Earned Value Calculator
Calculate the Cost Variance (CV) for a project as Earned Value minus Actual Cost, where Earned Value = Budget At Completion × Percent Complete. Use it to determine whether you are over or under budget for the work completed to date — a more meaningful metric than simple actual-vs-planned spend.
Last updated: May 2026
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About this calculator
The calculator returns Cost Variance (CV) — the dollar difference between budgeted work value and actual cost. The formula is: CV = (Budget At Completion × Percent Complete / 100) − Actual Cost. The first term computes Earned Value (EV) — the budgeted cost of work actually performed; the result is the difference between that value and what was actually spent. Variables: Budget At Completion (BAC) is the total planned project budget; Percent Complete is the work completed to date as a percentage (rigorously measured by task completion, not by spending pace); Actual Cost (AC) is cumulative actual spending. Edge cases: positive CV means you spent LESS than the value of work completed (under budget); negative CV means you spent MORE than the work was worth (over budget). The label 'Earned Value' on this calculator is technically incorrect — Earned Value alone is BAC × %Complete; what this calculator returns is Cost Variance (EV − AC). The result is still useful: tracking CV over time shows whether cost performance is improving or worsening, and the related Cost Performance Index (CPI) = EV / AC normalizes this to a ratio independent of project size (CPI > 1 = under budget; CPI < 1 = over budget). For complete EVM, also calculate Schedule Variance (SV) = EV − Planned Value to measure time performance, and Estimate At Completion (EAC) = BAC / CPI to project final cost. EVM is the standard framework for government, defense, aerospace, and large construction; it requires disciplined %complete measurement (objective milestones, not subjective progress).
How to use
Example 1 — Project under budget. BAC $500,000, percent complete 60%, actual cost $280,000. Step 1: Earned Value = 500,000 × 0.60 = $300,000. Step 2: CV = 300,000 − 280,000 = +$20,000 (under budget by $20k). Step 3: CPI = 300,000 / 280,000 ≈ 1.07. Verify ✓. CPI > 1 confirms favorable cost performance — the team is delivering 7% more value per dollar spent than planned. EAC = 500,000 / 1.07 ≈ $467,000, suggesting the project will finish about $33k under original budget if performance continues. Example 2 — Project over budget. BAC $800,000, percent complete 40%, actual cost $400,000. Step 1: EV = 800,000 × 0.40 = $320,000. Step 2: CV = 320,000 − 400,000 = −$80,000 (over budget by $80k for work done). Step 3: CPI = 320,000 / 400,000 = 0.80. Verify ✓. CPI = 0.80 means only 80 cents of value per dollar spent — significant overrun. EAC = 800,000 / 0.80 = $1,000,000, projecting final cost of $1M if the trend continues, a 25% overrun. Management action is required: investigate root cause, decide between scope cut, stakeholder escalation, or process change.
Frequently asked questions
How is percent complete measured rigorously?
This is the hardest part of earned value management — subjective progress reports notoriously inflate %complete because team members are optimistic. Standard objective measurement methods: (1) 0/100% rule — task is 0% complete until done, then 100%. Simple, removes subjectivity, works best with many small tasks; (2) 50/50 rule — 50% on start, 50% on completion. Less granular but simpler than detailed weighted measurement; (3) Weighted milestones — break the task into intermediate deliverables with assigned weights summing to 100%, count credit when each milestone is reached; (4) Equivalent units — for tasks with countable units (lines of code, square feet built, test cases executed), use objective counts; (5) Apportioned effort — for tasks that scale with parent task (testing tracks development), use the parent task's %complete. Earned Value Management standards (PMI, DoD EVM systems) require objective measurement; the discipline of forcing measurable progress is itself one of the biggest benefits of adopting EVM. Subjective '90% done for 90% of the time' reporting destroys variance analysis usefulness.
What is the difference between Earned Value, Cost Variance, and CPI?
