Price a job/study references

[eeps24]

Not sure where else to put this so this was the only spot I could think of. I have 2 questions...


1. keeping up to date in the world of I.T. How do you guys do it? there is so much stuff to learn, things keep changing.....how much would you say you spend on reading up on things in a day? do you find yourself non stop reading and reading to keep up to date?


2. Those of you who have your own computer business ,how do you go about charging people? do you charge by the hour or by the job? I want to get a better understanding of what to charge people , just want to see what the pros here on techimo do it

[KarmaKiller]

Hi there...
I myself read at least 1-2 hours a day on tech stuff. Some nights it reviews, other nights spec sheets. Other nights forum boards. And still after all that, I come on to TIMO here, and still learn something new...

About the charging, I don't do many "payed" jobs, in fact I try to stay away from them. But the couple I do, depending on what it is, I normally charge $70 an hour. I've asked the same question, and that's the response I got. IDK if that's normal, high or even low, but it's all I can bring myself to charge...

[nemowolf]

some insider info, Best Buy Requires that all field agents pull in an average of at least 76 bucks an hour of charged service. Considering the scope of work they handle and the often times laughable stories they produce ... This can often times be on the low side but should be considered very much the average.

If you want a good comparison, open your phone book and call a bunch of mechanics and ask if they charge by the hour and how much. My shop charges 90 an hour.

Personally, when it comes to charging, you should do a mix of both by the hour fees and flat rate. Installing ram in a desktop doesnt take an hour, charging the minimum one hour fee seems a bit much. Then again, setting up a server has so many variables that it should be a by the hour charge.

All depends on the variables.

[ShuckyD]

when I worked for a previous company we did IT consulting for our clients my rate was $120 an hour.... if that helps any... a bit expensive, because its B2B, but if I were doing something for someone (an individual) I would probably be around $75 - $100 an hour depending...

[eeps24]

Personally, when it comes to charging, you should do a mix of both by the hour fees and flat rate. Installing ram in a desktop doesnt take an hour, charging the minimum one hour fee seems a bit much. Then again, setting up a server has so many variables that it should be a by the hour charge.

All depends on the variables.

thanks for everyone replying back to me , .... nemowolf your right, its a mix of both , like doing a simple windows install would be a flat rate instead of per hour , makes more sense ... thanks guys!

[gcrussell1]

$70-120 an hour? I've known for quite a while that techs do charge so much, but why? Hell, give me a ten-spot and a grilled cheese sandwich and I'll still feel like I'm ripping you off.

How do you people live with yourselves?

[KarmaKiller]

People do this to make a living.

It's no different from car mechanics or teachers, or any other profession I suppose..

[gcrussell1]

People do this to make a living.

It's no different from car mechanics or teachers, or any other profession I suppose..

$70 an hour is an absurdly comfortable living - even if you only work 15 hours a week on computers you're still making well over $50k a year... I guess you do what you do, and you charge what you can, but still...

[ShuckyD]

Where I work now when we bring in a consultant to do something they are $100\hr.

That being because when we use a consultant we bring in the "best" person for a specific task, if were having an networking issue then we get someone who is excellent at networking and knows it inside an out.. Its a specialized market for alot of IT stuff, finding the right person for a specific thing in B2B is where its at for alot of companies and consultants alike.

Now personal IT work is a bit different because when you're working on a computer for someone the tech (IT person) usually has a pretty wide span of knowledge and knows alot of stuff... and sometimes they have certain niches where they are very knowledgeable

[KarmaKiller]

I did forget to mention the personal jobs. I don't charge my friends anything to work on their machine. That's something completely different.

[gcrussell1]

I did forget to mention the personal jobs. I don't charge my friends anything to work on their machine. That's something completely different.

Of course. Charging one's friends or family for a basic service would be pretty low.

I guess I just have the overall feeling that tech work is in general an overpriced commodity - maybe not on the corporate end, but definitely too much from a personal user's perspective, hence my desire to know enough about computers that I don't ever have to go to a tech.

[darrelld]

$70 an hour is an absurdly comfortable living - even if you only work 15 hours a week on computers you're still making well over $50k a year... I guess you do what you do, and you charge what you can, but still...

A $10.00 bill and a grilled cheese sandwich may be fine for you, and $50,000.00 a year may seem like a comfortable living when you live in your parents home. Obviously you've never given any thought to the cost of doing business. Things like:
Building rent
Vehicle expenses
Phones and utilities
Advertising
Office supplies and equipment
Payroll taxes
Employee benefits
The list goes on, you get the idea.

