The Real Cost of an In-House AV Hire — And When Consulting Makes More Sense
When an organization's AV needs grow past "figure it out as we go," the instinct is usually the same: hire someone. A dedicated AV manager feels like the obvious fix — one person who owns the systems, knows the building, and is always available. That instinct isn't wrong. It's just incomplete, because the real comparison isn't "hire vs. do nothing." It's "hire vs. bring in outside expertise when you need it" — and the numbers behind that comparison are worth looking at before committing to either one.
What a full-time hire actually costs
Salary is only the starting number. National data puts AV manager pay roughly in the $62,000–$92,000 range depending on scope and seniority, with senior AV management roles reaching well above that. On top of base salary, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows benefits and payroll costs typically add another 30–40% on top of wages — health insurance, retirement contributions, payroll taxes, paid time off. A $75,000 salary is closer to $100,000–$105,000 in fully loaded cost once that's factored in, before counting recruiting time, onboarding, training, or the tools and software licenses a dedicated AV role usually needs.
None of that is unusual — it's what any specialized hire costs. The part that's easy to miss is what that cost is actually buying.
The utilization problem
AV work doesn't arrive at a steady pace. A single person managing AV for one organization is often either underused between projects or overwhelmed during them — quiet for months, then buried during a renovation, a new building, or a wave of room upgrades. A full-time hire gets paid the same fully loaded rate whether that week is quiet or slammed. That's not a knock on the person in the role — it's a structural mismatch between steady headcount cost and uneven project demand.
This is where the math starts to shift, especially for organizations without enough day-to-day AV volume to keep one person continuously busy.
What outside consulting actually costs and covers
Consulting engagements are scoped to the work, not to a calendar year. A design phase gets a design engagement. A completed install gets a QC review. A team without in-house AV expertise gets a retainer for ongoing support, sized to actual call volume rather than a full salary. There's no idle time being paid for, and no ramp-up period — the expertise shows up already knowing what a spec is supposed to protect and what to check for on a walkthrough.
The other thing a single in-house hire can't easily replicate is breadth. One person's experience is built from the systems they've personally managed. A consulting relationship built on 20+ years across design and manufacturing has seen a much wider range of what works, what fails, and where specs typically get quietly weakened under budget pressure — pattern recognition that's hard to build from inside one building.
When each model actually makes sense
This isn't an argument against hiring. Organizations running AV-heavy daily operations — constant meeting support, multiple rooms needing live troubleshooting, a large campus with AV touchpoints everywhere — often do need a dedicated person on-site, and a full-time hire is the right call. What consulting is well suited for is everything episodic: system design for a new space, an independent check that a completed install matches spec, or ongoing support sized to actual need rather than a full role.
The two models aren't always exclusive, either. Some of the best setups pair a full-time hire who owns day-to-day operations with outside consulting brought in for design work, major projects, or QC on new installs — the in-house person handles what's continuous, and consulting handles what's periodic and specialized.
The decision that actually matters
The question isn't "is consulting cheaper than a hire" in the abstract — it's whether your AV need is continuous enough to justify a full-time, fully loaded salary, or episodic enough that scoped engagements cover it for less, with more flexibility. Running the actual numbers against your own project volume is a better starting point than either instinct.
Sources for salary and employment-cost data:
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