How Much Does a Custom Illuminated Sign Cost in Australia?
Real price ranges, what drives them up or down, and the hidden costs most quotes leave out. Written by the people who quote them.
The most common question we get in the first email: how much is a sign going to cost me? It's a fair question, and most of our competitors dodge it — "depends on the project," "call for a quote." Both are true. Neither is useful when you're trying to budget a fit-out.
Here are real Australian price ranges for the styles we build most often, what moves the number up or down, and the line-items most quotes don't mention until install day.
Ballpark ranges by sign type
| Sign type | Typical range (supply) | What you're buying |
|---|---|---|
| LED neon wordmark (500–800 mm) | $350 – $900 | Silicone tubing on routed acrylic backer, 12 V driver, remote or plug-in |
| LED neon large wordmark (1.2–1.8 m) | $900 – $2,200 | Same as above, larger backer, hardwired option |
| Light box sign (shopfront, 1 m) | $650 – $1,400 | Aluminium frame, opal acrylic face, internal LEDs |
| Light box sign (shopfront, 2 m) | $1,400 – $3,200 | Same with larger fabrication and better weatherproofing |
| Channel letters / front-lit (per letter, 300 mm) | $150 – $260 | Fabricated aluminium return, acrylic face, LEDs, single letter |
| Backlit / halo-lit letters (per letter, 300 mm) | $220 – $380 | Same but opaque face, halo return, higher fabrication tolerance |
| Front-and-back lit (per letter, 300 mm) | $320 – $520 | Both illumination styles combined |
| Acrylic 3D lettering (unlit, per letter, 300 mm) | $80 – $180 | Laser-cut acrylic, painted, stand-off or flush mount |
Six things that push the price up
- Letter height. Price scales non-linearly with height. A 600 mm channel letter is not 2× the price of a 300 mm one — it's more like 2.6×, because the aluminium fabrication has to stay rigid at scale.
- Outdoor / IP rating. An indoor sign at IP20 might become IP65/IP67 for an outdoor shopfront. That's typically a 20–35% premium on the LED and driver components.
- Metal finish. A standard painted aluminium face is the baseline. Brushed stainless, electroplated brass, anodised aluminium, or real copper can add 30–100% to the per-letter price.
- RGB / colour-changing LEDs. A single fixed colour is cheaper than RGB. RGB with a controller is typically +15–25%.
- Rush timelines. Standard lead time is 3–4 weeks. We don't offer formal "rush" any more, but constrained timelines can limit your finish options (e.g. we'll ship painted instead of electroplated if you need 2 weeks).
- Logo complexity. Fine detail, tight corners, and stacked elements all add fabrication time. A simple one-line wordmark is the cheapest configuration.
Four things that pull the price down
- Straightforward geometry. Blocky, even-weight letterforms are faster to fabricate than delicate scripts.
- Single-colour runs. One colour of LED is cheaper to source and wire than multi-colour.
- Batching. If you're fitting out multiple sites at once, combining them on one production run removes per-site setup overhead. Tell us upfront.
- Accepting a standard driver. Bespoke dimming controllers or scene-sync systems are available but cost more than the standard fixed-brightness driver that 95% of our installs use.
The hidden costs most quotes leave out
1. Installation
Most Australian sign companies quote supply separately from install. For a typical shopfront in a metro area, installation runs $400 – $1,500 depending on access, height, and whether a scissor-lift or scaffold is needed. Heritage-listed or multi-storey facades can go higher.
2. Electrical connection
An illuminated sign needs a licensed electrician to terminate the feed and certify the install. Budget $200 – $600 for a straightforward 240 V connection within 1.5 m of the sign. If power needs to run from further away, or through a wall with no existing conduit, it goes up from there.
3. Artwork preparation
If your logo only exists as a low-res JPG or PNG, it needs to be redrawn as a vector before fabrication can start. Simple wordmarks we usually redraw in-house at no charge; complex logos or illustrations can run $150 – $400 for a dedicated redraw. Sending us your original vector file (AI, EPS, PDF or SVG) skips this step entirely.
4. Substrate / mounting prep
Backlit signs in particular need a flat, clean mounting surface. If your wall has texture, render cracks, or fresh paint that hasn't cured, you may need a pre-install prep step (skim coat, sign-backer panel, cleat rail). That's another $150 – $400 depending on the surface area.
How to actually budget
For a typical small-business shopfront (one illuminated wordmark, 1.5 m wide, outdoor, metro area) expect a total installed cost between $2,800 and $5,500 including power connection, for front-lit or backlit fabrication. For a reception-wall indoor piece of similar size, $1,800 – $3,200 installed is realistic.
If those numbers are well below what another supplier has quoted, ask them to break the line-items out — "supply, installation, electrical, warranty" — so you can compare apples to apples. Most of the time the difference is one of those lines being absorbed or omitted, not the raw fabrication.
Send us a quick brief for a real number
A 10-minute email with your intended wording, dimensions, photo of the wall and a vector logo is enough for us to return a detailed quote — usually within 24 hours. Start a quote or see our channel-letter and backlit pages for examples at different price points.