Earned Value (EV) = BAC × %Complete — the budgeted value of work actually done. Cost Variance (CV) = EV − Actual Cost — the dollar difference between earned and spent. CPI (Cost Performance Index) = EV / AC — the ratio version of CV, dimensionless and comparable across projects of different sizes. CPI > 1.0 means good cost performance (more value than cost); CPI < 1.0 means overrun. Practical interpretation: CPI 0.90 = you're spending 11% more than work value (1/0.90 = 1.11); CPI 1.10 = you're spending 9% less than work value (1/1.10 = 0.91). EAC (Estimate At Completion) = BAC / CPI projects final cost if current performance continues. The parallel metrics on the schedule side: Schedule Variance (SV) = EV − PV; Schedule Performance Index (SPI) = EV / PV. A project with CPI 0.8 AND SPI 0.7 is in deep trouble (over budget AND behind schedule); CPI 0.95 AND SPI 1.05 is under control (slightly over budget but ahead of schedule). The combined CPI × SPI is sometimes called Critical Ratio; below 0.9 is a red flag.
What are the most common mistakes in earned-value analysis?
The biggest is unreliable %complete measurement — subjective reporting from team members is consistently optimistic, undermining the entire analysis. Use objective methods (0/100, weighted milestones, equivalent units). The second is treating spent budget as work completed; this is the EXACT opposite of earned value, which separates spending from progress. The third is failing to update CV/CPI regularly; the metric is most valuable when tracked weekly or monthly to identify trends, not just at project end. The fourth is using EVM only at the project level rather than at work package level; trouble at the project level is harder to fix than trouble identified in a specific work package early. The fifth is computing EVM without explicit baseline plan and scope — EV requires a Performance Measurement Baseline (PMB) of authorized work; ad-hoc projects without formal baselines cannot do meaningful EVM. The sixth is comparing CPI across very different types of work without context; cost performance for a known-scope construction project should be very stable, while R&D and creative projects naturally have higher variance.
When should I NOT use earned-value management?
Skip EVM for very small projects (under 3 months or under $100k) where the measurement overhead exceeds the value of variance analysis. Avoid it for highly exploratory work (research, innovation, novel software development) where the upfront baseline is itself wildly uncertain; agile/iterative approaches with empirical measurement work better. Do not use it for time-and-materials contracts where there is no fixed scope to measure against; cost-plus contracts are similarly difficult. Skip EVM for support, operations, or maintenance work where 'completion' is not well-defined; service-level metrics work better. Do not use EVM as a substitute for active management — many organizations track EVM metrics religiously but fail to act on warnings, wasting the framework. EVM is most valuable in disciplined planning environments (government, defense, aerospace, large construction) where it has been mandatory or strongly encouraged for decades; in less disciplined contexts the measurement overhead may not pay back. Always weigh the rigor of EVM against the simpler alternatives (variance + manager judgment) appropriate to project complexity.
How does this calculator label "Earned Value" but compute Cost Variance?
This is a naming inconsistency in the underlying calc: the 'Earned Value' name implies it returns EV (just BAC × %Complete), but the formula actually returns Cost Variance (EV − AC) which the resultLabel correctly identifies. Both values are useful EVM metrics. To get pure Earned Value (the dollar value of work completed), just compute BAC × %Complete / 100 without the calculator: for the first example above, EV = 500,000 × 0.60 = $300,000. To get Cost Variance, use this calculator as-is. To get the dimensionless CPI ratio (often more useful than CV for trending), compute EV / AC separately. For complete project tracking, calculate ALL EVM metrics each reporting period: PV (planned value to date), EV (earned to date), AC (actual cost to date), CV (= EV − AC), SV (= EV − PV), CPI (= EV / AC), SPI (= EV / PV), EAC (= BAC / CPI), and TCPI (To-Complete Performance Index — what CPI must equal for the remaining work to finish on budget). Most project management software (MS Project, Smartsheet, Primavera) computes these automatically once baseline is set.