Update or Replace a Real Estate Sign: The Break Even
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.
A new printed face on a 24x36 lawn sign you already own is $55. A new 24x36 lawn sign is $85. That is the decision in two numbers, and the gap is $30.
Most writing on this subject hands you a checklist. This page hands you the arithmetic, because the agent asking has a panel in the garage and a listing going live, and wants to know what each path costs before choosing. Every figure here is the figure the calculators quote: price a re-face in the update tool and a new panel in the new sign tool.
The gap, size by size
| Lawn sign | New, one | New, two or more | Full re-face | You bank at one | You bank at two or more |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 x 36" | $85 | $75 | $55 | $30 | $20 |
| 32 x 36" | $95 | $85 | $70 | $25 | $15 |
| 36 x 36" | $105 | $105 | $80 | $25 | $25 |
Read the last two columns rather than the first three. Re-facing wins on price at every size, and the reason it is still worth checking is that the margin is not the same everywhere. A full face on a 24x36 is 65 percent of a new one. On a 36x36 it is 76 percent.
That surprises people, because the instinct is that the bigger the sign, the more there is to save by keeping it. The opposite is true here. Across these three sizes the re-face price climbs from $55 to $80 while the new sign price climbs from $85 to $105, so the print is a larger share of a big sign's cost and the panel and frame are a smaller one. The thing you are reusing is worth less on a big sign, proportionally, than on a small one.
Where the money actually is
One panel, one new face per listing
- Buy it, use it once, 1 listing
- Re-face once, 2 listings
- Re-face 2 times, 3 listings
- Re-face 3 times, 4 listings
- Re-face 4 times, 5 listings
Spread the cost of one 24x36 panel across the listings it serves and the curve flattens almost immediately. Buy a panel and use it once and the sign cost you $85. Re-face it once and the two listings cost $70 each. Re-face it four times and five listings cost $61 each.
The first re-face captures exactly half of everything available. The whole distance between buying new every time and the theoretical floor is $30 a listing, and one re-face gets you $15 of it. The fourth re-face is worth $1.50.
That is the practical takeaway, and it cuts against the instinct to squeeze a panel for as long as possible. There is no prize for the fifth face. Re-face a panel while it is clearly sound, and when it is marginal, buy the new one and stop doing arithmetic about it.
Full, half or a strip
A re-face does not have to be the whole face. What changed decides which one you buy, and the difference between them is larger than the difference between any of them and a new sign.
| What changed | What you order | 24 x 36" | 32 x 36" | 36 x 36" |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The whole face | Full re-face | $55 | $70 | $80 |
| One panel, top or bottom | Half overlay | $40 | $45 | $50 |
| One strip | Third re-face | $30 | $35 | $38 |
The half overlay is the brokerage move. The top band carries the brokerage and the bottom carries you, so when one of those changes and the other does not, you are buying half a face at $40 rather than a whole one at $55.
The third re-face is the contact change. New direct line, new cell, new website, a team member on or off the bottom strip. At $30 it is 35 percent of a new sign and it is the cheapest thing on this site that makes a sign current.
One naming note, because suppliers do not agree on a word. Resticker, re-face, resurface and overlay all describe the same job: a fresh printed face on hardware you already own. Whichever word is on the invoice, the process and the price are the ones above.
The four cases where a new sign wins
Price is not the only term in this. Four situations flip it, and three of them are about the thing you were planning to keep.
The panel or the frame is finished. This is the first gate and it is worth two minutes with the sign in front of you. On the H-frame, check the uprights for bend and for rust at the soil line, and the top and bottom wire loops for cracks. On the panel, flex it: a sound coroplast panel springs back and a tired one holds a crease, and a chalky surface that leaves powder on your thumb has had its UV life. A $55 face on hardware that fails in the ground in a month is $55 gone, and you buy the new sign anyway.
You need more signs, not newer ones. A re-face does not raise your count. Three listings live at once needs three panels, and no amount of re-facing produces the third one. This is the case agents get wrong in the other direction, holding off on buying because the signs they own are current.
Layers. A new face goes over the old one. Two is routine. By the third the panel is noticeably thicker, and the H-frame rail channel and any sleeve rider are working against the extra material. Nobody is counting the layers for you, so if you cannot remember how many are on there, assume more than you think.
The size is changing. A re-face cannot turn a 24 x 36" into a 32 x 36". If a brokerage template moved you up a size, that is a new panel by definition, and the comparison on this page does not apply.
