Digital Signage Buyer’s Guide: What to Evaluate Before You Choose a Platform 

Summary 
Choosing or replacing a digital signage platform (CMS) involves more than comparing feature lists. This guide covers the 7 key criteria that determine whether a platform holds up over time. It includes a numbered evaluation checklist, questions to ask during vendor demos, and common mistakes to avoid, whether you’re deploying digital signage for the first time or replacing an aging system. 

Most people reading this are in one of two situations: buying digital signage for the first time and unsure what to ask, or stuck with a platform that has quietly stopped keeping up. Either way, the decision comes down to seven things: security and IT requirements, integrations, governance, scalability, support, measurement, and pricing. 

Everything else, templates, design tools, screen animations, matters less once your network is live and your team is managing it every day. This guide gives you a practical checklist to evaluate any platform against, along with the specific questions worth asking before you sign a contract. 

The stakes are higher than they look: in 2025, digital menu boards at nearly 300 restaurant locations in Canada were hacked and used to display unauthorized messages, a reminder that every screen on your network is a connected device on your network. 

Why This Decision Is Harder Than It Used to Be 

Digital signage used to be a marketing purchase. Pick a vendor, load some templates, and hang a screen in the lobby, and you’re done! That has changed. As digital signage networks have grown to include real time data, employee communications, wayfinding, and integrations with core business systems like HR platforms, room booking tools, and CRMs, the buying decision now looks more like an enterprise IT purchase than a design one. IT and security teams are involved earlier, procurement cycles are longer, and the questions being asked have shifted from “how does it look” to “how does it hold up.” 

The INVIDIS Yearbook series, which tracks the digital signage industry each year, describes this shift directly. The industry has moved from a discretionary marketing gadget to business-critical infrastructure, where scalability, resilience, and governance now matter as much as creativity and content. That framing holds whether you are setting up your first network or replacing a platform that is five years old. The bar for what counts as a serious platform has simply moved. 

Signs It’s Time to Replace or Upgrade Your Platform 

Not everyone reading this is starting from scratch. Plenty of digital signage buyers are here because their current platform has stopped keeping up, whether that means a vendor consolidation, a security gap, or a system that was never built for the scale the organization needs today. If any of the following sound familiar, it is probably time for a platform evaluation. 

• Your vendor has announced an end of life or sunset date for the product, or has been acquired and gone quiet on the roadmap 

• Support tickets take days to get a response, or there is no dedicated support contact at all 

• Updating content means exporting a file, logging into a separate system, and manually pushing it to each screen one at a time 

• There is no API or data integration, so screens cannot pull live information from the systems your team already relies on 

• A recent security review flagged gaps in access control, encryption, or data handling 

• Screens go dark or freeze during outages, with no fallback content to keep the network functional 

If you are evaluating digital signage for the first time, these same criteria still apply. They are just easier to get right before you have a live network, a trained team, and a year of content depending on them. And if you are replacing a platform, do not assume the switch has to mean starting from zero. Most of what slows a migration down is uncertainty about what can be reused, not the actual technical work, which is exactly what the checklist below is built to surface early. 

The Digital Signage Platform Evaluation Checklist 

The seven categories below cover what separates a platform built to last from one you will likely be replacing again in a few years. Use this as a working checklist during demos, RFPs, and reference calls. Ask each question directly, and ask for proof rather than a yes, since a confident answer in a sales call is not the same as a documented capability. 

1. Security and IT Requirements: Will It Pass IT Review? 

Digital signage screens are networked devices, and networked devices are targets. AVIXA’s security guidance for digital signage points to a real world example worth keeping in mind during any evaluation. In 2025, digital menu boards at nearly 300 restaurant locations in Canada were hacked and used to display unauthorized messages, a reminder that any connected screen is a potential entry point if it is not properly secured. AVIXA frames signage security as a layered problem spanning the network, the devices, the software, and the content itself, and a serious vendor should be able to speak to all four. 

