FreelanceAudioVisual.com vs. The Spreadsheet
Every AV company we talk to started with a Google Sheet. Some are still running on one. That's fine — until the sheet has 17 tabs, three people edit it at once, and last year's crew contact info is lost in a tab someone hid.
Start Your 14-Day Free Trial →Our honest take
We're not going to pretend a spreadsheet doesn't work. For a 2-person shop running a few shows a quarter, it does. The magic of Sheets is that it's free, familiar, and infinitely flexible. If that's your situation, don't buy software — you don't need us yet.
Where the wheels come off: you're running your 8th show of the year, you need to re-crew a city you haven't been to in 18 months, and the tech who was great there has a new phone number that lives in an email from your old assistant. The spreadsheet doesn't know who's reliable, what they charged you last time, or whether they're free that week.
That's the breakpoint. Once you're spending a meaningful chunk of every week resolving spreadsheet debt — looking for contact info, reconciling conflicting edits, remembering who to ask about who — the math works to move to something purpose-built. $12.99/mo pays for itself in the first two hours you get back.
Feature comparison
| FreelanceAudioVisual.com | The Spreadsheet | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $12.99/mo or $99/yr | Free (plus your time) |
| Crew contact info | Every tech has a profile with current phone, email, gear | Whatever was true when you last edited the row |
| Who was good in Nashville 18 months ago? | Crew list + private notes + rating | A tab called 'crew v4 FINAL_real (2)' |
| Availability | Techs mark their calendar — you see it in-app | Text each tech. Wait. Wait more. |
| Show scheduling + positions | Structured — roles × quantity × invite status | Merged cells + color coding + hope |
| Travel logistics per tech | Rate / per-diem / airport / hotel captured per show | Buried in email threads |
| Onboarding packets (W-9, NDA, safety brief) | Assignable packets with ack tracking | DocuSign → Dropbox → email → lost |
| Finding new crew in a city you’re not used to | Public directory — search by city + specialty | Post in Facebook groups, hope |
| Invoicing from your crew | Techs invoice you from the platform (optional) | Assorted PDFs in your inbox |
| Sharing visibility with a partner / PM | Add them to your company account | Share the Sheet and pray they don't edit the wrong tab |
The tipping point
- You run 5+ shows a year with non-overlapping crew.
- You've tried to crew a show in a city you rarely work and felt your margin evaporate.
- You have at least one client who asks for W-9s and NDAs and you want to stop chasing them on Monday of load-in.
- Someone on your team has said the word "spreadsheet sprawl" unironically in the last month.
- You've ever opened a tab in your master crew sheet and thought "I don't remember what this is for."
Try it for two weeks
Full access to the platform — directory, crew management, scheduling, onboarding — for 14 days. Cancel anytime before day 15 and you're never charged.