What to charge?

[tech_guy]

I need some advice - I've just done some work for the husband of one of my wife's work colleagues and was wondering what to charge him.

• I've backed up all his personal data to DVD.
• I've reinstalled Windows XP Home & updated it.
• I've installed all the usual stuff like Java, Flash, Shockwave, Adobe Reader, etc.
• I've ordered/installed a brand new Liteon DVD Burner.
• I've ordered/installed a brand new Liteon DVDROM.

I'm charging him cost price & delivery for the drives but was wondering what to charge for the 'labour'?

Advice much appreciated as it's always difficult deciding what to charge in this situation.

[mattx]

Being the mug type of chap I am, I would only charge for the parts as I hate taking money off of people however, if I was to do something similar for someone I didn't know from Adam, then I think £25 to £30 an hour ?

If they complain point them in the direction of PC World and get him to ask how much they charge...... Or how much a sparky or plumber charges.....

[ChrisH]

PC world charges about £25 just to fit a GFX card

[powdarrmonkey]

I usually say parts plus an hourly: £20 the first hour and £10 subsequent. Most stuff I do doesn't take more than two hours, so it works out pretty well all round.

[kmount]

I learnt the hard way that charging too cheap/free leads to a stress build up.

I charge £40 per hour for businesses and put 10-15% on parts. I don't do too much domestic work but I think it worked out at £25 per hour.

How long did it take you? (Our local computer shop charges £65 per hour)

[powdarrmonkey]

I should have been clearer: if it's a business, I make a number up based on ~£100/day. I'm more sympathetic towards domestics.

[dgsmith]

PC world charges about £25 just to fit a GFX card

Our local PC World charge £14.99 to install ram (that is just to slot it in to place). I cringe whenever I read that big prices board above the "tech guys" area!

The work you have carried out seems pretty average stuff (I assume you didn't encounter any particular difficulty in fulfilling the task in hand). Backing up the data itself isn't a particularly difficult task, but where you required to actually collate and find all the data necessary to backup, or was this already consolidated by the customer or at least in an area where not much effort was required on your behalf to transfer to disk?

The rest seem pretty low-skill tasks and I would be looking around a ballpark figure of £35 labour (working off a £25 initially + £10/hr thereafter), maybe an extra fiver or so if I was required to do additional work on the backup procedure (which may add more time). Of course, you can give or take depending on how well you know the person (and if you can expect more future work off them), which of course means you may want to be leniant on the price if you hope for any future work.

[jcollings]

Being the mug type of chap I am, I would only charge for the parts as I hate taking money off of people however, if I was to do something similar for someone I didn't know from Adam, then I think £25 to £30 an hour ?

If they complain point them in the direction of PC World and get him to ask how much they charge...... Or how much a sparky or plumber charges.....

I tend to charge the same - £25 to £30 an hour. I also just do parts at cost.

[Edu-IT]

No good asking me. I'm usually volunteered to do work for free.

[Sylv3r]

Its generally easier to agree a price beforehand I find, rather then to shock them after the event.

[EduTech]

And me i tend to do all work for free.... hmm i think i must start charging the amount of work i do for people..

i am just too nice! especially when sometimes i am up to stupid o'clock just so its done for the next day lol..

So no good asking me.. but prices you guys are saying seem about right compared to people like PC World..

James.

[john]

Yeh I'd agree with teh consensous of around £20 - £30 per hour area

[Hightower]

I agree with Andrew. It's always best to say to the customer beforehand this is gonna cost you about '£xx'.

If I think the price will change I always ring up before I carry it out. As a rule of thumb, I charge double what I earn now for friends and about £30 an hour for others I don't know. So lets say I earn £8 an hour. It's £16 an hour I charge to friends. Pretty reasonable but I'm working on top of a 37 hour week so I want something for it.

[bossman]

I look at it this way, if this person was to take his/her car to the garage for a service the you would be paying in the region of £40 - £90 for labour just to swap a couple of items over i.e. air filter, change oil etc. A normal service costs in the region of £90 and takes approx 1 hour so what you did for the gentleman took probably twice as long so i would divide the £90 by 2 and charge £45 per hour for home jobs but for business I would charge the same as a garage does and then some about £100 per hour or charge by the day.
As other people have said PC world and other PC shops would charge a great deal more.
I think this is the reason why IT has such a low profile because people don't charge the going rate which they should.
Sylv3r: I think what you have said about getting a price beforehand is the way to go also then you both know what to expect.

[localzuk]

I usually go off pricing of about £25 - £30 an hour for most people, unless I know they're particularly poor. That is unless it's going to be a mammoth job, taking many hours, then I set a fixed price at the beginning.