Digital Menu Board Cost

Ask what a digital menu board costs and most answers price a screen. The screen is only the layer you can see. A working menu board has four: the display, the mount and the player or stick that drives it, a software subscription to design and push the content, and the upkeep of keeping the board honest when prices change or an item sells out. This guide walks through each layer without quoting other vendors' prices, which change often, so you can total the real number for your own counter from live quotes. It also explains what changes when the board reads the menu straight from your POS, as the board in Opero (operoos.com) does, and where that approach stops.

The four cost layers of a digital menu board

Every menu board quote, whatever the vendor, breaks down into the same four layers. Some quotes show all four; most show the first and the third.

• ✓Screens: the TVs or commercial displays on the wall, one per board.
• ✓Mounts and players: wall mounts or ceiling drops, power and cabling, and the media player, stick or box that runs the content if the screen cannot run it itself.
• ✓Software: the subscription for the signage tool that designs and schedules the boards, often billed per screen per month.
• ✓Content upkeep: the hours someone spends changing prices, pulling sold-out items and redesigning the board, which never shows up on a quote.

Layer 1: the screens

Two kinds of screen go on restaurant walls. Consumer TVs are cheap to buy, easy to replace the same day, and many have a built-in browser. Commercial displays are built to run all day, are brighter against a sunny front window and are sold with longer support terms, and they cost more. Neither is wrong: a board behind the counter of a dim dining room has different needs from one facing the street.

Count the screens you need for the menu to be readable from where guests stand, then add one for a second wall if the line wraps. With Opero, any TV with a built-in browser works as a board, and so does a TV you cast to from an Android tablet you already own; Opero does not sell or lease TVs. Every board at a location shows the same full menu, so more screens mean more places to read it, not a menu spread across panels.

Layer 2: mounts, players and cabling

Every board needs a mount suited to the wall, power where the screen hangs and a network connection. A signage tool usually also needs something to play the content: a media player, a streaming stick or a box the vendor supplies, one per screen. Budget an electrician if there is no outlet near the mount, and budget the network, because a board that loses its connection either freezes or goes blank, depending on the tool.

Opero's board is a web page, so a TV with a browser needs no player at all. If the TV has no browser, open the board on an Android tablet and cast it to the TV. The board needs a live internet connection the whole time it is on. It has no offline playback, and if the connection drops it keeps showing the last menu it fetched until the connection is back.

Layer 3: the software subscription

Signage software is where most of the monthly cost sits, and it is usually priced per screen. You pay for a designer, templates, a schedule that flips the breakfast board to lunch, and a way to push changes to every screen. Ask three questions of any quote: is it per screen or per location, does it read the menu from my POS or keep its own copy, and what does adding a screen next year cost?

With Opero, menu boards come with the location's plan: unlimited boards on every plan, including the Opero plan at $149 per location per month, with no per-screen fee. That is also the honest catch. The board is not sold on its own and there is no board-only plan, so it makes sense when Opero is already your POS, not as a stand-alone signage purchase.

Layer 4: keeping the board right

Upkeep is labor. With a separate signage tool, someone types each price change into the register and again into the board, and someone has to remember to pull an item from the board when the kitchen runs out. Miss one and a guest orders something you cannot make, at a price you no longer charge.

A menu display system with POS integration removes most of that work. Opero's board reads the same per-location menu as the register, the kiosk and online ordering, and fetches it again about every 60 seconds. An item you 86 at the register, a price you change in the menu builder, a new item or a new photo shows on the board on its next refresh, with nothing to re-publish. A per-location price shows only on that location's boards.

Two upkeep habits still matter. The board shows each category's direct items, so an item filed only inside a subcategory does not appear on it. And hiding an item from the kiosk does not hide it from the board; to take something off the TV, 86 it or remove it from the menu.

What a menu board costs with Opero

Put the four layers together. Screens: TVs you buy or already own. Mounts and players: a mount and power for each screen, and no player if the TV has a browser. Software: nothing beyond the location's Opero plan, at $149 or $249 per location per month, month-to-month, with unlimited boards. Upkeep: the menu you already keep for the register, nothing extra.

The one piece of hardware you must buy from us is the card reader, one for each register or kiosk that takes cards, and it has nothing to do with the board. The board carries your restaurant's name, logo and brand color, set once for the account, and the same branding shows on the kiosk and the customer display, the second Android tablet that faces the guest at the register.

What Opero's menu board does not do

Read these before counting the board as a signage replacement. If any of them is a must-have, a signage product is the better buy for that screen.

• ✓One fixed layout that shows the whole menu. There are no templates, no promo tiles and no drag-and-drop design.
• ✓No scheduled boards. There are no dayparts, so the board never switches from breakfast to lunch on a clock; it always shows the current menu.
• ✓No video or animation.
• ✓No per-board content. Every board at a location shows the same full menu, and you cannot give one screen certain categories.
• ✓English only. The board has no Spanish, even though the kiosk and the online ordering page do.
• ✓A Powered by Opero footer that cannot be turned off, a fixed dark background, and one logo and color for the whole account.
• ✓It needs internet. Changes show within about 60 seconds, not instantly, and there is no offline or cached playback.
• ✓It runs in a TV's built-in browser or is cast from an Android tablet; Android is the only tablet platform supported.
• ✓Not sold on its own. Boards come with an Opero plan for the location.
• ✓No modifier lists on the board, and no ordering from it.

How to decide: a board in your POS or a signage tool

• ✓Count your screens eighteen months out, not on opening day, and price any per-screen software at that count.
• ✓Ask whether the board reads your POS menu or keeps its own copy, and how long a price change takes to reach it.
• ✓If you need dayparts, video, promo tiles or a different layout per screen, a signage product is the better buy for those screens.
• ✓If the board's job is to show the current menu and prices accurately, a board that reads your POS menu is cheaper to keep right.
• ✓Check that every screen has power and a steady connection before you mount it.

You can also run both: a signage tool on the promo screen over the door, and a POS-fed board for the menu itself, so the prices guests read are the prices the register rings.