Digital signage questions, answered

Yes. Screens are added by buying extra licences whenever you need them, at 99 euros each on the standard account. If you outgrow the five displays or 300MB that come with the account, you can move up to PRO or Enterprise. Contact us and we will move your existing account, media and displays across rather than making you start again. Downgrades are handled case by case, so ask first.

You pay once. The account, PRO and individual display licences are one-time purchases with nothing to renew and no monthly charge. Free software updates are included. Only one thing is recurring, and it is optional: the Enterprise plan at 1290 euros per year. Everything else you buy and keep.

Yes for schools. We offer 30% off our LCD display and Android player bundle to schools, colleges, universities and student organisations, applied when we quote you. Beyond that, we do not publish a standard non-profit discount, so anything of that kind is agreed case by case. For larger rollouts the Enterprise plan already cuts licences to 49 euros and players to 169 euros, which is usually the cheapest route above 25 screens. Email info@myeasycms.com with your screen count and timescale.

easyCMS is priced per account plus one licence per screen, and it is a one-time payment rather than a subscription. The account is 49 euros and includes your first display licence, so a single screen costs 49 euros in total. Each additional display is 99 euros, one-time. PRO is 299 euros one-time for up to 25 displays. Enterprise is 1290 euros per year for larger networks.

There is no permanently free plan. The lowest entry point is the 49 euro account, paid once, which already includes your first display licence and the full CMS, so there is no ongoing cost once you are in. If you would like to evaluate easyCMS before committing, email info@myeasycms.com and we will tell you what we can arrange.

Payments are handled by Stripe, so you can pay by card, with PayPal, or with the local European payment methods offered at checkout. Bank transfer is available as well if your organisation prefers to pay against an invoice. If you need a purchase order raised, particular billing details on the invoice, or an offer document before ordering, email us first and we will sort it out.

Yes, a VAT invoice is issued for every purchase. We are DynamicDigital sp. z o.o., registered in Warsaw, Poland, with the EU VAT number PL5213678094. If you are a VAT-registered business elsewhere in the EU, enter your VAT number at checkout so the invoice is issued correctly. If you need an invoice reissued with different company details, contact us and we will do it.

Enterprise is 1290 euros per year and is built for agencies, integrators and networks of 25 displays or more. It gives you a white-label CMS on your own domain, multiple users with roles and permissions, 10GB of cloud storage, proof-of-play reporting and priority support. Licences drop to 49 euros each and pre-configured Android players to 169 euros, so the annual fee covers itself at 26 displays on licence savings alone. This is the only recurring plan we sell.

It means you pay once and keep using easyCMS, with no expiry date and no renewal invoice. A lifetime purchase covers access to the cloud CMS, the player software for your licensed displays, and free software updates as we release them. It does not cover the yearly Enterprise plan, which is billed separately.

PRO is a one-time 299 euros with no monthly fee. It covers up to 25 displays, gives you 1GB of cloud storage, and adds proof-of-play reporting, which the standard account does not have. It suits schools, restaurant groups, small resellers and anyone running several sites who needs evidence of what played. Extra licences beyond the one included are still 99 euros each.

The 49 euro account manages up to five displays, PRO up to 25, and Enterprise is designed for 25 and above. Those are the management limits of the plan itself. You still buy a licence for each screen beyond the one included. If you expect to pass a limit soon, it is cheaper to start on the plan that fits than to add licences one at a time.

No. Licences bought with the account, with PRO, or as extra licences are one-time purchases with no expiry date and nothing to renew, and free software updates come with them. The Enterprise plan works differently: it is billed yearly, and its discounted 49 euro licences sit under that yearly plan.

Contact us and we will handle it. Licences are managed centrally in the CMS rather than being locked to a serial number you administer yourself, but moving one onto replacement hardware is something we do for you rather than something you do in the interface. Email info@myeasycms.com with your account name and which display is affected, and we will take it from there.

Yes, one licence per display. Two screens showing identical content still need two licences, because each one runs its own player. A single player driving one screen with a multi-zone layout counts as one display, however many regions the layout has. A video wall built from several panels driven by separate players needs one licence for each player.

On the one-time plans there is nothing to stop paying, so nothing happens. Your account, your licences and your screens carry on working. Only the Enterprise plan renews yearly. If an Enterprise subscription is allowed to lapse, it is the white-label, multi-user side of it that you lose, so talk to us before that happens.

A licence is the right to run one screen. Every display connected to easyCMS uses one licence, which is assigned when you authorise the player in the CMS. Your account includes the first licence. Additional displays are 99 euros each as a one-time purchase, or 49 euros each on Enterprise. A licence belongs to a display, not to a person or a location.

No. If you can use a web application and plug in an HDMI cable, you can run easyCMS. Uploading images and video, building a layout and scheduling it are all done in a browser. The more technical parts, such as network setup and mounting, are one-off jobs at the start, and free expert support is included with every account if you get stuck.

