For decades, commercial AV projects followed a familiar process:

Identify the need. Secure capital funding. Purchase equipment. Deploy the solution. Repeat the process several years later when technology reaches end of life.

That model still works for many organizations, but I am seeing more conversations shift from:

“How much does the project cost?”

to:

“What would this cost per month?”

That change may seem subtle, but it fundamentally changes how projects are evaluated.

A $150,000 AV deployment can feel like a significant capital request competing with dozens of other organizational priorities.

The same project structured as a predictable monthly operating expense may be evaluated through a completely different lens.

This is one of the reasons AV-as-a-Service (AVaaS) models continue gaining attention across the industry.

Rather than focusing solely on equipment acquisition, AVaaS encourages organizations to think about the full technology lifecycle:

• System design and deployment
• Installation and commissioning
• Support and maintenance
• Technology refresh planning
• Long-term operational costs

To better understand these conversations, we recently developed an AVaaS investment estimator that allows organizations to explore different project values, ownership strategies, and monthly payment structures.

What surprised me wasn’t the calculator itself.

It was how quickly the conversation changed once people could visualize a monthly investment rather than a single large capital expenditure.

The discussion shifted away from:

“Can we afford this project?”

and toward:

“Can we move this project forward now?”

I’m curious what others across the AV industry are seeing.

Are your clients asking more frequently about:

• AV-as-a-Service models?
• Monthly payment structures?
• Technology lifecycle planning?
• Subscription-based procurement?
• Refresh and upgrade strategies?

Or do most organizations in your market still strongly prefer traditional capital purchases?

I’d be interested to hear how procurement conversations are evolving across different markets and customer segments.

For those interested in exploring the concept further, we recently launched an AV as a Service resource center and investment estimator:

https://www.avendor.com/pages/av-as-a-service