how much should i charge?

[daclayman]

uummm beer. I use these occasions as a primer for future bidness.

Yup. Yup. Definitely beer. :beer:

edit: clarification: Win XP with ALL updates takes a LONG time which = lots of beer

 

[The Batt?sai]

Originally posted by: mugs
Eleventy billion dollars.

winner :thumbsup:

 

[shoRunner]

Originally posted by: KarmaPolice

Originally posted by: shoRunner

Originally posted by: venk
Why would you do it for free? You are taking your time to do this for them. Geek Squad charges $80/pc so $50-$60 seems about right. If it's a lot of PC's, don't charge a per PC price, just charge a flat fee.

geeksquad charges $59. i'd say you charge $50

do they really charge 60 just for a xp install? wow

that is the instore price

 

[Xyclone]

Just charge $40. That's a pretty balanced price I think.

 

[esun]

If it's literally stick in the CD, format, install Windows, maybe $30-40. If it's backup data, install Windows, install software, restore data, then $50-60. Of course, it's really up to you.

 

[jagec]

$20-$30, max.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Three easy payments of $19.95.

 

[Conky]

Charge enough that they won't ask you to do it again.

 

[Merlyn3D]

<dr evil>one...MILLION...dollars</dr evil>

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

*shakes head*

You guys don't get it. It's not how easy the job is, it's how long it takes to do the job. Any kind of tech service from IT to plumbing is going to cost $60-100/hr. You bill for time. Loading XP to pretty much everyone on this forum is a no-brainer. But look at it in terms of snaking a toilet. If everyone could snake a toilet nobody would need to play a plumber $75/hr to make their toilet flush after Uncle Ed ate too many nachos.

Billable hours my firends... billable hours.

 

[Conky]

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy
*shakes head*

You guys don't get it. It's not how easy the job is, it's how long it takes to do the job. Any kind of tech service from IT to plumbing is going to cost $60-100/hr. You bill for time. Loading XP to pretty much everyone on this forum is a no-brainer. But look at it in terms of snaking a toilet. If everyone could snake a toilet nobody would need to play a plumber $75/hr to make their toilet flush after Uncle Ed ate too many nachos.

Billable hours my firends... billable hours.

That's why most of these tards work for the "Geek Squad", lol. :laugh:

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy
*shakes head*

You guys don't get it. It's not how easy the job is, it's how long it takes to do the job. Any kind of tech service from IT to plumbing is going to cost $60-100/hr. You bill for time. Loading XP to pretty much everyone on this forum is a no-brainer. But look at it in terms of snaking a toilet. If everyone could snake a toilet nobody would need to play a plumber $75/hr to make their toilet flush after Uncle Ed ate too many nachos.

Billable hours my firends... billable hours.

That's true...except that this is a school, which means the chances are very high that there are plenty of young geeks around who are all capable of installing Windows. Thus, if the OP charges something ridiculous, someone will be talking to a friend and get the whole "$60? That's outrageous! I'd do it for $10, and I know six other people who would also do it for $10!"

A better example would be if you clogged the toilet at a trade school. Are you going to pay the $75 for a plumber, if there are hundreds of them around?

Supply and demand my friends...supply and demand.

 

[Jeff7]

There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multimillion dollar machines. They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer
who had solved so many of their problems in the past. The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. At
the end of the day, he marked a small "x" in chalk on a particular component of the machine and stated, "This is where your problem is". The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again. The company received a bill
for $50,000 from the engineer for his service. They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges. The engineer responded briefly: One chalk mark $1. Knowing where to put it $49,999. It was paid in full and the engineer retired again in peace.

----------------------------

I agree, it can seem weird charging a lot for what basically amounts to you sitting there and clicking "Next" a few times. I did some free-lance servicing for a little bit some months ago, and I think I charged something like $40/hr. Think I did a total of maybe 3 servicing calls before I figured it wasn't for me. Anyway, one particular visit, I hardly actually did anything myself. It was a spyware-laden PC with very little RAM to begin with. I had to run some spyware apps several times to get rid of everything, and they ran excruciatingly slow. Once it was all done though, the PC was back to normal, and they were willing to pay for the 2.5hrs of my time that it wound up taking, because it was virtually useless before I got there.

Originally posted by: randomlinh

Originally posted by: bhanson
By doing it for free you would increase your reputation as a "good guy." In school reputation precedes grades in many occasions.

If you charge then you are merely sacrificing the reputation increase for a capital benefit. Your choice.

no, you will get labeled the tech guy who does things for free.

Agreed. Very bad label to get. Once you have that label, suddenly, everyone who has a computer will suddenly have a problem that they want fixed. And they'll say "whenever is good for you" - meaning "fix it right now."

$40-$50/hr should be fine to ask for. They probably contract out or do bidding or something and pay private consultants $100/hr or more for regular work.
Or maybe they're cheap and pay resident computer techs $8/hr to do it.