Most people have their first content playing within an hour, and a pre-configured player from us is quicker still, because the licence is already installed and it starts on power-up. The software side is fast. What usually takes the time is preparing the content and deciding what should play when. Mounting and cabling depend on your site rather than on us.

Create your account, install the player on your device, then connect the two. The CMS gives you an address and a key, which you enter on the player. You then authorise the display in the CMS and assign it a licence. After that you upload your media, build a layout and schedule it. Our knowledge base has a step-by-step guide for each player type.

Yes. The player software for Windows and Android installs on your own device, so you can start with a spare PC, an Android box you already own, or a laptop plugged into a TV. Your account includes one licence, so nothing else is needed to test properly. If it works for you, ordering pre-configured hardware later is straightforward.

A signage CMS is the software where you upload content, build layouts, set schedules and check that your screens are alive. easyCMS is the CMS. The player is a small piece of software running on each screen that fetches its instructions and plays them. You work in a browser, the players do the playing, and the two keep themselves in sync automatically.

Digital signage means using screens to show information that changes: menus, prices, opening hours, promotions, staff notices, arrival boards, waiting-room content. Instead of printing a poster and walking it to the wall, you publish from a computer and the screen updates itself. A typical setup is a display, a small media player behind it, and software that decides what is shown and when.

Yes. Layouts can be designed at 4K as well as Full HD, in portrait or landscape. The limit is the player rather than the software: 4K video needs hardware that can decode it, so check the specification before assuming an old box will cope. Our Android player is 4K ready. Bear in mind that 4K files are large and will use up your cloud storage quickly.

A consumer TV works, and plenty of our customers use one. Commercial displays cost more but are built for long duty cycles, are brighter for shop windows, can be mounted in portrait without voiding the warranty, and tend to survive years of being left on all day. For a few hours a day in an office, a consumer TV is fine. For twelve hours a day in a window, buy commercial.

Usually yes, and it is a small box behind the display. The exception is LG webOS commercial displays, which run the easyCMS player on the screen itself with no external hardware. Otherwise you use a Windows PC or an Android device connected over HDMI. We sell a pre-configured Android player at 499 euros including one licence, delivered ready to plug in.

Yes. LG webOS commercial displays run the easyCMS player natively, so there is no external box, no extra power supply and no HDMI cable to work loose. You install the player on the screen, point it at the CMS address and key, and authorise it like any other display. Our knowledge base has a step-by-step guide to webOS installation.

Yes. On Windows, any reasonably modern PC that plays your video smoothly is enough. The player itself is light, but 4K video and heavy web content need more than a ten-year-old office machine. On Android, choose a device built for continuous signage use rather than a phone, tablet or streaming stick, which tend to sleep, overheat or update themselves at the worst moment.

The easyCMS Android player is 499 euros and includes one display licence. It arrives pre-configured, with your licence already installed, so you connect power and HDMI and it starts playing. Delivery within the EU is free. It is made for sixteen to twenty-four hours of use a day. For warranty terms, genuine round-the-clock operation or delivery outside the EU, contact us first.

Yes. Layouts are designed portrait or landscape, and the player output is rotated to match. On a Windows player you rotate the display in the operating system. On Android and LG webOS there is a rotation setting on the device itself. Check first that your screen is rated for portrait mounting, because some consumer televisions are not, usually for heat reasons.

The players we support are Windows, Android and LG webOS. For a Samsung screen the usual route is an Android player connected over HDMI, which works with any display that has an HDMI input. If you already own Raspberry Pi hardware, or you need the player running on the screen itself, email info@myeasycms.com with the model and we will tell you what is realistic.

You can, but you will be walking to the screen with a USB stick every time anything changes. You get no scheduling, no record of what played, and no way to see from your desk whether the screen is even on. For one screen that almost never changes, that is a reasonable choice. Beyond that, a networked player and a CMS pays for itself in saved trips.

Yes, with Android players. Synchronised playback across several screens uses sync groups, which are supported on Android players only and require all the players to be on the same local network. Windows and LG webOS players cannot be synchronised this way. If your wall is driven by a single player through a hardware wall controller, that counts as one display and one licence.

Not simply. The player opens the page as an anonymous browser with nobody there to type a password, so anything behind a normal login screen will show the login screen. The workarounds are a share link or read-only public URL if your tool offers one, a token in the URL, or a dedicated connector such as the Power BI add-on. Tell us which tool you use and we will advise.

Google Slides is the easier of the two: publish the deck to the web and show its URL with the webpage widget. PowerPoint is supported on Windows players only, and only with Microsoft PowerPoint installed on that machine, which makes it the most fragile option we offer. For either, the reliable answer is to export the slides to video or PDF and upload that file. It looks the same on screen and works on every player.