Questions to ask: 

1. Is content and data encrypted in transit and at rest? 

2. Can we set roles so a content creator cannot change system settings or permissions? 

3. Do you have an independent security audit, such as SOC 2 Type II, that we can review? 

4. How often do you patch the CMS, player software, and device firmware? 

5. Can we require approval before anything goes live on a public or employee screen? 

6. How much bandwidth does each screen need, and what plays if the network drops? 

7. Can you give us your firewall, port, and outbound URL requirements in writing? 

8. Does the platform support single sign on through our identity provider, using SAML or OIDC? 

9. How do we provision and manage devices at scale, including remote reboot and offline alerts? 

2. Integrations: Can It Connect to Your Existing Systems? 

A platform that cannot connect to the systems you already use becomes a second, disconnected tool your team has to maintain by hand. This matters even more for organizations replacing a legacy platform, since older systems were often built before teams depended on live dashboards, room booking data, or CRM feeds the way they do now. The specific integrations that matter will differ by industry: a manufacturing floor might need safety and production data, a retail bank might need compliance and rate updates, and a corporate office might lean on SharePoint, Teams, and Power BI. 

Questions to ask: 

1. Do you have native connectors for the systems we use today, or is each one custom work? 

2. Is the API documented, and are there rate limits that affect how often content updates? 

3. Does data refresh in real time, or is it cached or delayed? 

4. Can our team add a new integration ourselves, or does it need a support ticket? 

See This Checklist Applied 
Curious how a real platform stacks up against the security and integrations criteria above?  

See how Korbyt’s platform holds up. Talk to an Expert 

3. Content Governance: Who Can Publish What, and Where? 

As signage networks scale across locations, departments, and time zones, someone has to own who can publish what, and where. Without clear governance, brand inconsistency and unauthorized content creep in fast, especially once more than a handful of people have access to the system. invidis’s coverage of managed services in the digital signage industry puts it plainly: governance structures, including role based access, clearly defined permissions, and audit logs, are just as important as the technical infrastructure protecting the network itself. 

Questions to ask: 

1. Can roles and permissions match how our organization actually works? 

2. Does the platform support multi step approval for sensitive or public facing screens? 

3. Can we lock brand templates so non designers cannot break layouts? 

4. Do audit logs show who published what, and when? 

5. Can local teams manage their own screens while we keep central oversight? 

4. Scalability: Does It Still Work at 1000 Endpoints? 

The platform that works well for 100 endpoints should still work well at 1000, without a re-platforming project in between. Scalability problems rarely show up in a demo. They show up six months in, when a second location goes live and the platform cannot keep up, or when a pricing model that looked reasonable at a small scale becomes unpredictable at a larger one. 

Questions to ask: 

1. Can we add endpoints and locations without performance dropping? 

2. Does the platform run on multiple hardware types, or are we locked into your player? 

3. How does pricing change as we grow, per endpoint, per location, or enterprise licensing? 

4. Can we reuse the hardware we already have if we migrate from another platform? 

5. Vendor Support and Migration: What Happens When It Breaks? 

A platform is only as reliable as the team behind it when something breaks, and something will eventually break. This is often the category first time buyers underweight and replacement buyers may overvalue, usually because they have already lived through a bad support experience once. The gap between a vendor’s support page and what happens on an actual 2 a.m. outage call is one of the hardest things to evaluate in a demo, which is why reference calls with current customers matter more here than almost anywhere else in the process. 

Questions to ask: 

1. What are your SLA terms in writing? 

2. Is live support available, and what hours does it cover? 

3. What migration and onboarding help do we get, and who is our point of contact? 

4. Can we see your uptime track record? 

5. What happens to our data and content if you are acquired or discontinue the product? 

6. Measurement and Reporting: How Will You Prove It Worked? 

Most signage programs are never measured, which is why so many of them stall at renewal. Screens go up, content gets published, and a year later nobody can say what changed. Decide what you need to measure before you buy, because a platform can only report on what it was built to track. 

