Know your cost variance.
The dollar gap between the value of the work you have done and what you have spent to do it. Three numbers, one answer: favorable or over.
Cost variance (CV) = earned value − actual cost. Earned value is your budget times the percent of work physically complete. The sign is the story:
- Positive CV — favorable, the work done cost less than budgeted.
- Negative CV — unfavorable, an overrun on the work done so far.
- Zero — exactly on budget.
Your numbers
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A single cost variance is a snapshot. POD reads the cost and progress data your team already records and trends cost variance over time, per work package, so you catch the inflection before it becomes an overrun.
CV vs CPI
Cost variance is dollars (EV − AC). CPI is the ratio (EV ÷ AC). One tells you how much, the other how efficiently.
Earned value
Budget times percent physically complete. It is the honest measure of what the work is worth, not hours logged or invoices sent.
Watch the trend
Small early variances recover. A widening negative variance is the signal to act before the finish.
Questions & answers
Cost variance (CV) is earned value minus actual cost. It tells you, in dollars, whether the work completed so far cost more or less than budgeted. Positive is favorable, negative is unfavorable, and zero is exactly on budget.
Method & sources
Cost variance equals earned value minus actual cost, following earned value management. Earned value is your budget multiplied by the percent of work physically complete — not the percent of budget spent, which is the mistake that hides overruns. A negative CV means you have paid more than the completed work was budgeted to cost.
Sources: PMI PMBOK Guide (Earned Value Management) · ANSI/EIA-748 EVMS standard
Methodology reviewed by the Plan of Day construction team · July 2026
Earned value in, variance out — no padding.
Trend cost variance on your own project.
Every work package carries its own live cost variance in POD, rebuilt from the reports your crews already file, so a slipping package surfaces on its own instead of hiding in the total.
Last updated: July 2026