageLAB uses this model — NPR 15,000 per player up front, then NPR 2,500 per display per year for the cloud CMS, content sync, monitoring, and 1 GB of media storage.
- Free / self-hosted: NPR 0 software, but you'll spend on a developer to keep it running. Practical only if you have in-house IT.
For most small and mid-sized businesses in Nepal, the player + annual renewal model wins on lifetime cost — you avoid a per-screen-per-month bill that quietly compounds, while still getting a cloud CMS that's actively maintained. Subscription makes sense if you want zero IT involvement and are comfortable with the recurring monthly bill.
4. Installation and the hidden costs
Things people forget to budget for:
- Mounting bracket and cabling: NPR 2,000–6,000 per screen
- Internet at the location (most signage needs it): NPR 500–1,500/month
- Electrical work (new power point near the screen): NPR 1,500–4,000 per screen
- On-site installation visit: NPR 2,000–5,000 in Kathmandu; more for out-of-valley
- Annual maintenance (optional): NPR 3,000–6,000 per screen
A realistic starter budget
Here's what a single-screen setup typically costs in Kathmandu, from scratch:
| Item | Cost (NPR) | |---|---| | 43" TV | 45,000 | | SignageLAB Player (Amlogic S905X4, 4 GB RAM) | 15,000 | | Mount + cables | 4,000 | | Installation | 3,500 | | Total upfront | ~67,500 |
After year one, the only recurring software cost is the annual renewal — NPR 2,500 per display, which covers the cloud CMS, content sync, snapshots, and 1 GB of media storage. Add electricity and internet and you're done.
Five-screen, multi-branch setup
For a chain with five locations and one screen each, the math scales close to linearly:
- TVs × 5: ~NPR 225,000
- SignageLAB Players × 5 @ NPR 15,000: NPR 75,000
- Installation × 5: NPR 17,500
- Total upfront: ~NPR 317,500
- Annual renewal from year 2: 5 × NPR 2,500 = NPR 12,500/year (NPR ~1,000/month)
- Bundled cloud storage: 5 GB on the portal
Compare to a subscription product at NPR 1,500/screen/month: NPR 7,500/month, or NPR 450,000 over five years on software alone. SignageLAB's five-year software cost on the same five screens is around NPR 50,000 — roughly 1/9th.
What we'd recommend
If you're shopping, evaluate vendors on three things, in this order:
- Pricing model — monthly subscription vs. player + annual renewal vs. self-hosted. Run the five-year number.
- Local support — can someone come to your location if a player goes down?
- Player quality — ask how the vendor handles reboots, updates, and network drops.
Want a quote for your specific setup? Tell us how many screens and where, and we'll send a costed plan within a working day. Get in touch.