There are two layers here, and vendors tend to blur them. The first is platform telemetry: what actually played, on which screen, for how long, which players went offline, and who published what. That is squarely the vendor’s job, and any serious platform should hand it over without an upgrade. The second is business impact: whether the safety message reduced incidents, whether the enrollment reminder lifted completion rates, whether the promotion moved units. No signage platform measures that on its own, so the real question is whether its data can flow into the systems that do.  

Questions to ask: 

1. Does proof of play reporting show what actually played on each screen, not just what was scheduled? 

2. Do we get screen health and uptime dashboards with alerts when a player goes offline? 

3. Can we track engagement such as touches, QR scans, or dwell time, and does that need an integration? 

4. Can reporting be exported or pushed into the BI tool we already use? 

5. Can local managers pull reports for their own locations without going through a central admin? 

7. Pricing Models: What Are You Actually Paying For? 

Digital signage isn’t priced one way, which makes quotes hard to compare. Almost all of it is priced by endpoint: each licensed device the platform manages, whether a display, a separate media player, or a screen with the software built in. Four models dominate. Per endpoint subscription charges monthly or annually for every connected endpoint. Volume tiered pricing does the same but lowers the rate as your count grows. Flat rate bundles cover a set number of endpoints, with overage charges beyond it. Perpetual on premise licensing charges once per endpoint up front, plus annual maintenance. Each behaves differently at scale, so model every quote at your target endpoint count, not your starting one. 

The model is only half the question. The other half is what the price includes, and that’s where quotes diverge most. Entry tiers usually cover scheduling and templates, while the capabilities that put a vendor on your shortlist, live data feeds, single sign on, audit logs, API access, and advanced reporting, sit a tier or two up. Professional services are separate again. Ask every vendor the same questions so the answers compare. 

Questions to ask: 

1. Which features are included in the tier you quoted, and which need an upgrade? 

2. Are the integrations we need covered by the license, sold as add ons, or custom work? 

3. What does onboarding cover, and when does the work become billable professional services? 

4. What happens at renewal, including any cap on increases and the rate for endpoints added mid term? 

5. What is the three year total for each vendor, not just year one? 

Digital Signage Platform Comparison Checklist at a Glance 

Criterion	What to Verify	Red Flag
Security	SOC 2 Type II audit, encryption in transit and at rest, role based access control, documented patch cadence	Self reported security claims with no third party audit
Integrations	Native connectors for your systems, documented API, real time data refresh	Every integration quoted as custom development work
Governance	Granular roles and permissions, multi step approval chains, audit logs, template locking	A single generic admin and viewer permission split
Scalability	Performance at 10x your endpoint count, hardware flexibility, predictable pricing model	Proprietary media player lock in or opaque pricing tiers
Support	Written SLA terms, live support hours, named migration contact, uptime track record	Ticket only queues and a vague promise of priority support
Measurement	Proof of play reporting, screen health and uptime alerting, exportable data	Scheduling logs presented as proof the content actually played
Pricing	Line item quote, tier inclusions in writing, professional services scoped, three year total	A single bundled number with no breakdown of what is included

Questions to Ask During Demos and RFPs 

Digital Signage Today’s long standing advice to first time buyers still holds up well: do not be dazzled by features you will not use, and keep asking follow up questions until a vague answer becomes obvious. A demo is a controlled environment, so the goal is to ask questions specific enough that a vendor cannot answer them with a practiced line. A few worth adding to that list for a 2026 evaluation: 

• Can you show us the audit log for a recent content change, live, in this demo? 

• What is your patch and update cadence, and can we see the last three release notes? 

• If we needed to pull data from a system we actually use, is that a native integration or custom work on your end? 

• What does onboarding look like in week one versus month three? 

• Who is our point of contact if a screen network goes down after hours or on a weekend? 

• What happens to our content, data, and screens if we ever decide to leave the platform? 

These questions apply equally to a first vendor conversation and a renewal negotiation with your current provider. If a vendor cannot answer one clearly in a live demo, that is worth noting on its own. 

