Depending what I am doing, it could range from $85/hour for something simple, up to 400 per hour for something real complex. Depending on the job though, I would just charge a flat rate. Sometimes it's better to just say "I will do the whole job for $X.yy rather than say 100/hour.
If you're doign something almost anyone can do (installing windows, etc.) that is minimum wage stuff. Really...I mean, $20/hr is a huge amount. Lets see a resume.
Depends on the quality of your work, service, and experience. 20 dollars is very little for house calls though, you should definitely consider charging more.
Originally posted by: TechnoPro
Originally posted by: KrillBee
ha, i do work for friends sometimes and their parents, and only charge maybe 10 bucks for labor (usually they bring their computer to my house and it only takes half an hour to fix or so) and of course i charge them for parts
maybe i should be more serious about what i charge and everything. there is definately money to be made doing this, since people charge WAY too much for this sort of thing.
$50 an hour I think is too much, I mean computers require no real tough manual labor. When people watch me work, they see how computers actually are pretty simple if you care to pop open the hood. As long as they pay for the gas and my time driving out, and pay me what say a basic tech in a business earns per hour, then I'm happy. (I figure if most jobs take half an hour, and i get 10 bucks for labor, then im basically making $20 per hour)
I cant believe that there are places that charge up to $70 or $100 an hour. I mean this is a computer that we are working on here, not a frickin car! lol. I think computers are way easier to work on than cars (not as dirty, not as painful to the body, not as risky, etc) to charge $100 per hour for computer tech labor is insane.
Do you truly believe that people can support themselves on $10 an hour? Or $10 per job? How old are you?
22 years old,
ive never made more than 10/hour,
but i will now that I have just graduated college.
But for a highschool or college student, 10/hour isnt bad.
dang, maybe i should just be a private tech and make a living that way, lol.
how can people afford to pay $150 an hour for tech work? Thats about a third of the price of a new computer!
are you doing more than just swapping hardware and windows related stuff?
I mean if you come out to troubleshoot a really expensive server, and a software glitch or something, i guess i could understand that a lot then.
but please people, dont tell me that home users are willing to pay 100+ per hour, are they?
You can find car labor for cheaper than that!
People can afford it because loss of business or productivity is often worse than not paying for the services of a competent professional. Further, paying someone to screw everything up at $50 an hour and then paying someone to "unscrew" it all for $125 an hour is worse than simply paying someone $125 an hour to do it right the first time. And yes, that sort of thing happens quite often - that's how we end up getting more and more business... companies who are unhappy with crappy service from their regular, cheap techs and become amazed after they see the difference in service that they can get from a quality tech.
No, not all home users will pay $100+ per hour. But when I've got businesses paying that rate, and we've got more business than we can handle, why would we go after home users at a lower rate?
Home users who want the problem fixed right will find the right person to not only fix their computer, but teach them how to not break it again, if the problem happens to be related to user habits. Or, they can just pay cheap money and get the 14-year-old down the street to do it, or take it to BestBuy and let them do it... and they'll usually get what they pay for (pay for cheap service, get cheap service) unless they're incredibly lucky.
Yes, $150 per hour IS a third of a cost of a cheap computer (and if you spend only that much, you'll get what you pay for), but there's more to owning a computer than buying the hardware and software, just as there's more to owning a car than buying the metal and plastic - there's gas, oil changes, maintenance, repair, insurance, tags, licenses, etc.
What I'm saying is that, sure, a user can go out and get a new computer for $450... but I'd lay good money that the same problems will occur simply because of the user sitting in front of the computer.
I completely agree with the previous posters - if you're good at what you do, and you provide *real* value to your customers, they'll pay the money AND ask you to return again.
Since it's not my primary income source, it's a minimum of $50/hour, one hour minimum.
If you don't like it, tough, I have other work to do at $150/hour that isn't tech related.
If you don't like it, tough, I have other work to do at $150/hour that isn't tech related.
my friends on campus charge $40 an hour, two hour minimum. And this is to college students that you'd figure to be hesitant to pay those amounts. Things like backing up / restoring data, diagnosing hardware problems and getting replacements, and the like. I work with them on campus (where we make between $8 and $10 an hour) and our work charges a $25 flat fee to remove spyware.
The students have complained at times but we've just told them to compare prices with other places, and after awhile, they stopped complaining.
The students have complained at times but we've just told them to compare prices with other places, and after awhile, they stopped complaining.
When I started off doing computer consulting, it was 100% for home users. Simple things like taking the PC out of the box and setting it up, loading programs, training the user, etc. Indeed for someone technically savvy, these are ridiculously simple tasks, so the thought of commanding a premium wage might seem bizzare or unfair. That is a mental block that prevents an individual from wealth. It's like a statement "I am only worth so much..." Bvllshit.
Remember something, for someone who either does not have this computer proficiency, these simple things would otherwise have been very frustrating and/or time consuming. There are also people who do not want to deal with computer issues at all (not worth their time or effort), so they will hire an outsider at the drop of a hat for virtually any glitch or problem, and pay well to boot.
I have zero interest nor inclination in fixing my own car. That's just me. I just want it to run well at all times. So I pay basically whatever I am charged provided that it runs well. Many people and businesses have the same mentality about their computers; they require smooth running and uptime.
Remeber something, your inner notions of prices have NOTHING to do woth market rates. If I ask myself, how much is computer repair or networking services worth to me? The answer is zero, since I do it all myself and wouldn't spend a dime on it. Yet downtime is anathema to my business running smoothly.
Don't ever feel ashamed to make a good living. I made this mistake when I started out and still kick myself in the foot for it.
Average going rate here in socal is between $85-165 an hour (professional consultants - not geek squad and the sort). My rate is $85 an hour....unless it has to do with Exchange or Sharepoint then I bump it up to $125 hour.
I don't deal with home users....my clients are all small/medium size biz...there are plenty of biz to go around ...trust me...
I don't deal with home users....my clients are all small/medium size biz...there are plenty of biz to go around ...trust me...
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