Question for anyone that does IT/networking on the side....

and then multiply that by a suitable hourly rate. One rule of thumb is to look at what the big shops charge as an hourly rate and then discount that by however much you think they are outrageous.

Anything under $30 or $40 per hour would be to low for most situations in most countries. However, you need to balance your professional worth against your friendship, but don't sell yourself short either.

As guide most pro shops here in Aust now charge about $90 plus per hour for work. In this case I would gues the hours to instal and configure and multiply that by, say $50, and set that as a fixed labour charge.

It's the follow up that killed me. Any hic-cup and they are going to be on the phone requesting full service.

If you got it covered (and it sounds like you do), and it's off the books, I'd charge about 60% of what the major firms in your area charge.

The going rate is $100. an hour, but I've seen
as low as $65. I try not to charge an hourly
rate, better to quote a flat price for the
whole job. I have one advantage in that a lot
of my present customers allow me to barter for
what I need, sometimes it's beer and baseball
tickets, depending upon what the customer
has available.

I agree with all of the advice to discount your price. I would also make sure that you can let the customer know that you are discounting. I've found that this always helps with the "sticker shock" of an estimate.

So you can say "Company A charges $100 an hour, Company B charges $85 an hour, I am willing to do it for $65 (or whatever price you decide on)."

After you explain the discount in this way, it is often easier to explain what your availability after the job is complete will be.

I take a different approach to it, because I don't take side jobs very often. If I can't make $300 or more, the job is not worth taking.For the most part I am expensive and I tell people that they can get a better price elsewhere. But I do have one customer that calls me 2-3 times a year because she is not happy with the others she has had do some work for her.

Since she is a friend (and at one time my boss, who hired me for my current job) I give her the 'discount' rate of $300. This usually involves a 3 hour round trip travel time and 2-4 hours doing whatever type of work she has. I would pretty much double that rate for others.

I agree with all the advice that you are getting. I charge $50 an hr. for pc work. If its server/client, I charge a flat rate, same with wiring jobs. I run service for the most part, and I "price the job" on what they want done. Less sticker shock on them I have found. I at least get $100 or two hours of labor, on every pc call that I do. 99% of these calls are from co-workers and their friends and families. So it works out well for me. Good luck in your decision!

Hi iago9999,

I am from the UK I have number of friends who do this type of work and I have done it myself self as well the fee is normally around ?300- $500 a day depending on how complex the work is. Remember to take into account tax, car insurance, food, health ins etc.

Regards
Mitch121

I fully agree with all the posts so far. I basically have a set rate that I charge on all bills for any work then I give a discount from that rate. That way the customer sees what the going rate is and sees they are getting a discount.

I don't like to just quote a job but I'll give an estimate of hours and in most instances it goes over the hours quoted because once you are on-site there are a zillion questions you are asked by anyone and everyone in the office. This all takes time away from what you are trying to do. Also you can never estimate what you are going to run into ahead of time.

As to hardware prices, I would gladly give hardware away to charge for my services. With the price of hardware an easy search on the internet I don't expect to make anything on hardware. The last thing I want to hear is "Hey, I saw this on the internet for $50 less." I don't care if they get hardware from me or from the back of a brown truck, just let me charge my time for installation and configuration.

Good luck.

I live in the Seattle area and I usually charge $75/hr. for in-home service and $125/hr. for businesses, plus travel and parking with a minimum of 1 hour. I never discount the price unless the customer buys a block of hours in advance - otherwise, word will get around and you will lose business.

If you are a full time PC Tech or Administrator for a company and you make $20-45/hr, then I would suggest charging about double your normal hourly rate. If you are a full time consultant and your company bills your time at over $150/hr, then ask for about half of your normal billing rate (that's probably about 1 - 1 1/2 times your normal salery). This gives an approximate range of $45-110/hr. based on the level of specialty and skill you have.

I performed some specialized AD repairs and documentation last year. I think that I gave the customer a good deal because I only charged him $75/hr. I probably should have charged him $95, but he was a personal friend. Consulting services for the work that I did would normally charge $185-250/hr.

In your particular situation, where you are doing a system integration, I would suggest that you figure out the hours you think it will take you to get to perform the integration (probably about 35-40 hours maybe longer if you are doing cabling too). Then charge a flat fee of estimated hrs x your rate. Then tell the customer your hourly rate for any work after the initial project is complete and signed off.

