What do you charge for geek work

What do you guys charge to do a generic virus cleanup on a friend of a friend's machine? $75 an hour seem fair?

 

lol, this is what MG is all about. All for one and one for all. Malware cleanup is free.(so far )

 

$75/hour is more expensive than Futureshop, IIRC

I generally try to undercut "professional" tech shops like that. They're ridiculously expensive. $35 for a RAM install? That's a 2 second job! I'd do it for $5!

I typically charge a flat rate, price varying on the job. I'd do malware removal for $40... although, I do charge to cover my expenses... if the job is on site, then I charge about $0.40/Km for travel. Parts at cost.

This is what I charge for friends and family, I do charge a little more for people I don't know. If I had plans on going into business for myself, this might have to change....

 

Well there are not many big shops around here, the most popular is Bestbuy. They want liks $250+parts to set up a wifi network. It blows my mind how much they charge. I like to go in there sometimes for fun and let them tell me that I need 2 gigs of ram and an offboard video card to run Microsoft word.

 

Where are you from? (If you don't mind me asking)

 

I do it for free.

Just the kind of guy I am I guess.

 

$25 an hour. I'm sorry, but my time has to be worth something.

 

I am around $20.00 an hour.....

 

Varies...20-50 an hour

 

Well they are bringing the machine to me so I think I am going to drop it to $50.

 

If they really are a friend and not just some one you know, free is always the way I go. But if you have to charge, 20-50/hour is not out of hand by too much.

 

oh, he was asking "how much TO charge". I thought he was asking how much Tim, BJ and chas charge here LOL.

 

Hey it's way cheaper then Salina Computers and I can work on something higher then a PIII! Hehehehe, I'm sorry was that out loud, anyhow back to the topic, I charge 20-35 an hour for in shop work, if I have to go to their house, be mauled by their dog, kids, and stupid questions then it's up to $50 and hour. Now I know of a shop here in the area that charges $15 an hour to use their computer on-line, and their repair rates are $75 an hour, so I think mine are very reasonable.

 

I do it for free just for the fun if they offer something before or after I take it though, main reason for me not charging are comebacks,if your a friend just helping out for free and the computer stops working or blows up a month down the line its pretty obvious it aint your fault,if you charged them $75 per hour they will probably want thier money back and for you to fix it again at your own expense.

I like helping friends and friends of friends out,when you start charging business rates though you need the financial backup of a business and everything else it entails

Mixing business with friends can end up very bad,with customers you can say 'look it aint our fault now please leave the store' but you cant do that with friends

 

Family = Free (of course!)

A few friends = Free

Everyone else, What's a computer? (deny, deny, deny...)

 

Depends on how much effort I have to put forth. If my 'handy dandy computer toolkit' (flash drive with anti-spy,virus, etc) can handle it, I'll do it free. If I have to spend time downloading things I'll start at five and work up.

 

I charge 35 an hour...2 hour minimum, guaranteed fix or its free.

 

My brother is an auto mechanic. It's a part of his personallity. He gets tired of all the questions and requests from "Friends" once in a while but when he is not at "work" it doesn't really seem like work, if you can dig it.

If I can help, than I will. If you happen to have a few beers in the fridge I am not opposed to drinking with you. If we hit 6 or 7 and I make things worse . . . . well, were friends, Right?

 

I wouldnt charge anything for anyone, just hold them to a beer or 2

 

Something similar!

ONLY family and friends. If I have to go to them, I expect dinner because they live far away!

Generally not much to do though, I insist on them letting me install av and firewall before something goes wrong, so I just do the occasional maintenance or reinstall.

 

around here i could charge $70 and still be cheaper then anyone else around here but i only charge $30 + parts and for friends or family or friends family i only charge $15 plus for parts and for people around here with little or no money i would make a deal with them where they only pay for my gas to pick it up and for any parts (its starting to get real hard to offer that anymore ).

 

Are you certified fish? THen you probably shouldn't charge big bucks like local repair people, Most likely id recommend the 15-30 an hour range, or something like a one time 50 dollar fee.

 

Family/friends/co-workers free. Beyond that, $50 the first hour or fraction thereof; $25 each additional hour or fraction thereof, according to my discretion. Will consider barter. No fix, no charge.

 

Doug has a very good point, don't be a jerk, if you can't fix it or mess things up worse, don't charge the poor guy.

 

Agree! Very fair! Also, might prevent you from getting in to things you can't handle (or at least it would me... )

 

I wouldnt charge anything for labor, but they have to supply the parts. If they offered to pay my gas or buy me chinese, then id gladly accept, but in general a beer would be sufficient.

