Most AV maintenance contracts get bought once, filed away, and never actually read again until something breaks — which is exactly the wrong time to discover what tier you're on. Creation Care is Creation Networks' managed AV maintenance and support program, and it's built around a single premise: a meeting-room outage should never be a surprise, and when a system does fail, the response should already be defined in writing rather than negotiated over the phone while a room sits dark.
This article is the reference page for how Creation Care actually works — the three coverage tiers, how packages and savings work, what a preventive maintenance visit covers, how response times and spare equipment differ by plan, and how Clarity Remote Monitoring, our standalone 24/7 monitoring service, pairs with any plan.
Quick answer: Creation Care is a three-tier managed maintenance program — Silver, Gold, and Platinum — with simple, fixed annual pricing built around your site and your rooms, and savings of up to 10% on multi-year terms. You can add it to a new project from day one, or put it on systems you already own, including equipment someone else installed. Silver runs business-hours support with a 4-hour phone response, on-site within 2 business days, and two preventive visits a year; Platinum runs 24/7 phone and remote support with a 1-hour phone response, same-day on-site (within 4 hours in the Bay Area), four preventive visits a year plus pre-event checks, managed firmware updates, and spares for critical rooms. Clarity Remote Monitoring is sold separately as a standalone service — buy it on its own, or pair it with any Creation Care plan.
See full plan details on the Creation Care Maintenance & Support page, or browse Maintenance Plans & Extended Warranties.
Why AV Maintenance Is a Different Problem Than IT Maintenance
Most facilities and IT teams already run a maintenance program for servers, network switches, and desktops. AV equipment gets folded into that same model by default, and it's usually the wrong fit. A conference room system fails in ways a server rack doesn't: a projector's color balance drifts for months before anyone notices, a DSP's microphone gain slips as a connector corrodes, a control system's firmware falls two versions behind and stops passing a platform certification it used to hold. None of these show up as a red light on a rack — they show up as a stalled meeting, and the first person to notice is whoever is standing at the podium.
That's the gap Creation Care is built to close: a maintenance model designed around meeting-room uptime specifically, not around general IT asset management. Customers without a maintenance contract typically pay two to three times more per incident on emergency repair calls than the equivalent maintenance cost, and they see meaningfully more downtime while a fix gets arranged from scratch — vendor identified, technician scheduled, parts sourced, purchase order approved. A maintenance plan converts that unpredictable expense into a fixed, budgetable line item, and it protects equipment life at the same time: professional displays, projectors, and DSPs on a quarterly maintenance schedule routinely reach 7 to 10 years of reliable service, against roughly 4 to 5 years for unmaintained equivalents.
The Three Creation Care Tiers
Every Creation Care plan includes remote troubleshooting, a ticket portal with reporting, and preventive maintenance visits. What separates Silver, Gold, and Platinum is support hours, response speed, how often a technician visits, and how failed equipment gets replaced.
| Feature | Silver | Gold | Platinum |
|---|---|---|---|
| Support hours | Mon–Fri, 7am–4pm PT | Mon–Fri, 7am–4pm PT | 24/7 phone and remote |
| Phone response | 4 hours | 2 hours | 1 hour |
| On-site response | 2 business days | Next business day | Same day (within 4 hours in the Bay Area) |
| Preventive maintenance | 2 visits/year | 4 visits/year | 4 visits/year + pre-event checks |
| Priority in service queue | Standard | Priority | Top priority |
| Spares or loaner equipment | Not included | Available as an option | Included for critical rooms |
| Firmware & software updates | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Owner-furnished equipment | Not covered | Covered | Covered |
| Ticket portal and reporting | Yes | Yes | Yes, plus a quarterly review |
| Clarity Remote Monitoring | Sold separately | Sold separately | Sold separately |
All tiers exclude programming changes, new equipment, and room moves; those are quoted as projects or drawn from a block of hours. Firmware work on Silver and Gold is handled the same way.
Packages, Savings, and When to Start
Creation Care is priced to be easy to say yes to. Your plan is built from two simple pieces — one fee for your site and one fixed price for each room, based on what's in it — so a huddle room never costs what a boardroom does, and you know your number for the whole year up front. No per-ticket charges, no surprise truck-roll invoices for covered work.
