Yard sign buying guide

Coroplast vs aluminum

Most yard signs are printed on coroplast — lightweight corrugated plastic that is inexpensive, weather-resistant, and easy to stake. It is the right call for short-to-medium campaigns: open houses, elections, garage sales, and event directions. Aluminum costs more but lasts for years and looks more permanent, which makes it a better fit for parking, directional, and on-premise signage that stays up season after season. If you want something that mounts to a post or wall long term, look at our rigid signs instead.

Sizes that work

The classic 18x24 inch sign is the workhorse for lawns and boulevards — big enough to read from the sidewalk or a slow-moving car. Step up to 24x36 inches when the sign sits farther from the road or needs to compete with other signage. Smaller 12x18 inch signs suit directional arrows and yard-by-yard event wayfinding. When in doubt, bigger reads better from a distance.

Single vs double-sided

If traffic only passes one way or the sign backs up to a building, single-sided is fine and cheaper. If people approach from both directions — a corner lot, a two-way street, a path through an event — pay for double-sided so the message reads either way. It roughly doubles the print but it is usually worth it for visibility.

H-stakes vs frames

• Wire H-stakes

  The standard for coroplast. Cheap, push right into soft ground, and easy to relocate — ideal for temporary campaigns.

• Metal frames

  Sturdier and more professional-looking for real estate riders and longer placements. Hold up better in wind and frost-heaved Minnesota soil.

• A-frames

  For sidewalks, entrances, and hard surfaces where you cannot stake, a freestanding A-frame sign is the better tool.

Design tips for readability

A yard sign has a second or two to land. Keep it to one clear message, big bold type, and high contrast — dark text on a light field or the reverse. Limit yourself to a couple of colors, leave generous white space, and put the single most important line (a phone number, a date, an arrow) where the eye lands first. Resist the urge to cram. If you want it built to read at a glance, our graphic design team can lay it out for you.

Durability and uses

Coroplast handles a Minnesota summer and a fair bit of winter, though sun and repeated freeze-thaw eventually dull any sign — plan to refresh long-running placements. Real estate, political campaigns, contractors, churches, and event organizers all lean on yard signs because they are low-cost and quick to deploy in volume. Ready to order a batch? See yard signs or request a quote.

Yard sign ordering checklist: quantity, timing, and artwork

Start by counting real locations - the intersections, lawns, and job sites where a sign will actually stand - then add 10 to 15 percent for spares. Signs get mowed over, borrowed, and blown into ditches, and a handful of extras costs far less per piece than a second small print run later. Quantity price breaks reward ordering once.

Work backwards from the day the signs need to be in the ground. Allow time for design, a proof you actually review, production, and delivery - for most orders that means planning at least a week or two ahead rather than a couple of days. Timelines vary with quantity and season, so if your date is tight, ask before you assume.

On artwork, supply a vector logo if you have one, keep text inside the safe area, and double-check the phone number before approving the proof - a wrong digit is the most painful mistake a sign can carry. If you only have a rough idea, we design yard signs from scratch here in Buffalo and send a proof before anything goes to print.

Common yard sign mistakes (and easy fixes)

The most common mistake is type that reads fine on a screen and disappears at the curb. As a rule of thumb, every 1 inch of letter height buys roughly 10 feet of comfortable reading distance, so a phone number set in 1-inch type is invisible to passing traffic. Run your main line through our letter height calculator before you approve a proof.

Another frequent miss: forgetting that stakes are usually a separate line item, or ending up with signs whose corrugated flutes run the wrong way. Wire H-stakes slide into the channels inside the coroplast, so the flutes need to run vertically. We set this up correctly by default, but it is worth checking if you are comparing quotes from different shops.

We also see weak color contrast - yellow on white, or busy photo backgrounds behind text - and orders sized to the exact number of locations with zero spares. Both are cheap to fix at order time and annoying to fix afterward. When in doubt, simplify the layout and pad the count.

What yard signs typically cost

Pricing moves with three levers: quantity, size, and sides. At small quantities, an 18x24 coroplast sign often lands somewhere in the low-to-mid teens each; by the time you reach 50 to 100 signs, the per-unit price typically falls to a fraction of that. Double-sided printing and larger sizes push the number up, and stakes add a little more per sign.

Treat that as a ballpark, not a menu. The useful takeaway is that quantity is the biggest lever: stepping an order up from 25 to 50 signs usually raises the total far less than you would expect, because the unit cost keeps dropping. That is why it pays to order for the whole season instead of one job at a time.

Material costs and specs vary enough that the honest answer is always a real quote. For a firm number on your exact size, quantity, and artwork, request a free quote - no cost, no commitment, and you will know exactly what your batch runs before anything prints.

Minnesota placement rules and seasonal timing

Placement rules trip up more buyers than material choices do. Signs placed in the public road right-of-way - the strip between the pavement and private property - are routinely pulled by county and city crews, and signs on utility poles are generally prohibited. Keep signs on private property with the owner's permission, and check your city's ordinance for any size or duration limits.

Campaign signs run on their own calendar. Minnesota law sets specific windows for when political yard signs may go up and when they must come down, and cities enforce their own rules outside that window. If you are running or supporting a campaign, read our guide to Minnesota political sign rules before you print a single sign.

Finally, respect the frost. Wire stakes will not push into frozen ground, so fall placements should be in before the hard freeze - often sometime in November around Buffalo, though it varies year to year. If you need curbside messaging on frozen or paved ground midwinter, a weighted A-frame carries the message until the ground thaws.