Why Did My AV Project Go Over Budget?

Kirsty Fairmor
4 days ago
5 min read

Wondering why your AV project went over budget? From hidden site costs to change-order creep, here are the common causes and how to avoid them next time.

Kirsty Fairmor \ Updated 2026

Empty conference room with a large wooden table, ergonomic chairs, a teal wall, and a screen displaying colorful visuals. Modern lighting.

You signed off on a number you were comfortable with. Six months later, the invoice on your desk is twenty, thirty, sometimes fifty per cent higher. The kit is installed, the rooms work, but your finance team is asking questions you do not want to answer.

If that sounds familiar, you are not alone. AV projects overrun more often than they come in on budget. The reasons are usually predictable, and most of them are visible long before the final bill lands.

This post walks through the common causes, in plain English, so you can spot them next time and protect the figure you started with.

You priced the kit, not the project

The first quote often covers screens, speakers, microphones, control panels and cables. It rarely covers everything around them. Brackets, faceplates, conduit, network points, power, joinery alterations and ceiling reinforcement all get forgotten. Each item is small. Together, they add ten to fifteen per cent to a typical room.

Add anything customised, like a recessed display or a desk with cable management b

uilt in, and that figure climbs again. If your initial quote did not list these line by line, it was almost certainly missing them.

Chart titled "What you priced vs what you pay," shows a triangle divided into "Kit" and items "Hidden in the project" like brackets and cables. — *The kit is the tip. Most of your spend sits underneath.*

The site was not what the survey assumed

A site survey is only as good as the time the engineer was given on the day. If the ceiling void was not opened, the riser was not checked, or the existing cabling was assumed to be reusable, you will pay for the correction later.

Common surprises include asbestos in older buildings, fire-rated walls that need specialist contractors to penetrate, structural beams in the wrong place for your screen, and power circuits that cannot take the load. None of these are your installer's fault, but all of them land on your invoice as variations.

Lead times slipped, and labour stretched with them

Display panels, video bars and processors all sit on global supply chains. A four-week lead time on the day you ordered can become twelve weeks by the time the kit arrives. Your installer cannot bring engineers in for a half-day per room across a stretched programme without raising the day rate, so labour costs rise even when the scope has not.

If your project relied on a fit-out programme that has slipped, you will also pay for return visits, out-of-hours access, and weekend working that nobody priced for at the start.

Change orders piled up quietly

Change orders are the single biggest source of overspend in AV. They sound minor in isolation. A second microphone for the boardroom. A shotgun mic added in the all-hands space because the room was bigger than expected. A move from a 75-inch screen to an 86-inch because the wall reads as smaller in person. A wireless presentation puck for every room rather than every other room.

Each change is reasonable. Approved one at a time, they pass without much scrutiny. Add them up at the end of the project and you have the gap between your original budget and the final invoice.

Chart titled "How small change orders add up" with six cost items totaling £8,400, listed with expenses in orange on a beige background. — *Six modest changes. One five-figure surprise.*

Programming and commissioning were under-quoted

Hardware is easy to price. Programming is not. The hours needed to configure a control system, write the room logic, integrate the booking platform, set up the dial plan for Teams or Zoom Rooms, and get the camera tracking behaving properly are often guessed at the quote stage.

If your installer quoted a flat figure for commissioning rather than a day rate against a defined scope, that figure was probably an underestimate. Customised touch-panel layouts, single sign-on integration, and any DSP work for voice lift or in-room reinforcement add days, not hours.

Training, handover and snagging were left until the end

Training looks like a small line item until you discover that you need three sessions across two sites, with refresh sessions for new starters six months later. Handover documentation, room QR codes, signage, asset tagging, and the first round of snagging visits are all real costs that often get bundled into a vague project management line.

If the handover scope was not written down at the start, you will pay for it as it gets defined at the end.

Warranty and support were not what you thought

A manufacturer warranty covers the box. It does not cover an engineer coming to site to swap it, configure the replacement, or recover a control system from backup. If your project quote did not include a clearly priced support package for year one, you are now buying it after the fact, when you have far less leverage.

Bar chart comparing programming days: 3 days quoted vs. 7 days actual. List of missed tasks on the right. Background is light gray. — *Programming days are where commissioning quietly doubles.*

How to stop this happening on your next project

A few practical steps protect the budget you sign off, without slowing the project down.

Get a line-item quote, not a lump sum. Every screen, mount, cable, plate, licence and labour day should be itemised. If you cannot see it on the page, it is not in the price.

Insist on a proper site survey before the quote is final. Pay for it if you have to. A two-hour survey saves five-figure variations later.

Set a change-order threshold. Anything over a defined amount needs written approval and a revised total. Anything under it goes on a running log that gets reviewed weekly.

Price programming by the day, against a written scope. Ask how many days of programming, commissioning and integration are included, and what is out of scope.

Fix the support package before you sign. Year one support, training, and snagging visits should be in the original quote, not added at handover.

Use a pricing benchmark before you accept any number. A quick estimate gives you a sense check on whether the figure you have been given is in the right ballpark for the rooms you are fitting out.

Checklist interface titled "Sense-check the figure before you sign" shows room types with specs and costs. Total estimate: £214,300. — *A two-minute benchmark beats a six-month overrun.*

If you want a quick, no-obligation benchmark for your own project, you can run the numbers using the SPOR AV pricing estimator. Drop in your room types and quantities, and you will get a realistic figure for what a properly scoped install should cost.

For more on getting AV procurement right, the SPOR Learning Centre has practical guides on AV support costs, room design briefs, and how to write a tender that gets you what you actually need.