UK Billboard Sizes Explained: 6-Sheet, 48-Sheet, 96-Sheet and What D48 Means

A 48-sheet billboard is 6.1m by 3.05m (20ft by 10ft). A 6-sheet is 1.2m by 1.8m (4ft by 6ft). A 96-sheet is 12.2m by 3.05m (40ft by 10ft). A D48 is a digital screen with the 48-sheet footprint, and a D6 is a digital 6-sheet.

That is the answer most people came for. The rest of this guide explains where the strange names come from, what the digital codes mean, which size does which job, and what each one costs to buy for a day.

Why billboards are measured in "sheets"

Nobody in the trade will tell you this unprompted, so here it is. A "sheet" is a piece of printed poster paper, 20 inches by 30 inches (508mm by 762mm). The size is called Double Crown, which is a paper size from the days when posters were pasted up by hand.

A 48-sheet billboard is called that because it took 48 of those sheets to cover it: twelve across, four high. A 96-sheet took 96. A 16-sheet took 16, four by four. The billboard is named after the number of bits of paper a man with a brush and a bucket of glue needed to fill it.

Digital screens now take about two thirds of UK billboard spend. They have never held a sheet of paper. They are still called 48-sheets. The industry knows this is daft and has decided to keep it anyway, and honestly, so have we. It is the name people search for.

The standard UK billboard sizes

The media owners publish the specs for the standard formats. These are the ones you will meet:

Format	Size (metric)	Size (imperial)	Shape	Where you see it
4-sheet	1.02m x 1.52m	40in x 60in	Portrait	Shopping centres, station concourses
6-sheet	1.2m x 1.8m	4ft x 6ft	Portrait	Bus shelters, high streets, supermarkets
12-sheet	3.05m x 1.52m	10ft x 5ft	Landscape	Roadside, smaller sites
16-sheet	2.03m x 3.05m	6ft 8in x 10ft	Portrait	Roadside, older sites
48-sheet	6.1m x 3.05m	20ft x 10ft	Landscape, 2:1	Main roads, junctions, retail parks
96-sheet	12.2m x 3.05m	40ft x 10ft	Landscape, 4:1	Arterial roads, motorway approaches
Mega 6	about 5m x 7.5m	about 16ft x 25ft	Portrait, roughly 2:3	Freestanding towers on arterial roads and motorway gateways

The Mega 6 is the odd one out: a 6-sheet blown up to about four times its size in each direction, so it is the largest portrait format in the country. Sizes vary by owner. Ocean's M6 Tower in Birmingham is 4.89m by 7.49m. We sell 43 of them, at the 48-sheet rate.

One caveat, because the sums do not work everywhere. Six Double Crown sheets do not tile to 1.2m by 1.8m. The 6-sheet was standardised at a rounder metric size and kept the old name. If you try to check the arithmetic, that is the one that will annoy you.

What D48, D6 and "large format" mean

The digital names are the paper names with a D in front.

• D6: a digital 6-sheet. A portrait screen, roughly 1.2m by 1.8m, at eye level with people on foot. Artwork is 9:16, for example 1080 by 1920 pixels. It is the digital screen you meet most on the high street.
• D48: a digital 48-sheet. A landscape screen with the classic 20ft by 10ft roadside footprint. The big media owners spec them at 2:1 (for example 1200 by 600 pixels). Some boards on our network are built as 16:9 and show a slightly squarer picture.
• D96: a digital 96-sheet, 4:1 landscape. Rarer, and mostly on the busiest arterial roads.
• DM6 or Digital Mega 6: the digital Mega 6, a portrait tower about 5m by 7.5m on the approach to a city or a motorway junction. Each owner specs its own pixels (480 by 672 and 720 by 1080 are common), and many take static artwork only, no video. Ours take portrait artwork like a D6, and we have them from Newcastle to Southampton.
• Large format: the catch-all for 96-sheets and anything bigger or stranger. Building wraps, tower-mounted screens, and the "iconic" sites that get a name of their own and a price to match. Axis Tower in Manchester is one of ours. So is the full-motion wall on Queen Street in Cardiff: 7m wide by 8.6m high, 60 square metres, bigger than a 96-sheet and stood on end, in front of about 74,000 shoppers a day.

Pixels replaced paper, but the footprint stayed. A D48 fills the same steel frame the 48-sheet poster used to, because the frame was already there. The consent was not: a lit screen needs fresh advertisement consent from the council, which is why the paper ones still outnumber it.