Start on day one, with your project
The easiest time to add Creation Care is when we're building your system. Bundle it into your project and it's priced as a simple percentage of what we install — no separate survey, no second quote cycle, and no gap between the day we hand over the keys and the day your coverage starts. The same engineers who built the room are the ones who look after it.
Or add it any time after
Already have systems in place? Creation Care works just as well after the fact — on rooms we installed years ago, or on equipment another integrator put in. We start with a walkthrough and a documentation audit, then build a plan around the rooms you actually have. Multiple buildings or campuses roll into one plan, with additional sites added at a reduced rate.
Save with a longer term
- One year — standard pricing, renews annually.
- Two years — save 5%.
- Three years, prepaid — save 10%, and lock in your rate.
Government and education customers can pay quarterly. For work outside your plan — a room move, a programming change, a new display — prepaid blocks of support hours get cheaper per hour the more you buy.
Clarity Remote Monitoring: on its own, or with your plan
Creation Care fixes things fast. Clarity Remote Monitoring helps them not break at all. Clarity is a standalone service — you don't need a maintenance plan to buy it. Every connected device in your rooms — control processors, DSPs, codecs, cameras, microphones, displays — is watched 24/7 through Q-SYS Reflect. When something starts to drift, we see it, diagnose it, and reach out in under an hour, often fixing it remotely before anyone walks into the room.
- Simple monthly pricing per room, sized to how many devices are in it, or per building for shared gear like lobby screens and signage.
- Room-by-room status at a glance, with analytics and reporting on how your spaces are actually used.
- Go three years and the setup fee is waived, plus 10% off.
Pair Clarity with a Creation Care plan and you get the combination most business-critical spaces end up on: Clarity catches the problem early, and Creation Care gets a technician there on a guaranteed timeline if it needs hands.
What a Preventive Maintenance Visit Actually Covers
A standard visit isn't a walkthrough — it's a defined checklist: a full system health check across displays, projectors, audio DSPs, microphones, and control processors; a firmware and software check against the latest manufacturer-stable releases; physical cleaning of fans, filters, and projector lenses; calibration of audio levels, camera presets, and display alignment; cable and connector inspection and labeling; control-system diagnostic log review; and a written site report flagging any component approaching end of life or showing early failure indicators. Platinum visits add user-experience testing of one-touch-join behavior across Zoom, Teams, Webex, and Google Meet — confirming the button people press every day still does what it's supposed to, not just that the hardware powers on.
The distinction worth holding onto: AV repair is reactive, dispatched after something has already failed. AV maintenance is proactive — scheduled visits designed to prevent the failure from happening at all. The EOL flagging in that written report is what turns a capital refresh into a planned line item instead of an emergency purchase order.
Vendor-Agnostic Coverage and Certifications
Creation Care doesn't require that Creation Networks originally sold or installed the equipment. Onboarding for a third-party system starts with a documentation audit: every endpoint gets inventoried, existing configurations captured, firmware levels identified, and anything already past end of life flagged before the system is added to the program with the same SLA protections as work Creation Networks built itself. A meaningful share of the largest managed accounts started this way.
Technicians hold AVIXA CTS, CTS-D, and CTS-I credentials alongside Crestron Certified Programmer/Installer, QSC Q-SYS Certified Design and Installation Partner, Microsoft Teams Rooms Certified Partner, and Zoom Rooms Certified Installer status, plus authorized service partner standing with Logitech, Poly, Shure, Biamp, and Samsung. In practice that spans the whole pro-AV stack: Crestron, Extron, AMX, Q-SYS, Biamp, ClearOne, and Symetrix on the control and DSP side; Shure, Sennheiser, QSC, Yamaha, Audio-Technica, and Bose on audio; Poly, Cisco, Logitech, Yealink, Neat, and Crestron Flex for video conferencing; and Samsung, LG, Sony, Sharp/NEC, Barco, Christie, and Epson on displays. If you're on a network switch under a manufacturer's own coverage — see our breakdown of NETGEAR's Sprint, Overdrive, and Custom Fastlane switch support tiers — that hardware-level warranty runs alongside Creation Care rather than in place of it.
