Coroplast vs Aluminum Real Estate Signs: the $85 Answer
Prices in this guide are True Sign Group's own, printed in Oshawa, Ontario and delivered across Durham and the GTA. Call (905) 259-4361 to order or to ask about anything the calculator does not cover.
Coroplast, and the number is $85 for a 24x36 lawn sign, or $75 each when you order two or more. Coroplast is corrugated plastic, the fluted white board almost every for sale sign in Ontario is printed on. Aluminum composite earns its price only when a panel has to stand for a year or more without its face changing, which is a commercial situation rather than a residential one.
That is the answer for almost every agent, and it is worth saying with the price attached, because this question gets asked as a durability question and settled as a money one. What follows is the printer's half of it: what the three boards actually are, which one the whole re-face system is built around, and what this card says about ordering more than one. The full price list across every product is on the sign cost guide.
Corrugated plastic, aluminum and foam, in section
Every comparison of these materials describes them in adjectives. Here they are in cross section instead, cut through the thickness and drawn at one scale, because the inside of each board explains every property that gets argued about.
Coroplast, 4mm
Twin wall polypropylene. Two thin faces and a run of internal ribs, so most of the panel is air. Light, cheap, stiff along the ribs and soft across them.
Aluminum composite, 3mm
Two aluminum skins of 0.012 of an inch bonded to a solid polyethylene core. The filled band is the core, and it is about 80 percent of the thickness.
Expanded PVC, 6mm
Closed cell foam, solid from face to face. Rigid and smooth to print on, heavier than coroplast for the same panel, and the one that moves most with temperature.
Coroplast is twin wall extruded polypropylene: two thin faces joined by internal ribs, with air in between. That hollow structure is where the low weight and the low price come from, and it is also the failure mode. The panel is stiff along the ribs and noticeably soft across them, and a hard knock at an edge crushes the wall rather than denting it. For real estate it is printed directly on the surface and cut to size, with lamination available at $10 a sign.
Aluminum composite, sold as ACM, Dibond or Alupanel, is the one whose name misleads. A 3mm panel is two aluminum skins of 0.012 of an inch bonded to a solid polyethylene core, so about 80 percent of what gets called an aluminum sign is plastic. That is not a mark against it. The sandwich is the point: a thin metal skin on a thick light core is how you get a board that stays flat at sizes where coroplast bows, with a painted metal face that survives years outdoors.
Expanded PVC, sold as Sintra, Komatex or Celtec, is solid closed cell foam from face to face. It is rigid, it is the smoothest of the three to print on, and it is the one that moves. The published rate of linear expansion is 0.000023 of an inch per inch per degree Fahrenheit, so across a 36 inch face, between a January night at -4F and a July afternoon at 95F, the panel changes about 0.08 of an inch in that one dimension, before counting what direct sun does to a dark face. That is why it is mounted with room to move, and why it is an indoor and under cover board rather than a staked outdoor one.
The real decision is whether the face will change
Material comparisons treat this as a durability question, and for a residential listing that framing is wrong. A lawn sign is almost never retired because the board failed. It is retired because what is printed on it stopped being true.
That makes the published re-face price the number that decides the material. A 24x36 coroplast panel is $85. When the listing or the agent changes, the same panel comes back as a full re-face at $55, a half overlay at $40, or a single strip at $30. So coroplast is not really the cheap board. It is the reusable one, and the whole frame and overlay system in this market is built around it.
Run one panel across 4 listings and the arithmetic is plain. Buy it once and re-face the whole face every time and the sign costs $62.50 a listing. Re-face a single strip each time, which is what a change of phone number or agent name actually needs, and it is $43.75 a listing. The full break even against buying new, case by case, is on the update versus replace guide.
This card publishes no re-face price for aluminum composite, and that is the honest version of the comparison rather than a gap in the list. Re-facing ACM is not a standard product here. An ACM sign is bought, used until the information on it expires, and then replaced or stored. For a panel that says nothing but a company name on a commercial site, that is fine. For a panel carrying a listing, it is the expensive way round.
What the card says about buying more than one
Two things fall straight out of the price list, and no competitor page can state either, because none of them publishes a price list at all.
The first is that bulk mostly does not exist on lawn signs here. Of the 7 lawn faces on the card, 2 carry a quantity break: the 24x36 from $85 to $75 and the 32x36 from $95 to $85. Every other face costs the same whether you order one or ten. The instinct that ordering more is always cheaper is simply false on five of seven sizes.