There is a fifth, narrower case. 24 x 36", 32 x 36", 36 x 36" have quoted re-face prices, so the update tool prices them on the spot. 24 x 24", 32 x 48", 36 x 48", 34 x 36" are available as new signs with no published re-face price yet, so if you own one of those, call (905) 259-4361 rather than guessing from the sizes above.
Three orders, worked
A brokerage move, nine 24x36 panels in good shape. Your name, number, headshot and website are unchanged and the brokerage band is not. That is a half overlay on each: 9 at $40 is $360. Nine new signs at the two-or-more rate of $75 is $675. You keep $315.
A new phone number, seven panels. Only the bottom strip moves, so it is a third re-face: 7 at $30 is $210 against $525 for seven new panels. You keep $315, which is more than the cost of two new signs, for a change that affects one line of text.
Three faded 36x36 panels, branding unchanged. Nothing about the design is wrong, the faces are just three summers old. Full re-face on each: 3 at $80 is $240 against $315 new. You keep $75. This is the thinnest of the three, which is the point made above about big panels, and it is still the right call while the panels are sound.
Delivery sits at $15 on either path, so it never moves this decision and it is left out of all three totals. Pickup in Oshawa is free on either path as well.
The quantity trap
The new sign price drops at two or more. The re-face price does not. So the gap narrows as the order grows, which is the reverse of what almost everyone assumes about volume.
- 24 x 36": you bank $30 on one, $20 each on two or more.
- 32 x 36": you bank $25 on one, $15 each on two or more.
- 36 x 36": you bank $25 either way, because that size carries no separate multi-sign rate.
It never flips to favour the new sign on price alone at these sizes. What it does mean is that a brokerage-wide number quoted off the single sign gap is too high. Nine 24x36 panels save $20 each and not $30, which is a $90 difference on one order. Price the actual quantity rather than multiplying the headline.
What the $30 is buying on the other side
The panel and the H-frame. Those are the two things a re-face lets you keep, and they do not age at the same rate. A galvanized H-frame is the durable half and outlives several printed faces. The coroplast panel is the half that eventually goes, through UV, through being driven over, through a winter of freeze and thaw at the rail.
That asymmetry is the whole reason re-facing works, and it is also the reason it stops working. You are paying to keep a panel in service, and at some point the panel is the problem rather than the print on it.
Two add-ons are worth naming because they do not change this comparison. Lamination is $10 a sign and available on either path, so it is a weather decision and not a break even one. Rush production is $25 flat on either path, taking printing from 2 to 3 business days to 1 business day.
The answer in thirty seconds
| Situation | Order | 24 x 36" |
|---|---|---|
| Frame bent or rusted, panel cracked or chalky | New sign | $85 |
| Hardware sound, whole face changing | Full re-face | $55 |
| Brokerage band changing, your panel unchanged | Half overlay | $40 |
| Name, number or website strip only | Third re-face | $30 |
| Face faded, branding unchanged | Full re-face | $55 |
| You need more signs than you own | New sign | $85 |
| Moving to a different panel size | New sign | By size |
| First listing, no hardware at all | New sign | $85 |
Price a re-face at forsalesignprice.com/update-sign and a new panel at forsalesignprice.com/new-sign. Both quote in about thirty seconds with no account and no call. If you are not sure whether a panel has one more face left in it, call (905) 259-4361 and describe it, because that is the one question on this page a price list cannot answer.
If you are outfitting a first listing with nothing to re-face, the first listing kit prices the whole set. If the panel is sound and only the artwork is dated, the photo resolution guide covers what the files have to be, because a re-face prints on the same press as a new sign and asks the same of your artwork.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it cheaper to resticker a real estate sign or buy a new one?
Cheaper on every size quoted. A full resticker on a 24x36 is $55 against $85 for a new sign, so you bank $30 per panel. The gap narrows to $20 once you are ordering two or more, because the new sign price drops at volume and the re-face price does not.
How many times can you resticker the same sign?
Nobody publishes a hard limit, because it depends on how the old face was applied and what shape the panel is in. Two full faces is routine. By the third the panel is measurably thicker and the H-frame rail and any sleeve rider start to fight it. The panel decides, not the print.
What does it cost to change just the phone number on a real estate sign?
A third re-face, $30 on a 24x36. That is the strip at the bottom carrying your name, number and website. It is 35 percent of the price of a new sign and the cheapest way to make a sign current.
Which lawn sign sizes can be restickered?
24 x 36", 32 x 36", 36 x 36" have quoted re-face prices and the update tool quotes them instantly. The remaining sizes, 24 x 24", 32 x 48", 36 x 48", 34 x 36", are new sign sizes with no published re-face price yet, so those need a phone call.