Good Luck!
PSC

www.technologysandbox.com

This is a start-up company that I work with on the side, and we do exactly what you've been asked to do. We essentially serve as the small business person's IT team. Feel free to email on the website.

You may wish to investigate Hourly Networking Rates:

http://www.bradreese.com/hourly-contract-it.htm

Sincerely,

Brad Reese
BradReese.Com Cisco Engineers
http://www.BradReese.Com
1293 Hendersonville Road, Suite 17
Asheville, North Carolina USA 28803
USA & Canada: 877-549-2680
International: 828-277-7272

I do a small amount of computer work on the side.

My rate is 50.00 an hour. This is way less than most commercial companies. But is high enough to discourage people who want to take advantage of my expertise and good nature.

Joe

Hello. I run a successful small biz outside of my normal daily job (my career if you will). I found that, in the Long Island, NY area, I can safely charge $60-75 dollars an hour. Whether it's consulting or actual labor, this is the sweet spot. You cannot compete with the biggies - BestBuy's Geek Squad, etc - but you can win them over with your customer service and support skills. If you are very "user friendly", you will make a bunch of people happy.

See my website and feel free to contact me whenever!

George Boyce

www.gbpluspcrepair.com

Price conveys quality. If you do high quality work, charge accordingly. Crowe, the ninth largest accounting firm in the United States charges a snobby $250.00 per hour. Contract technical recruiters markup temporary workers 40 to 100 percent or more. Although the project may not really require it, PricewaterhouseCoopers will load a prospective client up with as many consultants that they can possibly bill for.

Depending upon the market you are in and whether your small business client can afford it, base your charges upon their ability to pay.

If you small business client is looking for CHEAP and are hiring a part-time person to escape paying professional charges and they have asked you to do it, they may already think you are inexpensive.

Considering that technology changes every nine to twelve months and IT job security is nonexistent, you may want to someday go into business for yourself. Now might be the time to charge the rate you would need to support a business operation.

There is definitely a regional component, and the question of setting expectations for follow-up visits/support is a big thing.
Here in the Seattle area, I have seen anything from $60 - $120. I personally charge $60 - I am fairly new and do only onsite work, so I have no real overhead.
If your customer wants follow-up to be free, obviously you need to make some type of allowance for this - maybe a monthly maintenance charge? Just make sure that this question is completely clear ahead of time, not after the fact!

Oh God! I think we all could write a book on how to ?abcd? a network together.

All of these labor charges and plans are very good starting points. I don not have much to add there. I'll just add a human factor.

Do you want a support relationship with the client? Unless you make it very clear a hundred times over that your efforts are either a turn key operation, your done and walk away, or that you will continue to support after the fact, needs to be defined up front, on paper, or you will be in a living a nightmare. There is an old story about a guy working under a sword hanging by a thread but I won't go there now.

I am a hard case on this type of work. I charge $200 non refundable up front just to spend a few hours doing a site survey, drawing up the network plan, and doing a skill level interview with some of the users. This lets them know I am serious, and if they pay it lets me know they are.

I present the itemized bid, payment terms, implementation plan, labor, travel, training, hardware, and miscellaneous logistics costs and so on. I personally have had enough experience in this that I charge a flat project rate. I have done OK doing so. If your not sure your planning on how to do this a good hourly rate will work just fine but you will get the ?how long will it take? questions either way.

If it's a go from the client, a signed contract is in hand before work starts. The ?do me a favor buddy? thing is a thing of the past for me.

I highly recommend that type of work is not done as a favor unless you are ready to bet the farm that the person is completely trustworthy because you just may be doing that, betting the farm. Some folks forget the legal ramifications of doing work for any business, friend, foe, or indifferent. We can thank the law community and our society for that.

Again this is just my opinion and not the gospel. Any way you do it try to have fun. But, be very careful at the same time.

I've read some good posting, but not all of them. When I started consulting, I based my rate on my old salary/hourly pay. I tripled it because I knew there would be many meeting, research, and other work that wasn't billable. This started me at $75/hr. I quickly found that the standard rate in the Chicago area was $110-$145/hr. I was way under priced, but built a nice little client base anyway. About a year later I raised my rates to $95/hr., and not one client seemed put off.

