The truth: the most common billboard “software” is a spreadsheet plus QuickBooks. It’s free and flexible — until the plant grows, a lease quietly lapses, or you can’t remember which faces are open. Here’s the honest trade.
| HighSign Pro | Spreadsheet | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free 7-day trial, then flat $49/mo | Free |
| Occupancy at a glance | Live calendar | Manual color-coding |
| Lease-renewal alerts | Automatic countdowns | Easy to miss |
| Invoicing & paid/overdue | Built in — 17 currencies, paid by card | Separate tool |
| Bring your list across | CSV import for faces & advertisers | It is the spreadsheet |
| Public availability page | Shareable link | Copy/paste a list |
| Live availability on your own website | Copy-paste embed, any site | — |
| Send proposals for e-signature | Yes — accept & sign from the emailed link | Email a PDF and wait |
| Sales goal on the dashboard | Yes | A cell you update by hand |
| Proof-of-posting photos | Yes — attached to the campaign | Photos in a folder somewhere |
| Gap alerts (vacant now & ending soon) | Yes | Scan the colors |
| Team roles | Owner & staff, unlimited users | Everyone edits everything |
| iCal feed, webhooks & REST API | Yes | — |
| Recycle bin | 30-day restore | Hope you kept a copy |
| Free billboard CPM calculator | Free, no sign-up | — |
| Multiple users, no version chaos | Yes | “final_v3_REAL.xlsx” |
| Breaks when a formula breaks | Never | All the time |
If you have a handful of boards, you’re just starting out, and you personally hold the whole picture in your head, a spreadsheet works — and it costs nothing, which is honestly hard to argue with. The case to switch shows up when you cross ~10–15 faces, add anyone else who needs to see the book, or get burned once by a lease you forgot to renew.
Spreadsheets are free and flexible; HighSign Pro trades a little of that flexibility for occupancy you can see, renewals that nag you, invoices in the same place, and a link you can send advertisers. Start free and keep the spreadsheet as a backup until you don’t need it.
Bring your boards over — free for 7 days. No card, no demo call.
Start free trial