Gate Board or Newspaper Insert for One Colony? The 2026 Cost per Home

For one colony of independent houses, a no-parking gate board is usually the cheaper way to reach each home, even though one board costs 36 times what one newspaper insert does. The reason is the minimum order, not the unit price. Our published card prices an A5 insert at Rs.1.25 and a gate board at Rs.45, but an insert run starts at 50,000 copies, which is Rs.62,500 a drop before GST, and a single colony receives only a slice of those copies. On our arithmetic, one A5 drop beats the board per colony home only when about 1,390 or more of its 50,000 copies land inside the colony you care about. Below that, the board's one-time Rs.45 costs less than even one insert drop. This comparison works both published cards against the same catchment, says where each format wins, and lists what neither card publishes, starting with any response rate.

What is the smallest plan you can book in each format?

Both formats are sold with a floor, and the floor decides this comparison more than the unit rate does. Gate boards are 1ft by 1.5ft Sunpack sheets fixed to house gates, society gates and compound walls with the owner's or society's consent. Our city pages publish the rate as Rs.45 a board for 1,000 to 4,999 boards and Rs.35 from 5,000, with a 1,000-board minimum. The rate covers the board, printing, transport, permission and installation, with no monthly rental, and GST is added. Newspaper inserts are priced per copy and ride the morning paper into subscribing homes. The minimum is 50,000 copies in any of the three formats, with a lower rate above 50,000, and design is Rs.2,000 per creative.

Put side by side, the entry tickets are not far apart: Rs.45,000 for the smallest board plan against Rs.62,500 for the smallest A5 run. What they buy is very different. The board plan buys 1,000 gates that you choose, each one mapped and photographed. The insert run buys 50,000 copies spread across the subscriber zones and pin codes you pick, delivered once.

Where do the copies of a 50,000 insert run actually land?

An insert run is targeted by newspaper, edition and subscriber zone, and our insertion page says the run can be split across specific zones and pin codes inside the minimum. It cannot be squeezed into one colony, because a colony only holds as many copies as its homes take of the chosen paper. For scale, our Chennai insertion page publishes 3 to 4 lakh homes reached by the city's dailies each morning, so a 50,000 minimum is 12.5 to 16.7 percent of the whole city in one run. A single colony is a much smaller slice than that. Whatever share of the run lands outside your catchment is still billed.

That is the whole comparison in one line: the insert's low unit price applies to the full run, while the value you care about is only the part of the run inside your colony. So the fair unit is the cost per colony home, which is the run cost divided by the copies that land in the colony. The board needs no such adjustment, because every board you buy is on a gate you picked.

How many newspaper inserts does one gate board cost?

Taken at face value, one Rs.45 board buys 36 A5 inserts at Rs.1.25, 26.5 A4 inserts at Rs.1.70 or 20.5 A2 inserts at Rs.2.20. At the bulk board rate of Rs.35 the figures are 28, 20.6 and 15.9. Those ratios are the ones people quote, and they are only true when the whole run lands where you want it. Apply the same logic to the run minimum and you get the break-even line for one colony, which is the run cost divided by the board rate.

Repeat drops move the line further. The board is paid once, while every insert drop is a new Rs.62,500 invoice at the A5 minimum. If you plan three drops into the same colony, the insert needs about 4,170 colony copies a drop to match a Rs.45 board. The board's lifespan is not published as a fixed number of months, because it depends on the printing method and local weather, so we do not divide its cost by months here.

Worked example: what does one colony of 1,200 houses cost in each format?

Take a layout of 1,200 independent houses, one gate each, which is our illustration rather than a real client. A board on every consenting gate is 1,200 boards at Rs.45, which is Rs.54,000 before GST, Rs.63,720 with it. The field team needs each owner's consent, and the page publishes no acceptance rate, so treat 1,200 as the ceiling and budget for fewer.

For the insert, assume the best case: every one of the 1,200 homes takes the paper you choose. One A5 drop still bills 50,000 copies at Rs.62,500, and 48,800 of those copies land outside the layout. Per layout home that is Rs.52.08 for one morning, already more than the board's Rs.45 one-time price. If only half the homes take that paper, it is Rs.104.17 per reached home. The insert becomes the better buy only if the other 48,800 copies are also useful to you, which means your real catchment is a zone, not a colony. In A4 the same drop is Rs.85,000, or Rs.70.83 per layout home.

When does the gate board win?

The board wins when the catchment is small, gated house by house, and the message is standing rather than dated. A clinic address, a school's admission line, a home-services number and a new store's location all stay true for months, and a board keeps them on the gate every day. It also wins when you need proof by address: each board comes with a geo-tagged installation photo, so you can check the plan gate by gate. And it wins on repeat exposure, because the cost does not recur. Our earlier post on the Rs.45 and Rs.35 slabs shows when crossing 5,000 boards pays, which matters once the plan grows past one colony.

When does the newspaper insert win?

The insert wins when the catchment is a zone of several colonies, when the message has a date, and when the homes sit in apartment towers. A weekend sale, an admission deadline or a launch day needs to arrive on one morning, and the insert lands in the reader's hand on the date you book. Setup is 7 to 10 business days from final design and locations, or 3 to 5 days when artwork is ready. Apartment belts also favour the insert. A tower of 200 flats may sit behind one society gate, so a 1,000-board minimum would have to spread across many societies, while an insert run reaches each subscribing flat individually. The copy can also carry a coupon or QR code, which is the cleanest way to measure a response.

What does neither card publish?

We publish no response rate, lead rate or recall figure for either format, so this post compares cost per home reached and nothing more. The board pages publish no lifespan in months and no installation timeline in days beyond design and printing in a few days followed by phased, permission-led installation. The insertion page publishes no figure for how many copies any one colony receives, and no subscriber share by pin code. Before booking an insert for a colony, ask for the zone split of the run in writing. Before booking boards, ask how many gates in your map the field team expects to secure.

Which should you pick for one colony?

Our recommendation, stated plainly: for a colony of independent houses with a standing message, book the gate boards. The Rs.45,000 minimum buys 1,000 gates you choose, and on our arithmetic the insert only catches up when well over a thousand copies of each drop land in the colony. For a dated offer across a zone of several colonies, or for apartment towers, book the insert and ask for the zone split. If you want both, book the insert for the date and the boards for the months around it, and check the combined landed cost on our GST totals guide before approving.

Running both at their minimums costs Rs.1,07,500 before GST, Rs.45,000 for 1,000 boards and Rs.62,500 for one A5 drop, plus Rs.2,000 for the insert design. With 18 percent GST on the media it is Rs.1,26,850. That pairing only makes sense when the insert's zone genuinely contains your colony and its neighbours, because the insert then earns its 50,000 copies while the boards hold the colony itself. Sequence matters as well: start the boards first, since installation is phased and waits on each owner's consent, and book the insert for the date the offer starts, counting 7 to 10 business days of setup back from it.

Colony decision checklist: seven questions before you book

1. Are the homes independent houses with their own gates, or flats behind one society gate? 2. Can your plan honestly reach 1,000 consenting gates? 3. How many copies of the chosen paper land inside your catchment, and have you seen that zone split in writing? 4. Is the message dated or standing? 5. How many times must the same home see it in the next six months? 6. Do you need proof by address or proof by edition? 7. Are the copies that fall outside your colony still useful to you?

Frequently asked questions