As for the CYA. You're best bet is to create a Network Installation Checklist. This will be the last page of your contract. DO NOT start any work without a contract. Very important. The checklist should have a summary of what was asked for from the client. (i.e. Server install, client connectivity, client internet access, printing successfully, anti-virus installation, etc.) Thiss will litteraly be ticked off as you SHOW your client that these items are complete. Demonstrate this to your client. Then, have them sign off it the checklist and the contract is complete. ANY WORK afterward is billable. Make sure to state that in your contract.

I found a great source of information in a book called: From serf to Surfer by Matthew Strebe - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0782126618/103-8935540-2922219?v=glance&n=283155

Good luck and DON'T GIVE UP!!

don

Each project is unique and most be examined and understood
first. I would recommend doing a free consultation first.

Here is my approach:

1. Get a clear-idea of the overall objectives and any expected
timelines.
2. Request that information related to the current state of the
infrastructure and anything not in #1. This is should be an
ongoing step.
2. Map out expected stages needed to meet objectives.
3. Map out expected deliverables and any communication
points.
4. Attach time to accomplish each stage
5. Get Client Sign-off

6. Here is your negotiating stage:
Given the work now done you can say:
"This is what you agreed you need done, and as you can see
here this expected time needed".
Reference typical costs for work within each of the stages (LAN
Admin,Technical Trainer,Technical Writer) and the going rate for
the free-consultation supplied.

Pricing:
-Flat rates work well, it let's you build a little more in, but you
could lose money if you don't control time well.
-Flat hourly rate, in my opinion, can sometimes give sticker
shock on larger projects.
-Variable Hourly rate, this can really knock the socks off a client.
Look each piece of work and attach what you think that time is
worth. I always try to think what the client could have done by
themselves with basic knowledge and charge much less for that
work.
Example:
If a stage is simply gathering & consolidating information,
charge less.
If your doing critical work, like installing and configuring a
server, charge more.

Just don't compare to much to "market-price", a lot of the time
dividing in 2 or even 3 can be much more fair....depending on
the client.

All-in-all if you scope out the project, you can really get a sense
of how much of your life and brain is needed. This makes it
much easier to determine how to price.
Educating the client makes the price easier to understand.

Hope this helps somehow.

Then just puts "mates' Discount" - -%60/whatever Others here will have pointed out the other potentials pifalls [beware Insurance etc..] - best of luck.

I have done jobs ranging from small office / home office to k-12 school. I use a simple method to price jobs. 3X my cost. I adjust a bit based on what I think customer can afford, but this method is usually less than my competitors, and still results in a good profit.

I run into so many businesses that have "5 or so" computers, no server, a workstation with all of their files on it, one mapped drive, workstations with a specific user defined and no roaming profiles, no redirected folders, no authentication, no backup routines, no power backup, nothing nothing nothing...

Forget about what it's worth to you and think about the fact that it's just not worth it to the client to pay you hourly for band-aid fixes here and there.

Businesses need to be educated about what they need and then they either need to have someone hired to do the work, or have someone on retainer to support the network properly.

If there's no real server running Active Directory, I don't touch it. I propose to them a better solution and show them the long term return on investment to justify the initial expense.

I found it best to define a monthly rate for a defined level of service ie: Backups, Antivirus managment and monitoring and gerneal monitoring of the network from offsite. Anything else that requires my time for an hourly rate of $50 for friends and $75 for other Businesses. This way they think before calling yet get the comfort of having a Professional Administrator monitoring and available for the down times.

Call Geeks on Call or the Geek Squad and get their comparable rates then discount based on the rates for a similar job. I also check with other vendors in my area and set the rates within the margins, remember all the overhead you have when you're on your own...

When I was living in San Antonio Texas I was charging $30 per hour plus parts. No matter what was asked of me to do. I charged $20 per hour plus parts for senior citizens since they are on a fixed income. I did some bartering but not very much. When I moved to Chicago I now charge $50 and with the cost of gas I am planning on raising it to $65. This pricing scheme is easy and not at all confusing as I have seen at other companies.

I appreciate the advice and want to thank all of you.

In case you're interested, the "deal" fell through. As I feared, he was looking for someone to set up the network and be the on-call guy to fix any hiccups that may occur. Something, I'm just not able to do at this time.

However, I will take these ideas and suggestions for the next side-job that may pop up.

Again, Thank you all and May God Bless You,

Derek