Stacy L. Chin breaks down five mistakes that sink SBIR budgets: double-counting costs, skipping fringe benefits, underestimating direct costs, unrealistic salaries, and budgets disconnected from your research plan. Reviewers reject applications when they can't trace a clear line from the money to the work.
So for the past decade, I've reviewed so many SPR budgets that look beautiful on paper but should have never been submitted. But the good news is that most budgeting mistakes are completely avoidable once you know what reviewers are looking for. And the biggest mistakes I see are like double counting costs, forgetting fringe benefits, underestimating direct costs, proposing unrealistic salaries, or just building a budget that has very little connection to the actual research plan. So if you're going after SPR funding 2026 and beyond and are working on your budgets, make sure your budgets don't feel like a spreadsheet sheet exercise. Rather, it should reinforce the story you're already telling in your SBIR application, because every dollar should have a purpose and every line item should support the work that you are proposing. And if a reviewer cannot connect your budget to your research strategy, that's a red flag.
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