Which size does which job

The size question is really a distance question. How far away is the person you want to reach, and how fast are they moving?

6-sheet and D6: people on foot. The reader is two to ten metres away and walking. You can use a full sentence, a price, an offer, and a photo they can actually look at. This is the format for a cafe, a salon, a gym, a dentist, or anyone whose customers are already on that street.

48-sheet and D48: people in cars. The reader is 30 to 100 metres away, doing 30 to 50mph, and has your ad for a few seconds. Six words, one picture, big type. The roadside rule of thumb is one inch of letter height for every 25 feet of viewing distance, so headline text read from 100 metres wants to be a foot tall or more. We wrote a whole post on what makes a billboard ad work.

96-sheet and large format: reach and status. Same rules as a 48-sheet, at scale. These exist to be seen by everyone on a major road, and to make a brand look bigger than it is. That is a legitimate job, and local businesses use it too.

If you are not sure which you need, start with where your customers are, not with the biggest thing you can afford. A D6 outside the right supermarket beats a 48-sheet on the wrong bypass.

What each size costs

The old way to buy any of these was a media agency, a two-week cycle and a minimum spend. A 48-sheet on that route runs roughly £200 to £800 a week, a 96-sheet more, and a 6-sheet campaign was sold as a package of panels rather than one at a time.

Self-service prices the screen by its size, per day, VAT included, and you can buy one:

Size	FameCake price per day
Small (venue and point-of-sale screens)	£10
6-sheet (D6)	£15
48-sheet (D48) and Mega 6	£20
96-sheet (D96) and large format	£30
Iconic sites (Axis Tower)	£60

Size is the whole story. A 48-sheet in Preston costs the same as a 48-sheet in London. The one exception is a site sold as a unit: a bus shelter with two faces costs more than one face, and less than two. The full cost guide has the traditional rate card next to ours if you want the side by side.

Artwork sizes at a glance

The aspect ratio matters more than the pixel count. Screens are built at different resolutions, but they all keep the shape of the paper format they replaced.

Format	Ratio	Example pixels
D6	9:16 portrait	1080 x 1920
D48 (most boards)	2:1 landscape	1200 x 600
D48 (some boards)	16:9 landscape	1920 x 1080
D96	4:1 landscape	2400 x 600
DM6 (Mega 6)	roughly 2:3 portrait	480 x 672 or 720 x 1080

Any decent design tool exports at these ratios. If you would rather not open one, type a few words into our AI designer and it builds the ad at the right size for whichever screen you pick.

Where to buy each size

We list our screens by format as well as by town:

• D48 billboards: digital 48-sheets on main roads, junctions and retail parks
• D6 screens: digital 6-sheets on high streets, in shopping centres and supermarkets
• All locations: every screen by city

Pick one, pick a day, upload or design the ad, pay. The old way needed 48 sheets of paper and a man with a bucket. This way needs about 72 seconds.

Frequently asked questions

What size is a 48-sheet billboard?

6.1m wide by 3.05m high (20ft by 10ft), a 2:1 landscape. It is the standard UK roadside billboard. The digital version is a D48 and usually takes 2:1 artwork, with 16:9 on some boards.

What size is a 6-sheet poster?

1.2m wide by 1.8m high (4ft by 6ft), portrait. It is the bus-shelter and high-street panel. The digital version is a D6, and the artwork is 9:16, for example 1080 by 1920 pixels.

What does D48 mean?

Digital 48-sheet: a screen with the same footprint as the classic 20ft by 10ft paper billboard. The D means digital. The 48 is the number of poster sheets it would have taken to paste one up.

What is the biggest standard billboard size in the UK?

A 96-sheet, at 12.2m wide by 3.05m high (40ft by 10ft). Anything bigger is a bespoke large-format or iconic site, sized to the building it hangs on.

Which billboard size should a small business use?

If your customers walk past, a 6-sheet at eye level on the high street or in a shopping centre. If they drive past, a 48-sheet on the road they use. Most small businesses do fine on 6-sheets and small venue screens at £10 to £15 a day.

How much does each billboard size cost?

On FameCake, VAT included: £10 a day for a small venue screen, £15 for a 6-sheet, £20 for a 48-sheet, £30 for a 96-sheet or large format, and £60 for an iconic site. Through an agency a 48-sheet is £200 to £800 a week, booked in two-week cycles.