Seriously - the school I used to go to posted a job opening for a computer tech. $8/hr. Stocking shelves at Walmart can get you that kind of money for god's sake.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Originally posted by: jagec

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy
*shakes head*

You guys don't get it. It's not how easy the job is, it's how long it takes to do the job. Any kind of tech service from IT to plumbing is going to cost $60-100/hr. You bill for time. Loading XP to pretty much everyone on this forum is a no-brainer. But look at it in terms of snaking a toilet. If everyone could snake a toilet nobody would need to play a plumber $75/hr to make their toilet flush after Uncle Ed ate too many nachos.

Billable hours my firends... billable hours.

That's true...except that this is a school, which means the chances are very high that there are plenty of young geeks around who are all capable of installing Windows. Thus, if the OP charges something ridiculous, someone will be talking to a friend and get the whole "$60? That's outrageous! I'd do it for $10, and I know six other people who would also do it for $10!"

A better example would be if you clogged the toilet at a trade school. Are you going to pay the $75 for a plumber, if there are hundreds of them around?

Supply and demand my friends...supply and demand.

Then why hasn't someone already done it for free? (Or to kiss ass to a professor?)

Your time and your expertise are valuable. If anyone could do it they wouldn't need you. I say the OP should pick a rate and bill it.

Edit: BTW... There is ALWAYS someone willing to do it for less. A $50 BJ on one side of the street could be had for $40 on the other. Set your price and stick with it.

 

[aka1nas]

Personally, I wouldn't do any computer work for under $35/hour. At work, we charge ~$185/hr for any on-site service we do for a client and most find that fairly reasonable (obviously these are corporate clients, not home users).

Food for thought: They need you to install XP on this machine. That usually implies one of two possibilities.

1) They f-ed up a previous XP install on the machine.

2) This machine had an older version of windows and they are upgrading to XP.

If it's the latter, then the machine is likely old and slow. This means you will take even longer to install XP than if you were doing so on a machine that didn't suck. This is why you need to bill for time spent. It's not your fault if a customer has a crappy computer and your work on it takes longer.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy

Then why hasn't someone already done it for free? (Or to kiss ass to a professor?)

Your time and your expertise are valuable. If anyone could do it they wouldn't need you. I say the OP should pick a rate and bill it.

Edit: BTW... There is ALWAYS someone willing to do it for less. A $50 BJ on one side of the street could be had for $40 on the other. Set your price and stick with it.

Not really in college, and they DON'T need "you". What it comes down to is, you could make $20 in an hour that you were just going to waste anyway, or you can try to charge too much and make $0.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Originally posted by: jagec

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy

Then why hasn't someone already done it for free? (Or to kiss ass to a professor?)

Your time and your expertise are valuable. If anyone could do it they wouldn't need you. I say the OP should pick a rate and bill it.

Edit: BTW... There is ALWAYS someone willing to do it for less. A $50 BJ on one side of the street could be had for $40 on the other. Set your price and stick with it.

Not really in college, and they DON'T need "you". What it comes down to is, you could make $20 in an hour that you were just going to waste anyway, or you can try to charge too much and make $0.

You and I both know how simple it is... so why isn't it done yet? If it's that big of a problem it's obviously worht more than $20.

Originally posted by: aka1nas
Personally, I wouldn't do any computer work for under $35/hour. At work, we charge ~$185/hr for any on-site service we do for a client and most find that fairly reasonable (obviously these are corporate clients, not home users).

Food for thought: They need you to install XP on this machine. That usually implies one of two possibilities.

1) They f-ed up a previous XP install on the machine.

2) This machine had an older version of windows and they are upgrading to XP.

If it's the latter, then the machine is likely old and slow. This means you will take even longer to install XP than if you were doing so on a machine that didn't suck. This is why you need to bill for time spent. It's not your fault if a customer has a crappy computer and your work on it takes longer.

Well stated.

 

[aka1nas]

Also, if this is a college setting it's not likely they are spending their own money getting this issue fixed. They will probably not be sweating over the cost to the point that they will happily hire you to do it at @ $25/hr but freak out at $30/hr. Just quote a rate you feel is fair for your time and if they don't agree then negotiate or walk.

 

[WildHorse]

$40 and free coffee from school cafeteria.

Or, $40 and free tickets to school game or play.

Or, just $40 and a good reference. First tiny job may lead to more from them.

 

[CrimsonChaos]

Originally posted by: KarmaPolice
haha pushed enter too fast..

anway..school club wants me to install xp on one of their machines. They are all clueless...how much should I ask for?

Depends on the cost of living in your area, and the typical amount IT personnel earn. But I'd say be reasonable and charge somewhere around $25.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: KarmaPolice
haha pushed enter too fast..

anway..school club wants me to install xp on one of their machines. They are all clueless...how much should I ask for?

As much as you can get because if something goes wrong with it later they will blame you and look to you to fix it for free!