How to Price AV Installations: A Practical Guide

Every AV integrator has underpriced a job at some point. Maybe you forgot to account for conduit runs. Maybe you estimated labor at 20 hours and it took 35. Maybe you just wanted to win the project and shaved your margins too thin. It happens — but it doesn't have to keep happening.

Pricing AV installations well comes down to understanding your costs, applying consistent markups, and tracking your margins at a level where surprises are rare. Here's how to approach each component.

Equipment pricing

Equipment is usually the largest line item on an AV quote. Your pricing needs to cover three things: the product cost, your margin, and any volume-based or project-based adjustments.

Setting your markup

Most small AV integrators work with equipment markups between 25% and 50% above dealer cost, depending on the product category:

Commodity products (cables, mounts, connectors) — 40–60% markup is common because the dollar amounts are small and the handling cost is real
Mid-range equipment (amplifiers, speakers, displays) — 30–45% markup is typical for residential; commercial may run lower at 25–35% due to competitive bidding
High-end / big-ticket items (large LED displays, enterprise DSPs, control systems) — 20–30% markup, because the absolute dollar profit is still significant even at lower percentages

The important thing is consistency. Pick a default markup per category and stick with it. You can always adjust for a specific project, but you should be adjusting from a baseline — not winging it every time.

Labor pricing

Labor is where most AV integrators either make their money or quietly lose it. The key is to charge what your time is actually worth — not what feels comfortable.

Calculating your hourly rate

Start with your loaded cost per technician — that's their hourly wage plus benefits, insurance, vehicle costs, and overhead. For most small firms, loaded cost runs $35–$55/hour per tech. Your billable rate needs to cover that cost plus profit. Common ranges:

Standard installation: $85–$125/hour
Programming / commissioning: $100–$175/hour
Service / troubleshooting: $100–$150/hour

These rates vary by market. A firm in Manhattan will charge more than one in a rural market, and that's expected. What matters is that your rate covers your actual costs with room for profit.

Estimating hours accurately

The biggest labor pricing mistake isn't the rate — it's the estimate. Underbidding hours is the single fastest way to kill a project's profitability. A few rules of thumb:

Add 15–20% buffer to your first instinct on hours. Your instinct is almost always low.
Track actual hours on completed jobs and compare to estimates. Over time, this builds a real database of how long things take.
Don't forget non-installation time: site visits, procurement, coordination calls, punchlist items, and travel.

Freight and miscellaneous costs

Freight is a real cost that many integrators forget to quote or underestimate. Shipping a 75" display costs more than shipping a box of cables. Large commercial jobs with dozens of boxes can easily run $500–$2,000+ in freight alone.

Best practice: add freight as a separate line item on your quote. Some integrators roll it into equipment markup, but that hides the cost and makes it harder to track. If freight is visible, you can adjust it per job based on actual shipping needs.

Target margins

Margin is the number that tells you whether a project is actually profitable. Here are the benchmarks most healthy small AV firms target:

Overall project margin: 35–45% gross margin
Equipment margin: 28–40% (varies by product category)
Labor margin: 40–55% (higher because labor carries more risk)

If your blended project margin dips below 30%, something needs to change — either your equipment markup is too thin, your labor estimate is too generous, or you're discounting too aggressively to win work.

The case for per-line-item tracking

Many integrators only check their margins at the project level. That's like checking your bank balance once a month — you know if you're up or down, but you don't know why.

Tracking margin on every line item lets you spot problems early. If one room in a project is running at 20% margin while the rest are at 40%, you can investigate before the quote goes out. Maybe you under-priced the subwoofer. Maybe labor for that room should be higher. Per-line-item visibility turns margin management from a post-mortem exercise into a live design tool.

Putting it all together

Good AV pricing isn't about finding the perfect formula — it's about having a consistent process. Set your baseline markups, estimate labor honestly, add freight as a visible line item, and check your margins at the line-item level before sending the quote.

Tools like QuoteAV make this process easier by showing you cost, sell price, and margin on every item as you build your quote — so you're never surprised by the numbers after the project starts.