New York City · Taxi advertising · Reviewed 2026-09-14
New York taxi advertising: what a taxi ad costs, and who is telling you.
Published third-party rates for New York taxi advertising run from $100 – $200 per cab for a static top (OOH Today) to $500 – $1,000 per cab per four-week period (Alluvit Media), with Blue Line Media's New York page at $300 – $500. Every figure below is quoted as its source published it, named and dated. None is a quote.
Four published sources quote the same format at figures ten times apart. Here they are in one table, each with a name and a date attached, next to the fleet count the reach math has to start from.
Brands documented here · 2021 to 2026
Alien: Earth (FX on Hulu) / Best Buy / Betterment / BTS on Netflix / Bumble and bumble / JPMorganChase / Citizens / Diet Coke / Discover / Estée Lauder / FIFA Club World Cup 2025 / Gilead / Gran Turismo / Heineken / Lancôme / LEGO / LEGO 2K Drive / LinkedIn / Inside Out 2 / Madewell / Marc Jacobs / New York Mets / MongoDB / Nike / Northwell Health / Okta / Oura / RE/MAX / Samsung / Biossance / ShipBob / Shopify / Snapchat / Solana / Starbucks / StreetEasy / Stripe / Swarovski / The Economist / Touchland / Uber Eats with Sephora / UGG / US Open / Victoria's Secret / Wicked on Broadway / Workday / Workiva / Yves Saint Laurent
Six formats, three different products
The roof, the passenger screen and the vehicle body reach different people. Vendors sell all three under the word taxi.
LinkedIn · 360 wrap swarm with digital tops · Tenth Avenue, Chelsea · 2025
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Digital taxi top
A double-sided LED screen on the roof. Creative changes by time of day and by where the cab is.
Watch for: Ask for share of voice in the rotation, not just how many cabs carry a screen.
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Static taxi top
The printed box that has been on New York roofs for decades. One message, day and night.
Watch for: Cheapest way to hold a message citywide. You cannot change it once it is up.
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Taxi TV
The passenger screen inside the cab, sold as spots against the fleet rather than per cab.
Watch for: Different audience: the rider already in the car, not the street.
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Full and 360 wrap
Vinyl across the body. Highest impact per vehicle, slowest to produce. In New York this runs on FHV, rideshare and branded fleet vehicles, not on yellow medallion cabs.
Watch for: 35 RCNY 58-32(c): no exterior advertising on a yellow taxi unless the Commission authorizes it. Ask the seller which vehicles the wrap is actually on.
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Digital swarm
A cluster of digital tops routed through one area at once, so a street reads as saturated.
Watch for: Ask how the zone is defined, how dwell is measured, what happens when a car leaves it.
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Specials
Hologram units, LED trucks, glass trucks, pedicabs, food trucks. Event inventory, not always-on media.
Watch for: Longest lead times here. Bring dates before creative.
Each format is photographed running in New York in the campaign archive, filterable by format. The roof formats are counted against the 8,878 yellow taxis on the road per day; Taxi TV is counted against riders, which is why its rates below look nothing like the per-cab figures; taxi top or Taxi TV sets the two side by side.
What four sources publish, side by side
Nothing is averaged. Each figure is quoted as its source published it, with a link and a retrieval date.
Diet Coke · Digital top · The Metropolitan Museum, Fifth Avenue · 2025
The ranges below are market-level figures compiled from publicly published vendor and industry sources. They are not quotes, and they are not the rates of any single network. Always get a written quote before budgeting. Figures below are ranges published by third-party media brokers and industry sites, retrieved on the dates shown. They are not quotes, not an offer, and not any single network’s rates. Rates move with fleet, daypart, share of voice and season.
Static taxi top
per cab, 4-week period
10x between the lowest and highest published figure
| Published figure | Publisher | Read on | Scope of the source |
|---|---|---|---|
| $300 – $500 | Blue Line Media | 2026-09-14 | New York City |
| $500 – $1,000 | Alluvit Media | 2026-09-14 | National, notes NYC pays the high end |
| $150 – $300 | DASH TWO | 2026-09-14 | National |
| $100 – $200 | OOH Today | 2026-09-14 | National |
Digital taxi top
per cab, 4-week period
6.7x between the lowest and highest published figure
| Published figure | Publisher | Read on | Scope of the source |
|---|---|---|---|
| $400 – $600 | Blue Line Media | 2026-09-14 | New York City |
| $300 – $800 | Alluvit Media | 2026-09-14 | National, notes NYC pays the high end |
| $200 – $400 | DASH TWO | 2026-09-14 | National |
| $120 – $180 | OOH Today | 2026-09-14 | National |
In-car screen
per screen
Sources agree
Trunk panel
per cab
Sources agree
Full wrap
per cab
Agreement at the ceiling, not at the floor
Published as a taxi rate, but in New York a body wrap on a yellow medallion taxi is not a standard authorized format: 35 RCNY 58-32(c) bars exterior advertising unless the Commission authorizes it. These figures describe FHV, rideshare or branded fleet vehicles unless the seller can show a TLC authorization.