The account includes 300MB, PRO 1GB and Enterprise 10GB. That goes further than it sounds, because compressing video before upload cuts file sizes dramatically and you only store what is actually in use. If you are running long 4K videos you will feel the limit quickly. Contact us if you need more space and we will discuss the options for your account.

Images, video, audio, PDF and packaged HTML files are all supported, alongside content built directly in the CMS from widgets. For images, match the resolution of the region they will fill rather than uploading enormous files, because oversized images waste storage and slow the player down. For video, compress before uploading: a well-encoded file looks the same on screen and takes far less space.

There are templates to start from, and you can build your own from scratch. A layout is a screen design divided into regions, so you might have a large video area, a sidebar and a ticker across the bottom, each playing its own playlist independently. Once a layout works you reuse it and only change the content inside. Our knowledge base has a guide to creating layouts.

Yes. The webpage widget renders a URL as part of your layout, so intranet pages, booking screens and public dashboards can sit alongside your other content. Power BI dashboards are supported through a dedicated add-on. Remember that any embedded page needs a live connection to refresh, and that pages designed for a laptop usually need scaling up to be readable across a room.

Yes, but understand the dependency. Embedded video and HLS live streams both need a working internet connection at the moment they are scheduled, so they will not survive an outage the way a cached video file will. For anything you rely on every day, download the file and upload it as media instead. Keep streaming for content that genuinely has to be live.

Very little in normal running. The player checks in with the CMS periodically and downloads media only when something has changed, so day-to-day traffic is small. The peak is the first sync, when a whole layout and its media come down, and any day you publish a large video. A basic broadband or 4G connection is enough for a single screen.

Yes for setup and updates, no for continuous playback. The player needs a connection to register with the CMS and to download content and schedules. Once content is on the player it is cached locally and keeps playing if the connection drops. Anything depending on a live feed, such as streaming video, embedded web pages or live weather, will not update while the player is offline.

Long enough for a normal outage. Players download content ahead of the schedule rather than only what is playing now, and the default setting looks around two days ahead. A screen can usually run unattended for a couple of days without any connection at all. How far ahead it caches is a CMS setting, so if you have sites with unreliable connectivity, ask us to extend it.

Yes, one account manages screens anywhere. Displays are grouped in the CMS, so you can schedule content to one site, a whole region, or everything at once, and each player only needs its own internet connection. The screens do not have to share a network. The one exception is synchronised video walls, which need their Android players on the same local network.

They carry on. The player plays what it has already cached, so scheduled images, videos and layouts keep running through the outage. What stops is anything live: streaming video, embedded web pages, RSS tickers and weather will not refresh, and new content you publish will not arrive until the connection is back. When it returns, the player syncs on its own with no action from you.

Wired ethernet if you can, WiFi if you must, 4G where there is nothing else. Ethernet is the one that does not quietly stop working after a router reboot or a password change. WiFi is fine for a single screen in an office. 4G works well because the bandwidth needed is modest, which is why it is common for screens in vehicles, windows and temporary sites.

In principle, yes. easyCMS is built on the open-source Xibo engine, which anyone is free to install on their own server. What you take on is the hosting, updates, backups, database, certificates and troubleshooting, and those are the parts that consume time. Our 49 euro account exists so you do not have to do any of it. If you have the in-house skills and a policy reason to self-host, that is a legitimate choice.

Traffic between the players and the CMS runs over an encrypted connection, and every display has to be authorised in the CMS before it receives anything at all. Players pull their content from the CMS rather than accepting incoming connections, so there is no inbound port to open on your network and nothing listening on your screens. Accounts are password protected, with user-level permissions on Enterprise.

Yes, on the Enterprise plan. Users and user groups can be given permissions on specific displays, layouts and media, so a branch manager updates their own screens and cannot touch anyone else's. On the standard and PRO accounts everybody shares one login, which is fine for a single team but not for delegating across sites. Our knowledge base covers users and permissions.

We are an EU company, DynamicDigital sp. z o.o., registered in Warsaw, Poland, and we operate within the EU legal framework. For specifics about where data is physically hosted, our data processing agreement, or how easyCMS fits your own GDPR obligations, please email info@myeasycms.com and ask. We would rather send you an accurate, current answer for your situation than publish something here that may date.

Images, video, audio and text, clocks including analogue, digital, flip and world clocks, countdowns, weather, calendars from an iCal feed, RSS tickers, Mastodon social feeds, embedded web pages, PDFs, DataSet tables, menu boards, stocks and currencies, Google traffic maps, HLS streaming and interactive buttons and zones. Power BI dashboards are an add-on. There is no charts widget, and Twitter is no longer available.

The usual causes are the display timezone differing from yours, another schedule with a higher priority overriding it, the layout containing media that has not finished downloading, or the event being scheduled to a different display group than you think. Check the display timezone first, as that catches most cases. Our knowledge base has a guide to scheduling if you want the detail.