The second is that only 3 of the 7 faces have a published re-face price: 24x36, 32x36, 36x36. Both of the faces that carry a quantity break sit inside that set.
Put together, those say something useful about choosing a size at all. The standard faces are not standard by accident. They are the ones the supply chain is built around, so they are where the volume price exists, where the re-face price exists, and where the frames and overlays are stocked. Stepping off them costs money twice, once at the order and again at every change. Which face to pick, and what each one costs per square foot, is on the sign sizes guide.
Five hundred temporary signs, and the question inside that question
This one arrives at this site in roughly these words: a client needs 500 temporary outdoor signs, should they be corrugated plastic sheets, or would corrugated aluminum hold up better.
The second option is worth naming as a category error, because believing in it leads to a quote request that nobody can fill. Corrugated aluminum is roofing and siding stock. The aluminum board the sign trade prints on is ACM, and ACM is not corrugated: it is the flat sandwich in the section above. So the comparison being asked for is really coroplast against ACM, and at 500 units for a temporary job it is not a close call. ACM is a mounted, long tenure board bought by the panel. Coroplast at 4mm is the material the temporary sign industry runs on, it takes a stake, it ships flat and light, and it is the cheap thing to throw away, which is what temporary means.
A run of that size is a quote rather than a card price. The quote form takes the size, the quantity and the deadline.
When aluminum composite is the right call
- A commercial or development listing that will stand for a year or more. Rigidity and surface life start to matter once the panel outlives a season, and a replacement mid listing costs more than the better board did.
- Anything bolted to a structure and left there. Building and entrance panels are a mounting job, not a staking job, and a flat rigid board is what a mounting job wants.
- Large panels that have to look flat. A wide coroplast face unsupported in the middle will show it. Large format pricing and how a big panel is actually mounted are on the land and development signs guide.
Which board, by what the sign has to do
| What the sign has to do | Board |
|---|---|
| Carry a residential listing that will change | Coroplast, laminated if it will see a full summer |
| Stand on a commercial site for a year or more | Aluminum composite |
| Bolt to a wall, a fence or a structure | Aluminum composite |
| Go out in quantity and be thrown away | Coroplast |
| Live indoors or under cover | Expanded PVC |
Getting a price
Coroplast is the range this site prices, and it prices it in about thirty seconds with no form in front of the number: lawn signs, directionals, riders, A-frames and large format panels, on the new sign calculator, and re-faces on the update calculator. Aluminum composite is a quote rather than a card price, and so is any run large enough to be a production job. Send the size, the quantity and the date you need it and it comes back as a real number.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should a real estate sign be coroplast or aluminum?
Coroplast for a residential listing. A 24x36 coroplast lawn sign is $85, or $75 each for two or more, and when the listing changes the same panel comes back as a re-face from $30. Aluminum composite is the right board when a panel has to stand for a year or more without its face changing, which is a commercial situation rather than a residential one.
Is an aluminum sign actually made of aluminum?
Only on the outside. The board the sign trade calls aluminum is ACM, two aluminum skins of 0.012 of an inch bonded to a solid polyethylene core, so on a 3mm panel about 80 percent of the thickness is plastic. That is not a criticism of the board. The sandwich is what makes it flat and rigid at sizes where coroplast bows.
Does coroplast get cheaper if I order more?
On this card, only on 2 of the 7 lawn faces: the 24x36 from $85 to $75 and the 32x36 from $95 to $85. The other faces cost the same whether you buy one or ten. A run of a few hundred signs is a quote rather than a card price.
Is PVC foam board any good for an outdoor real estate sign?
Not for a staked one. Expanded PVC prints beautifully and is rigid, but it is solid foam rather than hollow, so it is heavy for its stiffness, and it moves: at the published rate of 0.000023 of an inch per inch per degree Fahrenheit, a 36 inch face grows and shrinks about 0.08 of an inch between a January night and a July afternoon. It belongs indoors or under cover.
Does lamination make coroplast last like aluminum?
It addresses the fading, not the rest. Lamination is $10 a sign, about 12 percent of a $85 panel, and it buys surface and UV life. It does not make a hollow panel rigid or stop a corner crushing. For a listing that runs a season it is worth it. For a panel that has to stand a year on a commercial site, the board is the thing to change, not the coating.