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A pager means that you stop what you are doing and call back right then. Start your billing time from there (when you pick up a phone and call them)....

However, IMO, I would break out the minimum charge for 15 minutes, 30, 45 etc. depending on how much time you spend on the phone with them. If you end up going to the site, then by all means continue the charging. And add on parts, etc.

As far as dollar amount, you'll need to go by the going rate in your area. $20/25 - $50 per 15 minutes seems reasonable to me, depending on what kind of service calls you get. If this is hardware/mainframe related and a down-system, then look at the upper end of the above range.

Carrying a pager is part of the overall package you negotiated with your employer or as a consultant to other businesses. It is not a seperate cost function.
When you were hired as an employee or consultant, the fact that you have to carry a pageras part of your job should have been up front. Your salary or fee for the consulting work includes the 24 support with carrying a pager. So if you don't think you are getting enough money for the carrying of the pager, then you need to renegotiate.

Consider what others do:

(Link to these companies if you'd like, but I'll refrain from posting their names.)

http://support.schmolie.com/weekend-support.shtml

"There is a charge of $25 per incident for pager support, regardless of what day or hour it is used. It is in your best financial interest to only use pager support for emergencies that outweigh the cost of the service. You WILL be charged the pager support fee if you page us and we respond. The pager support fee will not be charged if the problem is a crashed shared server or network outage that you didn't cause. If your colocated server crashes and you need to use pager support, the pager support fee does apply. ALL other instances will incur the pager support fee."

http://www.xenetech.com/html/body_weekend_tech_support.htm

"Service Charges (for pager): To avoid abuse, and to reserve for emergency use only, this will not be a free service. An initial call back fee plus a time based fee will be charged to the customer."

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It looks as though it's common to charge $25-$35 for the pager service plus the normal service rates.

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