Basis vs Blindspot: a workflow, or a storefront

The verdict: who each is for

Basis, from Basis Technologies, is a workflow and business-intelligence platform for agencies with an omnichannel demand-side platform inside it. Digital out-of-home arrives through supply integrations, notably Vistar Media and Place Exchange, reaching screens from media owners including Lamar, Clear Channel Outdoor, GSTV and Topgolf, targeted by audience, location, publisher and venue category, with a built-in impression multiplier because one screen is a one-to-many medium. Blindspot is the buy-side storefront: 3M+ digital screens in 50+ countries, one named screen for one named hour, priced per play from $0.23 and shown before you book.

These two are barely competing for the same purchase, which is the most useful thing to say first. Basis sells an agency a way of working: planning, reconciliation, billing and business intelligence across every channel, with a DSP wired in so the buying happens where the workflow already lives. Out-of-home is one input to that machine, and it arrives through partner supply rather than through Basis's own screens.

Blindspot sells the screen. You open a map, pick a board, read what one play on it costs, set that board's hours, and the campaign is live in about 48 hours. If the pain you are solving is fifteen vendors and a reconciliation nightmare, Basis is the answer and Blindspot is not. If the pain is that you cannot see what a specific screen costs at 6pm on a Thursday, that is the reverse.

Basis vs Blindspot, line by line

The dimensions that decide the choice, scoped to out-of-home rather than the whole platform. Blindspot figures are from live platform data, Q3 2026. Basis is described from Basis Technologies' own pages and its published supply integrations.

Blindspot figures are from live platform data, Q3 2026. Basis is the platform from Basis Technologies; its supply route, named media owners, targeting dimensions and impression multiplier are from its own pages and its 2023 Place Exchange and Vistar Media integration announcements, read August 2026. It publishes no rate card, so its pricing row describes the buying model rather than a quoted figure. See also Blindspot vs Vistar, the supply platform underneath much of this, and the wider platform comparison.

Pricing: the unit, worked

The interesting difference here is not the number, since Basis publishes none, but how each platform handles the fact that one screen is seen by many people. Basis solves it with a built-in impression multiplier: the buy settles on CPM, and the multiplier scales modelled impressions to reflect a one-to-many medium. Blindspot sidesteps the modelling entirely by billing the play, one appearance on one screen, from about $0.23, priced before you book.

Both are honest answers to a genuine problem. A multiplier is a reasonable way to make out-of-home comparable to channels that count impressions natively, and an agency reporting five channels on one line needs that comparability. Per-play pricing gives up the comparability and buys something else: a unit that does not need a model at all, and therefore a price that cannot drift.

A worked example. Say the brief is one commuter corridor for two weeks inside a wider campaign. Through Basis the corridor becomes audience, location and venue-category targeting, delivery clears across Vistar or Place Exchange supply, the multiplier converts plays into modelled impressions, and the line reconciles against the rest of the plan. On Blindspot you pick that corridor's screens by name, set 7am to 10am and 5pm to 8pm, and read the per-play price first: at about $0.23 a play, $500 buys on the order of 2,000 plays in only those windows. One route makes out-of-home comparable; the other makes it precise.

If out-of-home has to reconcile against connected TV, social and search in one operating view, the multiplier and the CPM are doing necessary work. If the plan is places and times, per-play buying is, and skipping the hours nobody is out typically removes 30% or more of the waste. See CPM vs per play and the billboard cost guide.

Attribution: what you can measure

Basis's measurement strength is comparison rather than causation. Its own pages describe holistic reporting that sets out-of-home against connected TV, direct, social and search in one view, which is exactly what an agency needs when a client asks where the next dollar should go. That cross-channel picture is something a single-channel marketplace does not produce.

Blindspot starts from a receipt rather than a model: verified plays logged with a screen, a time and a place, then measured lift on top. Outcomes have been measured against a control group at around $0.82 per incremental store visit, $0.80 per incremental web visit and $5.75 per incremental online purchase. Set that against paid-social costs per action that often run from $15 to $40, and a well-scheduled digital out-of-home campaign competes on cost per outcome, not just on reach.

That loop is also what makes hourly buying pay off. Because Blindspot knows which plays ran and can tie delivery to foot-traffic and web lift, it can concentrate a budget into the windows that convert. A worldwide tourism campaign did exactly that, delivering 87% more plays than planned on the same budget, which is the clearest proof that this is an efficiency argument at any size rather than a small-budget one.

When to choose Basis

There are real briefs where Basis is the better tool. Choose Basis when:

The workflow is the product you are buying. Planning, reconciliation, billing and business intelligence across every channel in one console is the reason Basis exists, and for an agency running many clients that operational saving usually outweighs per-screen control. Blindspot is a marketplace and solves none of that.

Out-of-home must reconcile against every other channel. If the deliverable is one report comparing out-of-home to connected TV, social and search, a shared modelled unit is what makes that report possible. The impression multiplier exists precisely so the comparison is not nonsense.

You already buy through Vistar or Place Exchange. Basis reaches out-of-home through those integrations, so if your supply relationships and deal IDs already sit there, buying through the console you use for everything else is the path of least resistance.

If your brief looks like any of those, Basis is the right answer, and it is fair to say the two products barely overlap: one is how an agency operates, the other is where a screen is bought.

When to choose Blindspot

Blindspot is the better tool when the deliverable is the screens themselves rather than the operating view around them. Choose Blindspot when:

You want the play audited, not the impression modelled. A multiplier is a reasonable model, but it is still a model. Blindspot logs verified plays with a screen, a time and a place, and measured lift has come in around $0.82 per store visit, $0.80 per web visit and $5.75 per online purchase against a control group. Nothing in that chain needs a multiplier to be believed.

You want an hourly clock on a named screen. Blindspot sets hours per screen, so one board runs the morning commute and another the evening, and the empty overnight hours are never bought. Across a real plan that typically removes 30% or more of the waste and moves the same budget into the hours that carry the audience.

You want the price before you commit. Every screen shows its per-play price up front, from about $0.23, with a Times Square play near $40. No seat to negotiate, no onboarding, no clearing price to reconcile afterwards.

You need to buy directly across many markets. 3M+ digital screens across 50+ countries on one account and one invoice, live in about 48 hours, with 25,000+ advertisers already on it and no local agency in the chain.

You can open the map, read real prices on a self-serve platform, set an hourly schedule per screen, and have Blinky build a plan from a one-line brief.