Part time computer maintenance job

[Tim]

n/m

 

[OCGuy]

Call a few local IT shops/sole proprietors and get quotes for the exact scenario.

They obviously don't want to pay you the same price they could get someone with professional references, certs (if you don't have them), insurance, etc, but just like you said, don't get buttsexed either.

Make sure you have a minimum billing increment so that you dont invoice for 3 minutes when you RDP in to change someone's wallpaper to a picture of their cat standing on a surfboard for them.

 

[amdhunter]

$0/hr + overtime.

That's the going rate according to my family.

 

[Tim]

$0/hr



That's the going rate according to my family.

I know that feeling.

 

[Rhezuss]

$0/hr + overtime.

That's the going rate according to my family.

Hahahah been there but I sold my PC maintenance empire to my brother.

 

[Insomniator]

$60 an hour with a half hour min?

Thats about what I ask for when doing side jobs.

 

[Tim]

$60 an hour with a half hour min?

Thats about what I ask for when doing side jobs.

This is somewhat the range I seem to be finding on craigslist. Some higher some lower.

 

[amddude]

I think $60/hr is normal most places.

 

[alkemyst]

I would charge $75/hr usually for a business and around $50/hr for home with 1 hour minimums and travel over 10 miles at .55/mile for less than 2 hours of work.

This sounds like on-going maintenance which I tended to avoid because you get in situations where you are emergency service.

For emergencies it was $150/hr, 1 hour minimum and I only worked after 6pm and on weekends.

I'd set up a monthly contract, come in once per month and check everything quick. Set a fair emergency rate for unexpected issues.

It gets complicated fast so that both sides get their expectations met. I tended to stick to ultra wealthy clients in Palm Beach and the like and I was lucky enough to grow my business.

My best year (again this was part-time) was around $15-20k in income. It was too much work though. I passed along my business to a good friend that was out of work at the time. He is doing well with it and expanding it into a more full-time position.

He wants to branch out into the server installation market as some clients are asking him for this level of service, but he knows nothing about them It's a hard spot to be in....like a restaurant that is always full, but to expand will change their whole lease structure.

 

[Tim]

I would charge $75/hr usually for a business and around $50/hr for home with 1 hour minimums and travel over 10 miles at .55/mile for less than 2 hours of work.



This sounds like on-going maintenance which I tended to avoid because you get in situations where you are emergency service.



For emergencies it was $150/hr, 1 hour minimum and I only worked after 6pm and on weekends.



I'd set up a monthly contract, come in once per month and check everything quick. Set a fair emergency rate for unexpected issues.



It gets complicated fast so that both sides get their expectations met. I tended to stick to ultra wealthy clients in Palm Beach and the like and I was lucky enough to grow my business.



My best year (again this was part-time) was around $15-20k in income. It was too much work though. I passed along my business to a good friend that was out of work at the time. He is doing well with it and expanding it into a more full-time position.



He wants to branch out into the server installation market as some clients are asking him for this level of service, but he knows nothing about them It's a hard spot to be in....like a restaurant that is always full, but to expand will change their whole lease structure.

Thanks for taking your time to type all of that out. What did you specifically refer to as an emergency situation?

 

[Legios]

An emergency would be anything needed after what one would consider normal working hours and outside of the normal maintenance window. Laptops are inherently more prone to physical damage as they get jostled more than a static desktop.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Thanks for taking your time to type all of that out. What did you specifically refer to as an emergency situation?

My printer isn't working and I need it up 5 hours ago for my project that's due! Come over NOW!

 

[Cuular]

You need to do a couple things to make sure you don't get screwed.

Like listed above come up with a monthly schedule of doing stuff. And the expectations from them and you about what hours you are available, and what they will cost.

Make them very aware, that you are not on call to come hold someones hand that just deleted their document they were working on. You are providing them an infrastructure service, not a helpdesk fix all their little issues service.

On top of that you will require them to provide you a laptop exactly like what they have. And you set it up exactly like you did theirs, so you can test whatever changes you are going to make to their machines, before you rdp in or show up to do the work.

And have a good backup and restore setup, with an image, so you can recreate your practice laptop, if things go bad.

Nothing sucks more than showing up, trying to install updates and have it go sideways, because something on that machine doesn't work well with windows patches.

 

[Kaido]

Just make sure to update Adobe :sneaky:

 

[mrjminer]

Definitely make sure you establish regular hours / times that you will do it and make it clear that outside of those times would be additional. Otherwise, you're going to be basically on call all the time. Or at least make it clear the hours you are available and make them e-mail you questions/requests outside of that timeframe and just let them know in advance that you probably won't address those things until the next time that falls within you regular hours.

And do the "emergency hours" / "outside of normal hours" rate differential, really depends on whatever you would deem appropriate for the timeframes those hours would be applicable to, based on your own convenience.

 

[sze5003]

If you are doing this for random people, be careful. You will be on the hook for on call crap. You have to make it clear what you will and won't fix.

For example I get questions like my laptop is slow can you fix it? For a laptop you have to spend time to analyze the specs, clean porn off, uninstall adware...sometimes even reinstall the os. Charge accordingly. Even for desktops you will get this and they are running an emachine so not much you can do about hardware but uninstall crap spyware or reinstall the os. In a week or two they will be in the same place.

For things like my laptop fan is making noise, it's much harder to fix laptop hardware failures. Half the time the people telling me their fan is making noise or their laptop is getting hot, they are using a laptop over 4 years old that's been dropped, messed with, and pretty much a pain or impossible to replace or find parts.

