What to charge for a private job?

[sidewinder]

Doesnt often happen here, but someone wants me to look at their home network as theyve cocked it up a bit. He has offered to pay. It doesnt sound like an enourmously long job but I want to be paid appropriatly for my time

 

He reckoned he would pay PC World '50 or 60 quid to sort it' - is that realistic for those places? Whats a sensible per hour rate to charge him?

[powdarrmonkey]

I usually leave it up to their discretion if I think they're going to be fair, but a good rate is £20 the first hour and £10 after that. It's cheap, yes, but they have a good value impression then.

[sidewinder]

Fair enough

 

Well if hes willing to give me that 50/60 quid Id be more than happy with that, as long as im not there too long

[Joanne]

I normally charge £30 for internet stuff.

[PEO]

Doesnt often happen here, but someone wants me to look at their home network as theyve cocked it up a bit. He has offered to pay. It doesnt sound like an enourmously long job but I want to be paid appropriatly for my time

 

He reckoned he would pay PC World '50 or 60 quid to sort it' - is that realistic for those places? Whats a sensible per hour rate to charge him?

 

 

£20 then £10 there after. is it wireless?

[OutToLunch]

£20/£10 rule works well for me here too but most people who need help live closer to school than me so it's on my way home anyway... Bend the rules a bit if I'm cleaning up spyware etc and just spend 3 hours sat on my ar$e waiting for adaware scans to finish, or preferably take the machine away to leave it running in my own time.

[sidewinder]

£20 then £10 there after. is it wireless?

 

Bit of both, god knows what he's done but I think hes getting confused with his router and how to connect things to it, he seems to have thought you have to run the windows networking wizard to get the internet on other machines

Hopefully will just be a quick job of setting everything up as it should be

[speckytecky]

I usually leave it up to their discretion if I think they're going to be fair, but a good rate is £20 the first hour and £10 after that. It's cheap, yes, but they have a good value impression then.

 

The discretion route works most times but I did a job for a TA recently that involved sorting out a botched wire job. It involved a couple of visits to a remote country house which probably cost me at least a fiver in petrol - she gave me a tin of biscuits:rolleyes:!

[Joanne]

The discretion route works most times but I did a job for a TA recently that involved sorting out a botched wire job. It involved a couple of visits to a remote country house which probably cost me at least a fiver in petrol - she gave me a tin of biscuits:rolleyes:!

 

were they unleaded biscuits?

[enjay]

The price you quote partly depends on how much you want to do the ongoing work - you could ask for £50 and get an hour or two of work, or ask less than that and be more likely to get some repeat business and maybe stuff from other colleagues. Of course, if they are willing to pay £50-60, I don't see much point in asking for any less :-)

 

Actually, if the "skilled" people at PC World are worth £50, you're surely worth at least £80...

 

You will of course be telling the tax man about this work, won't you......

[georgebush]

Like Sysman I'm wary of these things now, my last job was a crippled Athlon 1500 with 256meg ram that was running slow..... It was riddled with spyware and crap and the person had 56k internet.

 

About £20 is probally the minimum to make it worth your while but never much over unless you need parts, I never like to charge alot, you get more business that way.

[PEO]

Bit of both, god knows what he's done but I think hes getting confused with his router and how to connect things to it, he seems to have thought you have to run the windows networking wizard to get the internet on other machines

Hopefully will just be a quick job of setting everything up as it should be

 

 

pice of cake then wors comes to worst just reset to factory default if he's been bashing around in the router settings

[comedydave]

Is it just me that feels guilty taking money for this off of freinds, family and collegues?

 

I also don't like doing it, whenever I visit home my dad gets me to look at either his pc, or my aunties. Now he's a BT Engineer, should I get him to look at mine and my neighbours phone lines whenever he visits me.

[PEO]

Is it just me that feels guilty taking money for this off of freinds, family and collegues?

 

I also don't like doing it, whenever I visit home my dad gets me to look at either his pc, or my aunties. Now he's a BT Engineer, should I get him to look at mine and my neighbours phone lines whenever he visits me.

 

familly no. but friends and other folk yes hey its got to be done man

[mac_shinobi]

best bet is to explain to them that you will go there , investigate whats wrong and see whats what and then before you carry on agree on how much to get paid per hour or over all etc, that way you can see how fast or slow there computer(s) are and also they can show you whats wrong.

 

That way you have a better idea of how long it will take and you will have a better idea of how much is fair to charge to them.

[PEO]

fixed a teachers pc last week. I said to her 20 quid and i would do the job, any how did the job, gave her the pc back and she said she would settle the dept on monday. ok cool, walking through the school car park monday morning, and she calls me over to her car. she hands me a plastic bag with 4 cans of fosters (which i bloody hate). I asked her what they were for and she said for fixing my pc. I then said, but we agreed on £20 not cans of alcohol. teacher then says aaa but i thought you preffer cans, as i know how you young men preffer a goo drink.

 

wtf i think to my self.

 

ok then, £20 for the admin password to your pc and the cans

 

she then reached for her purse and gave me the £20 quid

 

Thank you... ooow and good morning

 

the end

[CAM]

I give a neighbour technical support for his home office. Was willing to do it for practice and free but he forced 20 quid into my hand. Usually takes an hour maybe a bit more, but I wasn't aiming for profit to do it.

[tech_guy]

I run a little IT business from home and it's £25ph if it's onsite, £20ph if I bring the pile of virus-riddled junk back with me to fix in my little computer lab. I only service domestic customers and yes I do declare it all to the bl@@dy taxman.

 

Watch out for those 10 minute jobs that can turn into a nightmare. I never do any work for people with machines older than five years and/or have dialup.

[speckytecky]

were they unleaded biscuits?

 

No but they were horrid - I reckon she got them when on holiday in Cornwall to give to someone as a birthday pressie but I came along first!

[acrobson]

I usually charge about £20-£30 depending what needs doing, if the machine requires a complete rebuild etc, I usually estimate about £40 when they supply there own OS disc. This also includes a Ghost disc which they can stick in and re-ghost there PC the months following my visit, it saves them cash in the long run and saves me going back for niggly things.

 

Half the time I am too busy and tired with my own projects which I have on at work. So it may seem a little pricy, but half the time I wanna get them off my back. Plus, I have found it gives them confidence to try fixing it them selves. Either they do and there happy, or they come back to me and are really desperate.

 

At the end of the day, it's at your own discretion.