 

I tend to do work for free or in return for goods such as beer/dinner/cake or services, once got a haircut for doing some repairs. awesome

 

I have my A+.

It all ended well, I tried to install some RAM but the system was too damn old to handle it so I de-crapped it, installed some cool software and gave about a 1 hour "class" on how to use firefox. I asked for $50 and she argued saying I put in more effort, when I carried the machine out she put 4 twenties under my mouse. I am going to do some follow up work for her and her husband onsite at no additional charge but all in all I came out ahead.

As far as family goes I used to be all about doing free stuff, till I got married. One of the in-laws (grandparents) has tons of cash but is INCREDIBLY frugal. He needed a new laptop (I go with a lot of people so the sales guy doesn't sell them a $3000 machine for office and email) which I also de-crapped, a wifi network, install and configure about 6 peripherals, and to top it all off configure a VOIP system. I made about 6 trips to Fry's and about 4 to his house with a grand total of about 15-20 hours. I didn't expect anything but knowing he isn't broke figured he would at least gesture. He did take my wife and I out to eat but nothing fancy, maybe a $40 bill for 4 people. So he got around $200 worth of IT work for $40 and the worst part was the entire time he was calling me asking if I could come today.

Another one of her family members made me happy though, he is an all around cool guy and wanted a wifi network like one of the other family members had just had installed. So I go over there with a brand new linksys, hook it all up and for some reason it doesn't want to grab an IP, so I get on the phone to India and about an hour later figure out that their old router already has wifi capability. So I point and click and get it all hooked up and running. Get it on all the laptops and its working great. They fed me lunch (I did it while I was in that area on my lunch break) and he and I talked about his days as an Air Force pilot during the Gulf War. Talked for like an hour and I loved it, he could have given me $100 and it wouldn't have equaled our little chat. About a week later they had a little family get together were he told everyone how smart I was and had a 6 pack of imports with my name on it.

 

Family = Free...though the financially stable family members usually throw the dog a bone some way or another!!

Close, Close friends = Same, and again...under the right circumstances...the dog gets a bone some way or another!!

Good friends, that I wouldn't make plans with on a friday night = charged respectively to the job I did.

Friends of friends and word of mouth jobs = Charged a set rate, and if they don't like it, then oh well...call the geek squad!!

And I make sure that client of the freebies understand that it is between me, you and the brick wall...otherwise, all their friends that they tell will expect the same!!

As far as what I charge...if it is a house call, and it is something more complex than installing a piece of memory, or showing them how to use a pen drive...then I typically start out at a flat rate of $50.00 and if it ends up dragging on for more than a couple or three hours, then I tack on $20.00/hour, and I usually consider a full hour when I am getting in the 30 to 45 minute range, because by the time I pack everything up and head out...it takes that extra 15 to 20 minutes anyway. When it turns into repeat house calls under the original charge...and I know it isn't because of my work, then that is when I start hiding!! Otherwise they will nickel and dime you to death!! Currently in one of those situations right now!! Same goes for a software/malware issue, and/or simply tutoring.

Now...a take home situation is different!! When I can take it home and having all my resources right there...and can work on it on my own time, I usually give them flat rates, because they wouldn't know how much time you put into it anyway. So those usually work out to about $50.00 to $75.00 for malware issues, depending on whether they want me to back up pics, etc for them, or if it is something a simple as running a couple scanners and sending them out the door. And believe you, me...there are plenty of folks out there that are too intimidated to do something as simple as running CCleaner or Spybot!! Hardware jobs at home...depending on the extent of it...will typically start at $40.00 to $50.00 dollars and go from there!! I'm generally more relaxed on the prices when I can do it in the convenience of my own home, and I would usually end up in front of my computer anyway!! OS installs at home usually fetch me anywhere from $50.00 to $75.00 depending on if I have to do any backing up and putting the stuff back on once I'm done, etc., etc.

Before I got my A+ and Network +...I usually just ran on the honor system...If I did good and they ask if they can pay/give me something then I would just tell them, whatever they thought it was worth, and 9 times out of ten...I would come out smelling like a rose!!!! But that was when I was still learning from EVERY experience (believe me...I still usually learn a little something new with most jobs) and wasn't confident with charging people...but now that word has gotten out...I gotta make a buck, as much time as I spend helping others!!

My favorite job is my wifes aunt!! Granted she doesn't have to worry about how to pay her next light bill, but she calls me about every 3-4 weeks to come over and blow it's nose...and I can expect a twenty spot every time!! It takes about an hour and plus it's fun visiting with her!! And it always seems like she calls in the nick of time when my weekly allowance is running short!!

Roger