 

[Kaido]

You need to do a couple things to make sure you don't get screwed.

Like listed above come up with a monthly schedule of doing stuff. And the expectations from them and you about what hours you are available, and what they will cost.

Make them very aware, that you are not on call to come hold someones hand that just deleted their document they were working on. You are providing them an infrastructure service, not a helpdesk fix all their little issues service.

On top of that you will require them to provide you a laptop exactly like what they have. And you set it up exactly like you did theirs, so you can test whatever changes you are going to make to their machines, before you rdp in or show up to do the work.

And have a good backup and restore setup, with an image, so you can recreate your practice laptop, if things go bad.

Nothing sucks more than showing up, trying to install updates and have it go sideways, because something on that machine doesn't work well with windows patches.

Absolutely agree. Some general tips:

1. Screensharing: Use Teamviewer for remote access (with user-side login prompt disabled so you can get in after-hours)

2. Computer master images: Do a proper setup on each laptop from the get-go:

a. Update the BIOS on each machine
b. Do a fresh install of Windows & activate it, then do updates, fresh drivers, the works
c. Install the base software
d. Create an image clone (I like Macrium Reflect)

That way, if the laptop ever dies (virus nukes the HDD, or the boot drive decides to croak), you can restore your image from USB in under 20 minutes very easily.

3. Business information: Create spreadsheet in Google Docs with all of their information:

a. Computer makes, models, options (ex. Belarc Advisor will tell you all - save those HTML files in MHT format per machine & store them in a folder on your Google Drive)
b. User names, telephone numbers, email addresses so you can contact them

4. Backup: Set them up with a no-hassle backup. I highly recommend Backblaze. It's $50 a year per computer with unlimited backup (less than five bucks a month per laptop); once you set it up, that's pretty much it! That's $400 a year for 8 laptops with automatic backup. If the laptop dies, you can clone the master image over, then download their files back from online storage (or get a hard drive or USB stick overnighted for a fee, if they have a ton of data).

5. Managing customer expectations: Exactly what Cuular said. You can get screwed VERY easily by not being explicit about what your job is. You need to manage their expectations. If a Java prompt pops up, can they call you? What about if it's 8 at night? Can they email you for free endlessly? I made this mistake when I first got into freelance web design - the pay was awesome, but because I wasn't explicit about what I would & wouldn't do, I got pretty abused. Don't fall into that trap!

6. Spare equipment: Have them purchase a spare hard drive and a spare laptop. The hard drive for if the laptop's boot drive dies - you can change it out with less than a day's downtime. The laptop is optional, but you can get a very nice 15" Toshiba for $249 at Best Buy to use in a pinch - it's a small price to pay for getting someone back up & running in a jiffy if they break their whole computer. It happens. A spare laptop is cheap insurance.

I'm sure there's other stuff, but that's just off the top of my head. Basically set yourself up for a no-fail situation, both hardware/software-wise & expectation-wise. That way you can be nimble in terms of responding to maintenance & to major issues.

 

[Kaido]

In terms of pricing, I dunno. If I do stuff on the side, I only do factory restores these days: I clone their old hard drive to an image file, do the factory-restore/updates/my base software package, and then copy the image back to their desktop so they can mount it & copy files from it if they want (especially for that one guy who saves his Turbotax file in C: \Program Files\Turbotax & calls you back frantically a year later because he didn't know it didn't copy over, haha). I charge $100 for that, even though it sometimes works out to be 8 hours or whatever, because I can chill in front of the TV while it's cloning or copying. I also throw their master image onto a backup drive so a year later, when they've gotten another major virus from installing free screensavers, I can save time.

 

[Kaido]

Hahahah been there but I sold my PC maintenance empire to my brother.

ROFL :thumbsup:

 

[Kaido]

$0/hr + overtime.

That's the going rate according to my family.

http://i.imgur.com/I8Jjy.png

Literally, I'll fly to visit family, get off the plane, roll my luggage into the house, and..."hey, we've been having some problems with our computer". I did you not

 

[sze5003]

Have a way to connect to the internet in case they don't have internet access too. I'm on Verizon unlimited so I could tether but I realize this is not the case for everyone.

 

[HN]

and something unrelated will inevitably break after you've done your fix. not because you broke, but because they'll say "well this was working fine before you did such and such".

 

[sze5003]

and something unrelated will inevitably break after you've done your fix. not because you broke, but because they'll say "well this was working fine before you did such and such".

Especially on old systems. If the laptop or desktop is older say 4 or more years old and this is your "average" user, there may not be anything you can do for them. Sometimes your answer will be you need a new system.

 

[highland145]

Just make sure to update Adobe :sneaky:

:awe:

 

[alkemyst]

In terms of pricing, I dunno. If I do stuff on the side, I only do factory restores these days: I clone their old hard drive to an image file, do the factory-restore/updates/my base software package, and then copy the image back to their desktop so they can mount it & copy files from it if they want (especially for that one guy who saves his Turbotax file in C: \Program Files\Turbotax & calls you back frantically a year later because he didn't know it didn't copy over, haha). I charge $100 for that, even though it sometimes works out to be 8 hours or whatever, because I can chill in front of the TV while it's cloning or copying. I also throw their master image onto a backup drive so a year later, when they've gotten another major virus from installing free screensavers, I can save time.

OMG you are the problem. Factory restores should be at Geek Squad/etc.

Most that really want this level of detail will not give you their computer.

Cool story bro.