Taxi TV spots
entire NYC fleet, per 4-week period
Bought as share of the whole fleet, not per cab
| Spot length | Published figure | Publisher | Read on |
|---|---|---|---|
| :15 spot | $10,000 – $30,000 | Blue Line Media | 2026-09-14 |
| :30 spot | $14,000 – $35,000 | Blue Line Media | 2026-09-14 |
| :60 spot | $18,000 – $65,000 | Blue Line Media | 2026-09-14 |
Stated minimum
$5,000 per ad format or higher, which may be spread over displays and periods, as published by Blue Line Media, read 2026-09-14. Blue Line Media adds that the minimum may be reduced in certain cases.
Four more publishers, every row with its unit and the type of business behind it, and what a budget buys out of the 8,878 cabs on the road, are on the cost page. Who actually sells the inventory is recorded separately.
The fleet number nobody sources
Reach math starts with how many cabs exist. Both figures in circulation arrive without a citation.
Swarovski · Full wrap swarm with static tops · Fifth Avenue · 2024
| Claim | Impressions per taxi per day | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 11,000 (approx.) taxis | 10,900 (approx.) impressions per taxi per day | Blue Line Media, read 2026-09-14 |
| over 13,500 taxis | Not stated | Alluvit Media, read 2026-09-14 |
| 10,196 authorized | Not published by the city | TLC licensing file, 2026-09-13, read 2026-09-14 |
Even the licensing count is not the delivery base: 8,878 yellow taxis were on the road on an average day (NYC TLC monthly indicators, May 2026), against 13,589 medallions on the books (NYC TLC 2025 Annual Report). The fleet data page reconciles the three numbers and carries the accessibility, medallion-type and vehicle-age splits behind the count.
Real campaigns, not stock cabs
Documented campaigns in New York, from an operator's archive, used with permission. Brand, format and location were each checked against the photograph.
Snapchat · 360 wrap with digital top · Times Square · 2024
Documented campaigns · every frame below is from an operator's archive, used with permission; every caption checked against the frame
12 frames · 11 brands · brand, format and location verified against the photograph
Campaign photograph from an operator’s archive, used with permission.
Reach model you can audit
Change any input. Every default is a published figure with the source named, so the arithmetic is yours to check.
Workday · Digital top · 34 St–Hudson Yards station · 2025
Frequently asked questions
- How much does it cost to advertise on a taxi in New York?
- Published third-party figures for a static taxi top run from $100 to $200 per cab (OOH Today) at the low end up to $500 to $1,000 per cab per four-week period (Alluvit Media), with Blue Line Media's New York page listing $300 to $500. Digital tops are published between $120 and $800 depending on the source. The spread is real: these are different sources measuring different markets, fleet shares and seasons, and none of them is a quote.
- How much does it cost to advertise on Taxi TV?
- Blue Line Media publishes fleetwide New York Taxi TV pricing of $10,000 to $30,000 for a :15 spot, $14,000 to $35,000 for a :30 and $18,000 to $65,000 for a :60, each per four-week period. Taxi TV is bought against the fleet, not per cab, which is why the numbers look nothing like taxi-top rates.
- Is there a minimum spend?
- Blue Line Media states a minimum purchase of $5,000 per ad format or higher, which may be spread over displays and periods. Minimums vary by operator and by format, so treat that figure as one published data point rather than a market rule.
- How many taxis are there in New York City?
- 10,196 medallion vehicles were authorized on 2026-09-13, counted from the Taxi and Limousine Commission's own authorized-vehicle file. Vendors publish 11,000 and "over 13,500"; both sit above the licensing record. For a media plan the figure to use is smaller again: 8,878 yellow taxis were on the road on an average day (NYC TLC monthly indicators, May 2026). 13,589 medallions are authorized to accept street hails (NYC TLC 2025 Annual Report, published January 2026), but a medallion is a licence, not a cab carrying an ad tonight.
- What should a New York taxi advertising proposal state in writing?
- Four numbers, each with its basis: how many vehicles will carry the creative and out of which fleet (the 8,878 yellow taxis on the road per day, NYC TLC monthly indicators, May 2026, is the honest denominator), the share of voice on a digital rotation, how impressions are counted and against which traffic data, and the per-cab, per-period price so it can be set beside the published ranges on this page. A proposal that gives a total without those four cannot be compared with anything.
What to send us
- Boroughs or corridors
- Dates or flight length
- Budget band
- The metric you will judge it by
A person replies with the published ranges for those dates and which sellers hold the inventory. This site publishes no rate card; every figure on it is a third-party published number, dated.
Send the brief
Send a brief
Dates and objective are enough. You get a straight answer on whether taxi is the right format, including when it is not.
Stripe · Digital top · Javits Center · 2025