What do fleet graphics cost?
Branding a fleet is one of the few marketing spends where you can work out the value fairly precisely. You know how many vehicles you have, you know roughly how many miles they cover and where they park, and the cost is a one-off rather than a monthly bill.
What is harder to work out in advance is the cost, because “fleet graphics” covers everything from a door logo to a full wrap, and quotes are usually built per vehicle from a specification most people have not seen before.
This guide breaks down what you are actually paying for.
The main levels of coverage
Most fleets end up at one of four levels.
Simple identification is a logo, a phone number and a web address, usually on the doors and rear. Cut vinyl lettering, quick to apply, cheapest per vehicle. It works well for trades where the van is parked outside a customer’s house and the point is a phone number people can read.
Partial livery covers a proportion of the vehicle, typically the lower panels, the bonnet or the rear doors, using printed vinyl over a base colour. Most commercial fleets settle here. You get a designed vehicle rather than a plain one with stickers, at a fraction of a full wrap.
Full wrap covers the entire painted surface in printed and laminated vinyl. It is the only option if you want a colour change or a design that runs across the whole vehicle. It takes the longest and costs the most, because the vehicle has to be stripped of handles, mirrors and trim, wrapped, and reassembled.
Chapter 8 chevron kits are a separate category and a legal requirement rather than a branding choice for many operators. They can be fitted alongside any of the above.
What drives the price on any given van
The vehicle itself
A small car-derived van and a long wheelbase high roof panel van are very different jobs. Surface area is the obvious difference, but shape matters more than people expect. Deep corrugations on van sides, sharp curves around wheel arches and recessed door handles all take longer to work around, and some vehicles are simply awkward.
Body colour matters too. Printed vinyl is not fully opaque, so a design applied over a dark base may need a white underlay layer to show properly. That is an extra print and an extra application.
Vinyl and lamination
Cast vinyl conforms to curves and lasts longer. Calendered vinyl is cheaper and suits flat panels. On a vehicle with complex shapes, cast is usually the right choice and the material cost is higher.
Lamination protects the print from UV, fuel spills and pressure washing. Skipping it saves money now and costs more later, because an unlaminated print on a van doing motorway miles will fade and scuff noticeably faster.
Design
If you already have brand artwork in a usable format, design time is short. If your logo exists only as a low resolution image from a website, someone has to rebuild it before it can be printed at vehicle scale. Vehicle templates also have to be drawn per model, so a mixed fleet needs more design work than a fleet of identical vans.
Design is usually a one-off. Once the artwork exists for a given model, adding the eleventh van costs less than the first.
Preparation and condition
Vinyl needs a clean, sound surface. A new van needs a wash and a wipe down. A five year old van with road film, minor dents, a resprayed panel or existing graphics to remove needs considerably more.
Removing old graphics is its own job, and old vinyl that has been on for years is much slower to get off than recent work.
Fitting time and where it happens
Application is skilled labour and time is the biggest component of most quotes. A full wrap is a day or more per vehicle with more than one fitter. Simple lettering can be under an hour.
If we come to your yard rather than the vehicle coming to us, that changes the cost too, and it depends on whether there is somewhere clean, sheltered and warm enough to apply vinyl properly. Cold and damp are the enemy of a good wrap.
The costs people forget to budget for
Downtime. If a van is being wrapped it is not working. On a full wrap that can be a day or two per vehicle. Scheduling a fleet in batches, or over weekends, is usually cheaper than the lost days.
Removal at end of life. If your vans are leased, the lease almost certainly requires them returned in original condition. Removal takes time and, on older vinyl, a lot of it. Budget for it at the start rather than discovering it at handback.
Chevron kits. If your vehicles stop on or near the carriageway, Chapter 8 markings are a compliance matter. We cover this in detail in our beginner’s guide to chevron kits and in chevron requirements by vehicle type.
Replacements and additions. Fleets change. Keeping artwork and specification on file means van fifteen matches van one two years later, and it means a damaged panel can be reprinted rather than the whole side redone.
What should you budget per vehicle?
We quote per fleet rather than from a price list, because vehicle type, condition and volume all change the number significantly. Tell us what you run and we will price it properly.
Volume makes a real difference
Fleet work is one of the few areas where the per unit price genuinely falls with quantity. Design and template work is done once. Materials are bought in larger quantities. Fitters get faster on the second and third identical vehicle. Scheduling ten vans over two weeks is far more efficient than ten separate visits over a year.
If you are rolling out over time rather than all at once, tell your supplier the full number anyway. It should affect the price of the first batch.
How long does it last?
Laminated cast vinyl on a well prepared vehicle should stay looking right for several years of normal commercial use. What shortens that is UV exposure on horizontal surfaces, frequent pressure washing at close range and high temperature, and the vehicle being stored outside permanently.
Horizontal panels like bonnets and roofs always weather first. If you are wrapping a fleet that lives outdoors, that is worth factoring into how you design the vehicle.
Getting a useful quote
Give your supplier the vehicle makes, models and years, the number of each, the current condition, whether there is existing vinyl to remove, and where the vehicles can be worked on. That is enough to produce a real number rather than a range.
We design, print and fit fleet graphics across Warrington, Cheshire, Manchester, Liverpool and the North West, from single vans to full fleet rollouts. Have a look at our fleet graphics and van graphics pages, or tell us what you run and we will put a proper quote together.