The short answer: wheatpaste campaigns start at $3,500, and scale up based on turnaround, size, location count, and combined service mix. We publish floors, not single fixed numbers, because the brief specifics move the quote.
The longer answer is the one that helps you build a budget. This piece walks through how Beyond Street Media prices wheatpaste campaigns in 2026, what the line items cover, and the variables that move a quote up or down. Final quote returns inside 24 to 48 hours of brief intake.
The 30-second pricing summary
| Discipline | Floor | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Wheatpaste posters | Starting at $3,500 | Single-market brief. Multi-market programs price differently. |
| Sidewalk stencils | Starting at $2,500 | Permit class varies by city. |
| Snipes + stickers | Starting at $3,000 | Cheapest path to neighborhood saturation. |
| Floor graphics | Starting at $4,000 | Outdoor and partner-venue surfaces. |
| Hand-painted murals | From $18,000 | Single-wall commission. 30–90 day window minimum. |
| Building-side murals | From $30,000 | Hand-painted or vinyl-applied large format. |
| Expedited Campaigns | +80% to +150%+ over standard | 24 to 72 hour brief-to-documented-install. Premium typically doubles the standard rate. |
These are published floors for the wheatpaste advertising, sidewalk stencil, snipe poster, floor graphics, hand-painted mural, and Expedited Campaigns services. Final number depends on the brief.
If you want a price tied to your specific brief, send it. We respond inside four business hours with a real line-item quote, not a discovery-call request.
What you are actually paying for
A wheatpaste campaign budget has four real cost centers. Knowing the split helps you understand why the floor is where it is.
1. Print production
Outdoor-grade paper, soy-based ink, large-format sheets, and a press run sized to your placement count plus a healthy overage. We never print to the exact placement count because weather, surface failures, and operator judgment during install will always consume more than the math suggests.
For a 200-sheet NYC run, print is typically 25 to 35 percent of the total budget. For a 2,000-sheet multi-borough saturation, print drops to 18 to 22 percent because the press run amortizes.
2. Crew dispatch and install labor
This is the line that surprises buyers most. A two-person crew working a single NYC borough for a single night is 5 to 7 hours of paid time, plus paste, brushes, ladders, and the vehicle. In tier-2 markets where we do not have permanent crew, dispatch includes travel, lodging, and per diem on top of labor.
This is also why the published floor is $3,500. Below that number, you are paying a crew to dispatch for fewer sheets than the dispatch itself costs to mobilize.
3. Documentation
Every single placement gets photographed at the time of install, with GPS tagging where the device supports it. Daily install logs go out to the client while the campaign is live. A final wrap deck ships inside 48 hours of campaign completion: every photo, every neighborhood, every install date.
Documentation runs 8 to 12 percent of total budget. It is the single most undervalued line item in the industry. Most agencies bury it; we lead with it.
4. Compliance and property-owner consent
Before any paste lands, the surface has property-owner consent or the campaign does not run on it. That work is invisible but real: relationships with building owners, written authorizations, awareness of BID (Business Improvement District) corridors, and a city-specific compliance map for places like NYC, LA, and SF where the rules differ block by block.
For the legal framework on private surfaces in New York specifically, see our NYC posting legality piece.
The five variables that move a quote up or down
These are the levers. If you understand them, you can self-shape a tighter brief.
1. City tier. Tier-1 markets (NYC, LA, SF, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Seattle, Boston, DC, Austin) have permanent crew. Tier-2 markets price 15 to 25 percent higher because crew dispatch eats travel and lodging.
2. Sheet count. Print amortizes. The bigger the run, the more the per-surface cost drops as the press run and crew dispatch spread across more density. Larger campaigns earn a better rate; the final number returns inside the quote based on the brief’s specifics.
3. Install window. A 5-day standard install in a tier-1 city is the same total budget as a 14-day relaxed install. Anything inside that runs as an Expedited Campaign: +15 to 30 percent for 5-to-7 day expedites, +40 to 80 percent for 48-to-72 hour, +80 to 150 percent for 24-to-48 hour, +100 to 200+ percent for same-day extremes. Premium scales with urgency because crew is rescheduled out of other work.
4. Creative status. Print-ready files (CMYK, correct dimensions, proper bleed) are free. Files that need production work on our end are billed at $400 to $1,200 depending on complexity. Files that arrive after the print deadline trigger reprint costs.
5. Format complexity. Standard wheatpaste sheets are the baseline. Pole stickers, sidewalk stencils, and hand-painted signs have different cost curves. Mixed-format campaigns price as a package, not a sum of the parts.
What is NOT included
Three line items that get added when applicable:
- City permit fees where required. These pass through at cost with no markup. Most BSM tier-1 markets do not need city permits for paste-on-private-surface work because property-owner consent is the governing framework. A handful of cities are different; we flag them in the quote.
- Custom paper stocks beyond outdoor-grade. If you want metallic, kraft, or specialty stock, the press run carries the cost difference.
- Same-day creative revisions after print release. If we have printed and your art director sends new files, the reprint is billed.
How our quote process works
Send: city, format, dates, creative status, budget ceiling. (Here is exactly what goes in a brief.)
You get back: a line-item quote with print, crew, documentation, and compliance broken out. A neighborhood-mapped install plan. An install window with start and complete dates. No discovery calls, no “let’s hop on a quick 30-minute kickoff.”
Most quotes return inside four business hours. Complex multi-city briefs sometimes take a full business day because we are routing the crew calendar across markets.
Where this pricing comes from
Every floor above traces to real BSM campaigns in the last 18 months. The $3,500 wheatpaste floor was set by a single-borough NYC paste run. The multi-city tour range (from $15,000 per week) traces to actual tour pricing on a tech-vertical client in Q1 2026. The 100 percent photo proof is enforced on every single campaign in our work case studies.
You can also read Beyond Street Media’s full service catalog for the pricing floor on each individual format, or jump straight to the coverage map to see whether your target city is on the tier-1 list.
Got a brief? Send it to info@beyondstreetmedia.com with the city, format, dates, and budget ceiling. Quote back in four business hours.