Ute Tray Signage · The Longest Flat Surface Your Business Owns
An open tray gives you metres of flat, high, uninterrupted panel on both sides of the vehicle, and most tradies leave all of it blank.
The short version
Ute tray signage from ProCloud puts the brand where traffic actually reads it, printed and fitted at our Brendale workshop to suit the exact tray on your ute. A tray is not a car door.
It sits higher, it is read at 60km/h instead of at the kerb, and it is almost always aftermarket, which means the surface under the vinyl changes from ute to ute.
Smooth alloy, raised checker plate, painted steel, raw gal. Each one takes vinyl differently, and the difference between a five-year finish and a five-month one is the prep, not the print.
30 years of ute work out of Brendale. 4.9 stars from 134 Google reviews.
The same in-house install crew on every job.
The four surfaces on an open tray
Most tradies brand one of these and stop. Working all four is what makes a tray read as a deliberate fitout instead of a sticker job.
Send photos of both sides and the rear. ProCloud lays the artwork out to the real panel dimensions, not a generic template.
Tray sides. The main event. Long, flat and at eye level for every driver beside you, so the logo, one service line and the phone number belong here.
The headboard. The panel behind the cab, visible over the tray from behind and from side-on. Good for a repeat logo or a short service line.
The tailgate or drop-side. Read by the car directly behind you in traffic, which is the longest look anyone gets at your ute. Phone number sized big.
Toolboxes and underbody boxes. Often overlooked, and often the panel closest to a customer standing at the kerb. Worth a logo at minimum.
Tray materials and what vinyl does on each
The substrate decides how long the finish holds, so it is the first thing the crew checks on a tray job.
Smooth alloy. The most common tradie tray. Takes vinyl cleanly with the right primer and holds for years.
Alloy checker plate. The raised diamond pattern gives vinyl very little to grab. It needs a heavier-weight film, wrapped edges, or the graphics moved onto a smooth panel instead. The crew flags which one suits your tray before you commit.
Painted steel. Takes vinyl well. Surface rust and deep chips get fixed first, because vinyl over a failing surface fails with it.
Raw or hot-dip gal. The zinc surface needs cleaning and priming properly, and freshly galvanised trays are better left to weather before wrapping. If yours is new, the crew will say so rather than sell you a job that lifts.
Ute coverage options
Same ute, five levels of coverage. Spend what the job needs.
Least spend → full coverage
1Logos on the doors
Business name and logo on both doors. The cheapest way to look legit on the road.
2Logos spanning both doors
Bigger artwork across the door and rear quarter, so it reads from further back.
3Logos + lower sill wrap
Add a coloured lower-body wrap under the logos. More presence, still part-cost.
4Partial cab wrap
Wrap the panels people actually look at. Most of the impact of a full wrap for less.
5Full wrap
Every panel colour-changed and branded. The whole ute becomes the billboard.
Recent jobs out of the workshop
Real installs, real clients · click to enlarge
See the price before you call
Pick body style, coverage and finish. The calculator returns a real range in about 60 seconds, no form, no waiting three days for a number that doesn’t fit.
A real range in about 60 seconds
No email gate, no callback ambush
Real ranges, ex-GST · confirmed on inspection
Vehicle Wrap Cost Calculator
Body style
Single door logo
Coverage
Your range
$550 – $700
per vehicle
What fits a tray?
Match the coverage to the outcome you want. On a tray, the cheap option often reads nearly as well as the expensive one.
Full tray wrap. Both sides, headboard, tailgate and boxes in vinyl. Best for colour-change fleets and showcase trades. 1 to 2 day install.
Contour-cut graphics. Logo, business name, service line and phone sized to the panel. The most-booked option on tray work, because a flat tray side gives the artwork room to breathe. Same-day to 1 day install.
Vinyl lettering. Business name, phone, website, ABN and licence. Cheapest option, sharp finish, and it sits beautifully on a flat alloy side.
Trays we brand every week
The workshop turns over the same core tray jobs constantly, so there are no surprises on yours.
Alloy tray side branding for plumbing, electrical, air-conditioning and arborist fleets.
Headboard and toolbox logos to match an existing cab wrap.
Steel tray refresh work when a business rebrands or changes phone numbers.
Full tray wraps on service bodies and tipper trays.
Tailgate and drop-side graphics after a repair or a resprayed panel.
Trays or a canopy?
Plenty of utes run both, and they are priced separately because they are different jobs.
If your ute has an enclosed canopy over or instead of the tray, the substrate list changes to fibreglass, plastic and alloy canopy panels, and the layout changes with it.
The ute canopy signage page covers that side of the work. Running both on the one vehicle is quoted as a single job.
FAQs
Ute tray signage starts at around $250 for vinyl lettering on flat alloy sides and runs to about $2,800 for a full contour-cut wrap across both sides, the headboard and the tailgate. A full tray wrap on a service body sits higher again. The Vehicle Wrap Cost Calculator returns a range on your exact spec.
Not reliably as a standard film. The raised diamond pattern leaves too little flat contact area, so checker plate needs a heavier-weight film with wrapped edges, or the graphics relocated to a smooth panel. The install crew looks at your tray and tells you which option actually lasts before you spend.
Yes, and it is usually worth it. Toolboxes sit closest to anyone standing at the kerb, so a logo there gets read at close range while the tray sides do the work in traffic. Toolbox graphics are quoted as part of the same job.
Better to wait. Fresh hot-dip gal keeps curing and releases residue that stops vinyl bonding properly, so a wrap fitted too early can lift. The crew checks the surface at quote stage and will tell you if it needs to weather first rather than take the job and have it fail.
Just clean it. Wash, dry, no wax or degreaser residue. If the tray has surface rust, deep chips or an old vinyl job that needs stripping, ProCloud handles that prep as part of the quote so the finish holds.
A full tray wrap runs 1 to 2 days in the workshop. Contour-cut graphics are usually same-day to 1 day, and vinyl lettering is same-day on straightforward jobs. Artwork sign-off adds 3 to 7 business days upfront.