Advertising Rate Transparency Index
How much of the world's advertising inventory has a public price? This page answers that with counts, not estimates. Every figure is read from the live Media.co.uk catalogue, where each placement either publishes a rate or is marked available on enquiry by the media owner.
Headline findings
- Roughly half of all live placements publish a rate. Across the 34 markets with meaningful inventory, 2129 of 4338 placements (49%) show a price without an enquiry.
- Transparency does not track market size or wealth. Romania, the Philippines, Brazil, Croatia, Malaysia and Pakistan publish a rate on every live placement. Several established markets publish on none.
- Out-of-home is the least transparent medium, because owners price per site and per availability window. Radio and press publish far more consistently.
- The pattern buyers assume is often reversed. Cheaper markets to enter are frequently the most open about pricing, while some of the most expensive are the most private.
Rate transparency by market
Markets with at least 10 live placements, ranked by the share that publish a rate. Country names link to that market's live inventory.
| Market | Live placements | Publishing a rate | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Romania | 127 | 127 | 100% |
| Philippines | 117 | 117 | 100% |
| Brazil | 57 | 57 | 100% |
| Croatia | 49 | 49 | 100% |
| Malaysia | 29 | 29 | 100% |
| Pakistan | 17 | 17 | 100% |
| Albania | 11 | 11 | 100% |
| Portugal | 86 | 85 | 99% |
| India | 205 | 198 | 97% |
| Belgium | 21 | 20 | 95% |
| Spain | 18 | 17 | 94% |
| Bulgaria | 663 | 560 | 84% |
| Bangladesh | 50 | 42 | 84% |
| South Africa | 544 | 448 | 82% |
| Qatar | 42 | 32 | 76% |
| United Kingdom | 25 | 17 | 68% |
| United Arab Emirates | 249 | 92 | 37% |
| Indonesia | 103 | 37 | 36% |
| Australia | 10 | 3 | 30% |
| Austria | 445 | 109 | 24% |
| United States | 83 | 17 | 20% |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 55 | 10 | 18% |
| Morocco | 11 | 2 | 18% |
| Singapore | 76 | 12 | 16% |
| Saudi Arabia | 313 | 17 | 5% |
| Kuwait | 117 | 4 | 3% |
| Vietnam | 533 | 0 | 0% |
| Jordan | 105 | 0 | 0% |
| Georgia | 75 | 0 | 0% |
| Czechia | 29 | 0 | 0% |
| Cyprus | 27 | 0 | 0% |
| Algeria | 17 | 0 | 0% |
| Slovakia | 15 | 0 | 0% |
| Lebanon | 14 | 0 | 0% |
Methodology
Counts are taken from live, published inventory on Media.co.uk at the date shown below. A placement counts as publishing a rate when a buyer can see a price on the placement page without contacting anyone. It counts as enquiry-priced when the media owner has chosen to share the rate on request. Markets with fewer than 10 live placements are excluded because small samples produce misleading percentages. Figures move as inventory is added, so the page is regenerated rather than frozen.
Entry-level rates per medium, normalised to a common unit and converted to USD, are published separately in the Global Advertising Rate Index. We deliberately do not publish a single minimum price per market on this page: placements are sold on different units, from a two-week billboard flight to a per-tray train panel, and a single headline minimum would mislead.
Using this data
Journalists and analysts are welcome to cite these figures. Please cite as: Media.co.uk Advertising Rate Transparency Index, with a link to this page. For the underlying market-by-market table, a specific market cut, or a comment attributable to Media.co.uk, write to hello@media.co.uk.
Related public data: the Global Advertising Rate Index (entry rates by medium and market) and city-level billboard inventory such as Riyadh, Dubai and Sofia.