How to charge!

I suggest that you and a few friends make some calls to the local shops that would be your competition.

Select a few tasks, and see what the local "going" rate is.

Then, you have a guide as to what to charge.

The local shops that I have checked have fixed rates for "common" tasks.
With a per hour rate for more involved tasks and trouble-shooting.

For home networking, take into account the cost of getting to the users site.

If you are in the US, and you plan to make on-site repairs or network setups, you may want / need to be bonded.
This is for your protection should a customer accuse you of damaging their home or system.

Chas

"The most challenging soapbox on the net, that's right! Whether it's a daunting IT question or your knowledge of World History and Politics this is the place for a true challenge of your wits and knowledge!"

Anyhow, just having some fun welcome and happy 1st post.

Well I can't add too much more to Chas's comments because he's hit the nail on the head. Anytime I have opened a new business the first and one of the most important apects is market research. Decide on your are of expertise and then call your future competitors and play customer (it can actually be quite fun). Get an idea of the TYPES of service, the costs, if service is onsite or shipped to another repair depot, how long it takes (good way to find an edge if you are quicker than the competition)what the warranty on their workmanship is and anything else you think that you as their customer would want to know.

From there you can play lowball (sure it's ethical when you're new)and set prices SLIGHTLY lower than anyone else. NOw when you advertise, 'competetive pricing' or 'most affordable service' etc. can be good draws.

I would also find out where MOST of the local companies advertise and look for a way to outadvertise them online (should be easy enough, most IT ads are pretty boring and ineffective, a little thought should trump their efforts easy enough).

Good luck, stick around and tell us how it's coming along.

You will need to do a ring around as prices vary widely. Where I am the set rate is $160.00 AU per hour but you will never get that from home users as there is so much competition around and they will almost invariably go with the lowest initial quote as they think they are getting better value for money.

With "Home Networks" any work on these no only requires a "Service Call" but can be really time consuming as the Customer will never actually tell you what they have done to muck it up so what at first appears a simple job can take up to several days. I can still remember a place where I setup a network for a business and they called me out about a week after it was installed as the network was down. When I got there every network driver had been removed by the "Office Manager" as she thought these where unnecessary and used space that she could recover for other things it didn't matter that there where a couple of hundred GIG of free space she wanted to save those few K's. That was a n easy one there was one on a token ring that just wouldn't work no matter what I tried eventually it turned out that they where doing some building and had drilled into a wall and put in a "Tiger Bolt" which had squashed and broken the network cable, but it was my fault this had happened as I was responsible for keeping the network up and running.

That was a nasty one as you got a clean DC voltage through the particular cable and it showed the right amount of resistance between each wire {except when you pulled on it} which of course I didn't do at first. Isolating the problem was fairly easy but correcting it was a different thing all together.

Also no matter where you are you need Insurance Cover for every thing you need it for the shop as the costs can be horrendous if you get a claim and you defiantly need it out of the shop as well. Even a small claim can bankrupt you very quickly.

Always remember it is your fault that this has happened the "Customer" is never at fault no matter how much they muck things up, they will never admit responsibility EVER.

Col

hi all,
nice post. keep the work!

aff dan

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The best advice I have seen here is call around your area for comparison pricing. I would not lowball the competition, nor immediately take the high mark. Usually some place in the middle is a good starting point. As your clientele picks up, slowly give yourself a raise if that is apprpriate. That is how I started.
Having insurance is VERY important! And, I would also recommend having access to a decent attorney if that is possible. Sometimes you might need a letter on an attorney's letterhead in order to get paid for a job, you should have an attorney make sure that any contracts you sign with clients protects you, and having one available in case someone blames you for a network outage (like that construction example here)... Unfortunately that is happening more and more these days.
Good luck on your business!!

Dave

I agree that the best way to get a feel for pricing is to call the existing suppliers and ask what they'd charge to do what you're proposing to do. Most of the shops in my area (Indiana-Kentucky) charge $100 per hour to send a tech on site, and they discount to $90 if you prepay for 10 "tickets" in advance. The guy who built a PC for me comes to the house, picks up the PC, and returns it, all for a $100 minimum - that includes the round trip and diagnostic/fix time, unless it goes over an hour on the bench; parts are extra.

I recommend you reward customers who want to prepay you or keep you on retainer with a discounted rate. In other words, for once-and-out gigs, charge your full rate. If you get a client who wants to be able to get X hours per month support out of you, you might be able to afford to knock $10/hour off your rate in exchange for the volume.

Good luck!