Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2026-09-28 Origin: Site
Last month a client sent us two quotes for the same 50-cabinet order — $45,000 from us, $62,000 from another supplier they were also talking to. His first question was simple: why is one so much higher? It turned out neither number told the full story. The cheaper-looking quote was missing power supplies and flight cases; the pricier one had them built in.
This happens constantly in the rental LED business, and it's rarely because someone's trying to pull a fast one. It's because "quote" doesn't mean the same thing from one supplier to the next. Below is how we'd walk a buyer through comparing two quotes properly — the same way we'd want someone comparing our own quote against a competitor's.
If you're still working out the basics of how rental LED display pricing works in the first place, our complete guide to rental LED displays covers indoor and outdoor options, pricing, and setup from the ground up.
Before you even get to the numbers, it helps to know why they rarely match up in the first place.
Some suppliers quote bare cabinets and stop there. Others build a full turnkey package into the same page — power supplies, structure, spare parts, the works. Order size matters too; pricing per cabinet usually shifts once you cross certain volume thresholds, and not every supplier discloses where those thresholds sit. Then there's shipping. FOB, CIF, and DDP move very different chunks of cost onto the buyer's side of the ledger, and a quote that doesn't specify which one it's using isn't really finished yet. Warranty length varies too — a one-year warranty and a three-year warranty attached to the same cabinet price aren't the same offer, even if the top-line number matches. And lead time can swing a price on its own; a faster production slot sometimes costs more, and a "cheap" quote that can't ship in time isn't useful to anyone.
None of this means a supplier is trying to hide something. It usually just means nobody's asked the follow-up questions yet.
Whatever a quote actually contains, this is roughly the list you should be able to check it against:
Quote Item | What You Should Check |
|---|---|
LED Cabinets | Pixel pitch, quantity, cabinet size |
Control System | Processor, sending/receiving cards |
Power Supplies | Included per cabinet or sold separately? |
Flight Cases | Included? Standard or custom-fit? |
Spare Parts | Modules, power supplies, receiving cards included? |
Cables & Connectors | Included or quoted separately? |
Shipping Terms | FOB, CIF, or DDP? |
Warranty | Coverage period and what it includes |
Lead Time | Production and shipping timeline |
Technical Support | Remote commissioning support included? |
Taxes / Duties | Included or buyer's responsibility? |
A lot of quotes we see only cover the first two or three rows. That's not necessarily a red flag on its own — it just means the buyer needs to ask about the rest before comparing anything.
The figures below are illustrative only — not an actual project quote.
Take a 50-cabinet order. One supplier quotes "$700/cabinet = $35,000." Another quotes "Complete 50-cabinet rental package = $45,000." At a glance, the first one wins.
Break both down, though, and it looks different:
Item | Quote A | Quote B |
|---|---|---|
LED cabinets (50 units) | $35,000 | $32,000 |
Power supplies | — | $3,500 |
Flight cases | — | $4,000 |
Control system | $2,000 | Included |
Spare parts (5%) | — | $2,000 |
Shipping (FOB vs. DDP) | $5,000 | Included |
Estimated delivered cost | $42,000 | $41,500 |
Once everything's on the table, Quote A actually ends up slightly more expensive.
This is a simplified example — your real landed cost also depends on your Incoterms, destination, freight rates, insurance, customs duties, import taxes, and local delivery charges, which is why we built a separate landed cost calculator for working that out on a real order. But the point stands either way: the lowest per-cabinet number on a quote isn't automatically the lowest amount you'll actually pay. That's not an argument for always picking the bundled package, either — it's an argument for comparing at the full delivered-cost level before deciding anything.
A few things worth checking before you even get to totals:
Start with the cabinet spec itself — pixel pitch, cabinet size, brightness, refresh rate, indoor or outdoor rating. A quote built around a coarser pixel pitch will come in lower almost every time, but that's a different product, not a discount. (Our guide to choosing the right pixel pitch covers how this trade-off plays out in practice.)
Check that the order quantity actually matches. Fifty cabinets and a hundred cabinets shouldn't be compared on total price — normalize to a per-cabinet number first, and ask whether either quote already reflects a volume tier.
Shipping terms deserve their own look. FOB means you're arranging freight and clearing customs yourself; DDP means the supplier delivers to your door with duties handled. A quote that looks cheaper under FOB can end up costing more once you add freight and customs on your end.
Incoterm | Buyer Usually Handles |
|---|---|
FOB | Main freight, import clearance, duties/taxes |
CIF | Import clearance, duties/taxes, destination charges |
DDP | Usually delivered with import duties/taxes handled by seller |
Actual responsibilities still come down to the contract and the agreed Incoterms, so treat the table above as a starting point rather than a guarantee. (Our tariffs and HS codes guide goes deeper into how customs and duties affect the final number.)
Beyond that: confirm whether power supplies and control systems are in the price or billed separately — leaving them out is the easiest way to make a bare-cabinet quote look cheaper than it is. Ask whether spare parts are included in the initial order; most experienced buyers order a percentage of spare modules and power supplies upfront rather than scrambling for them later. And check the warranty and lead time — a shorter warranty or a faster turnaround can both hide real cost, one in future repairs, the other in a premium you didn't notice.
Payment terms won't show up as a line item on the quote itself, but they're still worth asking about. Deposit percentage and when the balance is due don't change the quoted number, but they do affect your cash flow — it's a separate conversation from price, not part of it.
A handful of other patterns are worth a second look before you sign anything. If a quote just says "LED cabinet price" with no pixel pitch, cabinet size, or indoor/outdoor rating attached, there's nothing to actually compare yet. If power supplies and control systems aren't mentioned at all, assume they're billed separately until confirmed otherwise. And if a headline price looks unusually low while several line items are marked "not included" or "to be quoted," it's worth asking for the fully itemized version before putting it next to any other offer.
If you're evaluating more than one supplier, this is the template we'd suggest filling in side by side:
Item | Supplier A | Supplier B | Supplier C |
|---|---|---|---|
Cabinet quantity | |||
Pixel pitch | |||
Cabinet size | |||
Power supplies | |||
Control system | |||
Flight cases | |||
Spare parts | |||
Shipping terms | |||
Warranty period | |||
Lead time | |||
Total delivered cost |
It works the same way whether you're buying for trade show and corporate event work or building out an outdoor rental fleet for stadiums and touring — the line items don't really change based on where the screen ends up.
Once quotes are actually in front of you, these are the questions worth asking outright:
What exactly is included in the per-cabinet or per-package price?
Are power supplies and control systems included?
Are flight cases included?
What are the shipping terms — FOB, CIF, or DDP?
What's covered under warranty, and for how long?
Are spare parts part of the initial order, or ordered separately later?
What's the production lead time?
What are the payment terms?
Is there anything else likely to show up as an additional charge?
If you're still deciding between renting equipment for events versus buying for a permanent installation, our fixed vs. rental LED display comparison walks through how that decision usually plays out. And if you want a closer look at how indoor and outdoor rental specs differ — and why that shows up in price — see our guide to outdoor rental LED display specifications.
The fastest way to get quotes you can actually put side by side is to give every supplier the same starting information: cabinet quantity, pixel pitch, indoor or outdoor use, and your target delivery date. That's usually enough for a supplier to give you a real itemized number instead of a cabinet-only price that leaves half the project cost for later.
Want an itemized quote from us? Send over your cabinet quantity, pixel pitch, indoor/outdoor application, and target delivery date, and we'll put together a line-by-line quotation you can compare directly against anyone else's.