Common Mistakes Teams Make When Choosing a Platform 

A few patterns show up repeatedly in platform evaluations that go wrong, regardless of company size or industry. Most are avoidable simply by knowing to watch for them. 

• Choosing on design alone. A polished demo does not tell you how the platform performs at scale, under IT scrutiny, or six months after launch when the excitement has worn off. 

• Leaving IT and security out of early conversations. Bringing them in after you have already picked a favorite creates rework, delays, and sometimes a restart of the entire evaluation. 

• Underestimating migration effort. Content, integrations, hardware audits, and user training all take longer than a sales deck suggests, especially for larger networks. 

• Focusing on price per endpoint instead of total cost. Support tiers, integration work, and hardware compatibility all affect the real cost of ownership, often more than the sticker price of the software itself. 

How Korbyt Approaches These Criteria 

Once you have used the checklist above to evaluate a shortlist of vendors, it is worth seeing how each one holds up in practice rather than on paper. Here is where our own platform lands against the same criteria, for context as you compare. 

Korbyt is not the only platform that can meet this checklist, but since this is where our team spends its time, here is how it holds up against it. Korbyt Anywhere is SOC 2 Type II compliant, with role based access controls and content approval workflows built into the platform rather than bolted on. It natively supports more than 200 enterprise data and workplace integrations, including Microsoft SharePoint, Power BI, Teams, and Salesforce, so most organizations do not need custom development to connect the systems they already run on. The platform is hardware agnostic, running on Windows, Android, BrightSign, and SoC displays, which matters most for teams migrating off an older system without wanting to replace every screen in the network. Support includes a dedicated onboarding specialist for the first 90 days of any migration and a 24/7 mission critical support option for teams that cannot afford downtime. 

Conclusion 

The right digital signage platform is the one that holds up against all seven criteria, not just the one with the best demo or the lowest price per endpoint. Whether you are deploying your first network or replacing a system that is no longer keeping up, use this checklist as a working document throughout your evaluation. Bring it into vendor calls, share it with IT and security early, and do not sign anything until every box is checked. The platforms that pass this kind of scrutiny tend to be the ones still doing the job well several years from now, which is the whole point of going through it up front. 

Ready to See It in Action? 
Bring your checklist to the conversation and see how Korbyt’s platform holds up, feature by feature. 

FAQ

Answers to common questions about switching, deploying, and managing digital signage platforms.

How long does it typically take to switch digital signage platforms? +

It depends on network size and complexity, but enterprise scale migrations are commonly completed in under 90 days when a vendor uses a staged, parallel rollout rather than a hard cutover. A parallel approach lets your current platform keep running while the new one is built, tested, and populated, so screens stay live throughout the transition.

Do we need to replace our screens and media players when we switch platforms? +

Not necessarily. Platforms that support multiple hardware types, including Windows, Android, and BrightSign players, typically let you reuse existing hardware and reduce the cost of a migration substantially. New hardware is usually only needed where a device is outdated or unsupported.

What’s the difference between a digital signage CMS and the software itself? +

They are generally the same thing. CMS, or content management system, is the technical term for the software you use to upload content, build playlists, and schedule what appears on each screen. Software is the more common marketing term for the same product.

Should we choose cloud based or on premise digital signage? +

Cloud based platforms are the default choice for most organizations today because they simplify scaling, remote management, and software updates across every location. On premise deployments still make sense for organizations with strict data residency requirements or network isolation policies, and some vendors offer a hybrid option that combines both.

What security certifications should a digital signage vendor have? +

Look for independent, audited certifications like SOC 2 Type II rather than a vendor’s self reported security claims. Ask when their last audit was completed, whether the report is available for review, and how often the certification is renewed.

How many screens should we start with for a first digital signage deployment? +

There is no universal number, but most first time deployments start small, often a handful of screens in high visibility areas like a lobby, break room, or main hallway, before expanding once the team is comfortable managing content and the platform has proven itself. Starting small also makes it easier to catch governance and workflow issues before they scale across dozens of locations.