What Correctly Matched Coverage Delivers
The measurable outcome of getting the tier right is fewer surprises on both sides of the relationship. A facilities team on the right tier knows exactly what a Tuesday-morning outage costs them in response time before it happens, because it's written into the contract rather than negotiated after the fact. Budget planning gets easier too: a fixed annual cost, ticket reporting through the portal, and an EOL-flagged asset list from each visit mean a capital refresh shows up as a planned line item a year out, not an emergency purchase order the week a display finally dies.
Getting the tier wrong shows up in specific, avoidable ways. A guest-facing lobby or after-hours event space on a business-hours plan generates the exact incident Creation Care is supposed to prevent, just later than it should have. A trading floor or courtroom without spares on hand is gambling on availability during the one week a spare actually matters. Matching tier to room criticality — not to the cheapest line item on the quote — is what makes the rest of the program work as intended.
Choosing a Creation Care Tier
- Map every room to a criticality level before pricing anything: which rooms cannot go down during business hours, which can wait a day, which can wait a week.
- Match after-hours and weekend coverage needs explicitly — Silver and Gold cover business hours; only Platinum includes 24/7 phone and remote support.
- Decide whether on-hand spares matter for your highest-criticality rooms; if downtime cost exceeds the Gold-to-Platinum price gap, it almost always does.
- Choose a multi-year term where the room's expected service life supports it — the three-year savings often cover much of a tier upgrade.
- Add Clarity Remote Monitoring to your most important rooms so problems get caught before they cost you a meeting.
If you're building a maintenance plan across multiple room types, sites, or an estate that includes equipment Creation Networks didn't originally install, our team can walk your rooms and recommend the right tier. Start with the Creation Care Maintenance & Support page for the full plan finder, or call to talk it through.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between the three Creation Care tiers?
Support hours, response speed, and preventive maintenance depth. Silver: business hours, 4-hour phone response, on-site within 2 business days, 2 visits/year. Gold: business hours, 2-hour phone response, next-business-day on-site, 4 visits/year, priority queue, owner-furnished equipment covered, spares available as an option. Platinum: 24/7 phone and remote, 1-hour phone response, same-day on-site (within 4 hours in the Bay Area), 4 visits/year plus pre-event checks, managed firmware updates, owner-furnished equipment covered, spares for critical rooms, and a quarterly review.
How is Creation Care priced?
Simply: one fee for your site plus a fixed price for each room based on what's in it, so you know your full-year cost up front. Add it to a new project and it's priced as a percentage of what we install. Two-year terms save 5% and three-year prepaid terms save 10%. Call us for a quote built around your rooms.
Can we add Creation Care after our system is already installed?
Yes. You can bundle it with a new project from day one, or add it any time after — including on equipment another integrator installed. Onboarding starts with a walkthrough and documentation audit, then your rooms join the program with the same SLA protections as work Creation Networks built itself.
Do I need a Creation Care plan to get Clarity Remote Monitoring?
No. Clarity is a standalone service. It watches every connected device in your rooms 24/7 through Q-SYS Reflect, and when something starts to drift, we diagnose it and reach out in under an hour — often fixing it remotely before anyone notices. Pair it with a Creation Care plan if you also want scheduled visits and a guaranteed on-site response time.
What's the contract length?
Plans run 1, 2 or 3 years — 2 years saves 5%, 3 years prepaid saves 10%. Plans renew for another year unless either side gives 30 days' notice. Multiple sites roll into one plan.
Related Resources
- Clarity Remote Monitoring
- Clarity Remote Monitoring: 24/7 AV System Monitoring Powered by Q-SYS Reflect
- NETGEAR Switch Support Contracts: Sprint vs. Overdrive vs. Custom Fastlane Explained
- Why AV Support and Maintenance Contracts Are Critical for Your Bottom Line
- Maintenance Plans & Extended Warranties
Creation Networks, Inc. — nationwide commercial AV integrator, CTS-D certified, based in Concord, CA and Incline Village, NV. Design, engineering, programming, installation, and support from a single point of contact since 2006. Call 888-230-3661 or email sales@creationnetworks.net.
