PLAINSIGHT

Billboards are priced for cars.We price for people walking.

Step 01 — the place

Bedford Avenue at North 7th Street

Williamsburg, Brooklyn

There is no market for any surface in this photograph, and no one has ever quoted these owners a number.

Street level view of Bedford Avenue at North 7th Street
Photo: Tdorante10, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Step 02 — the attention, priced
Bedford Avenue at North 7th — as data
Reading the street from vector tiles
Step 03 — how the number is made
The calculation, run
  1. Measured pedestriansmeasured14,416AM 2,758 · MD 5,187 · PM 6,471
  2. × visibility shareestimated0.40what fraction of the pavement can see the street-facing window
  3. × day-part weightsconvention1.00AM 0.30 · MD 0.33 · PM 0.37 — sums to 1, so this moves impressions, never adds them
  4. × daysconvention30one sampled day, carried across the month
  5. = impressionscomputed177,602AM 29,786 + MD 61,622 + PM 86,194
  6. ÷ 1,000 × CPMcomputed$888$5 per thousand — the rate out-of-home already trades on
  7. + 3 more surfacescomputed$1,464Side wall / mural surface $533 · Counter face at the register $376 · A-frame on the sidewalk $555

Every wall, window and doorway people walk past is advertising space earning nothing — because the walking was never counted, let alone priced. Wherever a city measures it, this is what it is worth.

Monthly value of this frontage

$0 /mo

$1,647 — $3,058 · ±30% on the one estimated term

  1. 01

    Measure the attention

    NYC DOT counts pedestrians at 114 screenlines. We take the nearest one and print how far away it is.

    Measured
  2. 02

    Day-part the impressions

    A window works all day; an A-frame works when the shop is open. Weights sum to one, so nothing is invented.

    Computed
  3. 03

    Price at standard OOH rates

    Impressions ÷ 1,000 × CPM. The novelty is the denominator, not the rate.

    Computed
The whole calculation

measured pedestrians × days × visibility share = impressions
impressions ÷ 1,000 × CPM = monthly value

Visibility share is the only estimated input — hence the ±30% band. Everything else is measured or conventional.

What an owner actually keeps

Gross is not income — signage costs money to produce and permit.

  • Gross frontage value

    Impressions × CPM

    $2,352

  • Production & install

    46 sq ft vinyl, replaced 2× a year

    −$92

  • DOB sign permit

    $650 filing, spread over three years

    −$18

  • PlainSight fee

    15% of gross

    −$353

Net to the owner

per month, on a surface earning $0 today

$1,889

Costs are assumptions, not measurements — typical New York rates. A gross number with nothing against it would not be an honest answer.

Step 04 — anywhere in New York

What is this space worth?

Give us an address. We’ll tell you what its advertising space is worth.

New York City only — we price against the NYC DOT Bi-Annual Pedestrian Counts, May 2026. 114 measured locations across five boroughs; we quote against whichever is nearest, and say how far that is.

Step 05 — what changes

One surface, three people who suddenly have a number.

For the shop owner

$28,224

a year, on a window earning $0

The one asset a small business already pays for and has never been able to price.

For the advertiser

$5.19

blended CPM · vs a board bought on 15,104 vehicles a day

Pedestrian frontage was unpriceable, not worthless. Priced, it becomes buyable.

For the city

114

counted screenlines, all five boroughs

Any frontage within 2 km of one can be priced. Beyond that we refuse rather than guess.

What we are not claiming. We have not multiplied one frontage by the number of storefronts in New York. We have not counted those storefronts, so that number would be invented, and inventing it would undo the only thing that makes this project worth anything — that every figure on this page can be traced back to someone standing on a pavement, counting.