Kept seeing wildly different figures thrown around for how big the sign business is, so I compiled the sourced ones in one place — US and Canada both.
The headlines:
- US billboard & sign manufacturing: about $16.4B for 2026 (IBISWorld)
- 5,687 US sign businesses, 65,266 people working in them (Census, NAICS 339950)
- Average US shop-floor wage: $30.02/hr (BLS)
- Canada: $1.7B in shipments; the average Canadian sign business books about $664K/yr — and 73% are profitable (ISED)
- And the FedEx study everyone half-remembers: 76% of consumers have entered a store they'd never visited because of its sign
Full list with every source linked: https://printerflo.com/guides/sign-industry-statistics/
The one that surprised me: the average Canadian shop at ~$664K/yr, against ~$2.8M per US establishment — though that US number is a mean, dragged up by the big fabricators.
Do these square with what you see on the ground? Anything you'd challenge?