Yes. Interactive actions can be triggered by a touch or click, by a webhook sent from another system, or by a key press on a keyboard, and they can move to another layout, jump within a playlist or reveal a region. Touch has to be enabled for each display in its settings before the screen will respond. It suits wayfinding, product finders and self-service kiosks.

Yes. The CMS lists every display with its status and when it last checked in, so an offline screen is obvious without anyone visiting the site. You can also request a screenshot from a player to see exactly what is on that screen right now, which settles most arguments about whether content went live. Our knowledge base has a guide to display monitoring.

Multi-user management is part of the Enterprise plan. You create users and user groups and decide what each of them can see and change, so a site manager edits their own screens, a designer works on layouts, and nobody disturbs the rest by accident. On the standard and PRO accounts everyone shares a single login. Our knowledge base has a guide to users and permissions.

Yes, on PRO and Enterprise. Proof of play records what played on which screen and when, which is what you need if you sell advertising space, report to a franchisor, or have to demonstrate that a compliance message actually ran. The standard 49 euro account does not include it, so if reporting matters to you, start on PRO at 299 euros one-time.

You create an event that puts a layout or campaign on one display or a group of displays, between a start time and an end time. Dayparting uses the same mechanism: set a recurring event for weekday mornings, lunchtimes or weekends and the player switches by itself. Priorities decide which schedule wins when two overlap, and a default layout plays whenever nothing else is scheduled.

Yes, on Enterprise. Your logo, your colours and your product name replace ours throughout the CMS, and your customers log in on your own domain name, so easyCMS appears nowhere. We do the branding work for you, usually within 7 days. Combined with user permissions, that lets an integrator or reseller give every client what looks like their own signage portal, scoped to their own screens. Enterprise is 1290 euros per year, with licences at 49 euros instead of 99 and players at 169 euros. Full detail at /white-label-digital-signage/.

Yes, and we are open about it. easyCMS is built on the Xibo engine, a mature open-source signage platform used and tested by a large community, which is a far better foundation than something written from scratch. What we add around it is European hosting, a simpler setup, one-time pricing instead of subscriptions, pre-configured hardware and support in plain language.

For some people, yes. If you are comfortable running a server, applying updates, managing backups and diagnosing your own problems, self-hosted open source costs nothing but your time. Most of our customers are not in that position. They want a screen working this week, and somebody to email when it stops on a Friday afternoon. That is what the 49 euros buys.

Most signage platforms charge a monthly fee for every screen, so the cost keeps arriving for as long as you use them. easyCMS charges once. One screen is 49 euros and stays 49 euros. The trade-off is honest: you pay more on day one than a first month's subscription, and support beyond the free tier is an optional extra rather than bundled into a monthly price.

We are DynamicDigital sp. z o.o., based in Warsaw, Poland, with the EU VAT number PL5213678094. That means euro invoicing with correct EU VAT handling, support in a European time zone, and a supplier inside the same legal framework you operate in. For public sector bodies and larger organisations, that last point often matters more than the price does.

Offline means the player has not checked in with the CMS recently. Check the network at that site first, then the CMS address and key entered on the player, then that the display is still authorised. Content that will not update is usually the same problem, or a layout that has not actually been scheduled to that display. Our knowledge base has a troubleshooting guide for offline displays.

The AI assistant answers instantly, at any hour. Free email support is Monday to Friday, 09:00-17:00 CET, typically within 2-3 working days. An Expert Support Hour marked urgent is started the same working day. Sending the display name, the player version and a photo of the player status window is the single biggest thing you can do to get a solution on the first reply.

Buy an Expert Support Hour for 25 EUR. That covers up to one hour of hands-on investigation by an easyCMS engineer and a written diagnosis of what is wrong. If fixing it needs more time, we send you a fixed quote first, for example 3 hours for 75 EUR, which you approve and pay before we start. You are never billed for work you did not agree to.

Start with the boring things: the screen is on the correct HDMI input, the player has power, and the display has not dropped into standby or an energy-saving mode. If the player is running but showing nothing, check in the CMS that the display is authorised, has a licence, and has either a schedule or a default layout set. A player with no valid content shows nothing at all.

Your confirmation email links to a short support form with your order reference already filled in. Tell us the display, the player type, what you expected and what actually happens. We start investigating, the same working day for urgent requests, and come back with a written diagnosis. If the cause turns out to be a bug in easyCMS itself, we fix it as a bug and refund your hour.

Free expert support comes with every account, at no extra cost. Email info@myeasycms.com or call +48 509 937 137, or send a structured report at /support/request/. The AI assistant and the support guides are free for everyone, account or not, and cover setup, players, layouts, scheduling and troubleshooting. If you need someone hands-on with a specific problem, an Expert Support Hour is 25 EUR.