What does your bus advertising budget buy?
Put in what you have to spend and see the campaigns it covers across Maharashtra: how many buses, which fleets, how much advertising surface, all in. Costed from the same published rate card, including printing, mounting and GST.
₹1 lakh in Maharashtra, one month
The most advertising surface that buys is 3 buses PMPML Solus carrying a solus wrap in Pune, 1,350 square feet on the road. All in, that comes to ₹84,960, leaving ₹15,040 unspent.
Every option below is costed the same way: display rent for one month, printing and mounting once per bus, plus 18% GST.
Out of reach at ₹1 lakh
Worth knowing before you plan around it. Each figure is one bus for one month, all in.
When to run it, and when to book it
Roughly 40% of India's annual advertising spend lands between Ganesh Chaturthi and New Year, and the festive window alone is a fifth to a quarter of all out-of-home revenue. That is when the inventory is contested. The dates below are the demand events that move a Maharashtra transit plan — and, more usefully, the day the artwork has to be locked to make each one.
Why the deadline is not the date
Production runs four to seven working days from the point we have artwork, a purchase order and payment — not from the day you brief us. Add the operator's own approval and a weekend, and artwork has to be locked about 14 days before a bus carries it. Start the conversation 30 days out. The Diwali selling window closes in early October.
| Demand event | Runs | Brief us by | Artwork locked by | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ashadhi Ekadashi and the Pandharpur WariPilgrimage | 8 Jul 2026 – 25 Jul 2026 | 8 Jun 2026 | 24 Jun 2026 | Pune, Satara, Solapur |
| Ganesh ChaturthiFestival | 14 Sep 2026 – 23 Sep 2026 | 15 Aug 2026 | 31 Aug 2026 | Statewide |
| Navratri and DussehraFestival | 11 Oct 2026 – 20 Oct 2026 | 11 Sep 2026 | 27 Sep 2026 | Statewide |
| Nashik Simhastha Kumbh MelaPilgrimage | 31 Oct 2026 – 20 Feb 2028 | 1 Oct 2026 | 17 Oct 2026 | Nashik |
| DiwaliFestival | 6 Nov 2026 – 10 Nov 2026 | 7 Oct 2026 | 23 Oct 2026 | Statewide |
| Financial year endBudget cycle | 1 Jan 2027 – 31 Mar 2027 | 2 Dec 2026 | 18 Dec 2026 | Statewide |
| MonsoonWeather | 1 Jun 2027 – 30 Sep 2027 | 2 May 2027 | 18 May 2027 | Statewide |
What each one means for a campaign
Ashadhi Ekadashi and the Pandharpur Wari
The Sant Dnyaneshwar palkhi leaves Alandi on 8 July and reaches Pandharpur on 24 July, with Ashadhi Ekadashi on 25 July. Hundreds of thousands of warkaris walk the Pune–Satara–Solapur corridor over three weeks, and MSRTC runs heavy extra service along it. The largest rural audience event in the state, and almost nobody buys transit against it.
Ganesh Chaturthi
Ganesh Chaturthi on 14 September, visarjan on Anant Chaturdashi 23 September. This is the start of the festive quarter, not a standalone event: it is where Maharashtra's retail advertising year begins. Mumbai, Pune and Thane run at peak footfall for ten days.
Navratri and Dussehra
Nine nights from 11 October, Vijayadashami on 20 October. Traditionally the purchase-intent window before Diwali — consumer durables and vehicles in particular.
Nashik Simhastha Kumbh Mela
Flag-hoisting on 31 October 2026 opens a Simhastha that runs into 2028, with the Amrit Snan peaks on 2 August, 31 August and 11 September 2027 across Nashik and Trimbakeshwar. The state is widening roads and expanding the railway station for it. For a Nashik campaign this is a once-in-twelve-years audience, and the inventory will be contested well before the peak dates.
Diwali
Lakshmi Puja on 8 November, the five days running 6–10 November. The single densest advertising week of the Indian year. Transit inventory for it is spoken for weeks in advance.
Financial year end
Unspent marketing budget has to be committed before 31 March. A reliable secondary peak, and an easier sell than the festive quarter because the inventory is not contested.
Monsoon
Four months of hard rain. Vinyl and lamination cope; edges and seams are what fail, and a rushed wrap fails first. Production scheduling matters more in these months than in any other, and it is the cheapest window to buy.
Demand through the year
Estimated from published ad-spend data and the festival calendar, not measured from this site. Read it as when competitors are bidding: the cheapest months to buy are also the best months to publish, because content written in a trough is what ranks by the time the peak arrives.
How these numbers are built
Every campaign has two costs. Display rent recurs for each month the advertising runs, charged per bus. Printing and mounting is charged once per bus when the artwork goes on, and again if you change the creative mid-campaign.
So a three-month campaign on ten buses is thirty months of display rent plus ten sets of printing, not three times a one-month price. That is why a longer campaign gets cheaper per month: the production cost spreads.
Budgets here are read as inclusive of 18% GST, because an approved marketing budget usually is. The rate card at /rates/ shows the same figures ex-GST, per bus, per 30 days.
Rates are the ones we hold and are dated on the rate card. They are indicative until confirmed against depot availability for your dates. A fleet that is fully booked cannot be quoted from a table.