Now lets say after all that, I actually do make $50,000.00 a year. After taxes thats going to be about 30% less. That leaves me with $35,000.00.
Because I'm self employed I have to provide my own health insurance for myself and my family at a cost of $13,000.00 a year.
Now we're down to $22,000.00
I'm going to want to feed my family, that takes about $5000.00
My family is fond of shoes too, but I don't make much money so I can only spend $1000.00 on that luxury.
We like to be able to have a phone, but they're not free, oops, there goes another $600.00
We're going to need a place to live, but with what I make all I can afford is a $700.00 a month ghetto apartment= $8400.00 annually.
It gets cold in the Winter here damnit, now I have to pay an electric bill! $1800.00
I need a car so I can get to and from the grocery store. Car payments, Insurance, fuel, $5400.00
Here's where my decadence really starts to show. I want cable TV and Internet access, but sadly there is no welfare program for those. $1500.00
HOLY CRAP! I've spent more than I make, and I haven't even paid anything on the student loans I took out to get my education. Thank God for credit cards.
Yeah, $50,000.00 is too much, maybe I'll give some to charity to ease my guilt. LMAO!

[gcrussell1]

You've misunderstood my meaning.

First of all, the $50k a year thing was if a tech only puts in 15 hours a week - which is an absurdly short work week for what is a healthy living wage for most people. a 40 hour work week comes to over $145k a year at $70/hour, which seems to be the bottom of the spectrum. If you're running a business with multiple employees, each tech on staff can bring in that kind of cash for the business, so considering the kind of building space you'd need for a computer repair shop, the amount of advertising you'd have to do (generally next to none for most computer shops I know), and the amount of business most decent computer repair shops I'm familiar with get, you could easily make over $100k per employee per year above your overhead, so unless they're being paid over $80k, you're making a pretty good profit on their work (not to mention that the business owner can work himself without paying the take from his hours out to an employee).

I'm not saying that these numbers are 100% accurate, but I am saying that $70 an hour is too much to pay for most computer service. Hell, some techs I know will run a few Windows install and upgrades simultaneously, each one being billed per hour, for a net total of over $200-300 in one hour for the service of clicking the mouse a couple dozen times.

Obviously, the $10 and a sandwich comment was mostly a joke - I would never expect someone who makes their living off of tech work to work for so little, but I have yet to be persuaded to think that most tech work is worth $70-100 an hour.

Incidentally, $1500 a year for cable and internet? Before I moved to China for this year, I was paying $75 a month for cable and internet, and getting good service on both of them... considering that you seem to be increasing your debt year by year, according to your own calculations, you might want to cut out the premium packages...

[cunokyle]

I do computer work and car work(in my free time) for tops of a $50 charge if it is something like changing brake calipers or shocks...less for brakes and less for an oil change provided they purchase the parts. Same goes for computer work. I have never charged someone more than $50 and I do everything from builds to system maintenance, again this is with them purchasing any required parts.

However, if I were to run my own business and do the stuff I would charge a bit more because of the costs of running a business.

[excuzzzeme]

You need to understand what your time is worth. Overhead is figured into the amount you charge. Therefore no one fee is appropriate for all. However, you need to keep prices competitive to survive. My shop prices are $90.00 for in-home or business service and $65 for in-shop. If you are doing an install you can't charge for sitting there doing nothing, but if you are working on multiple systems simultaneously you make money with each job netting $minimum charge per hour. During a roll-out, I do 7 machines at once and still have time for a smoke and a cup of coffee.

As far as reading to stay abreast of changes, I spend approx 2 hrs everyday reading, learning.

For friends etc, sometimes it is gratis and sometimes I charge a token of $50, (depending). Sometimes we barter.

[nemowolf]

I want to point out that many people make an AVERAGE per hour. some days they dont make much and some days they rack it in. It all depends.

[famosbrown]

I spend at least an hour a night reading/studying on things for work. It ranges from optomizing Exchange Server, migration to Exchange Server 2007, prep for Server 2008, optimizing AD, DNS, DHCP, etc., corporate routers/switches, new enterprise software solutions that willl improve or solve an issue with a corporate process, etc. Oh...and this is in addition to my constant study to stay up with the I.T. certifications.

On the side, I charge 60 dollars for the first hour no matter what...if it takes me 2 minutes, it's 60 bucks. After the first hour, I charge by the minute which is 1 dollar. If I can't fix it, or I recommend another solution because me fixing it wil cost more than replacing, I will only charge the first hour 60 dollars for my time.

Read the first paragraph, and that is why I charge for my time...I also charge for the knowledge I have for both home/business I.T. solutions, I.T. certifications, and education. If you are a small business who would like to start a small network, you aren't going to get an A+ Geek Squad tech to come out to setup your AD environment with Exchange Server...they might not even know what a SAN or NSA is, nor how to hook it up or get RAID going. On the Home side, if you have a bunch of Windows problems, you don't want a Geek Squad person running a bunch of software tools that do nothing and them eventually telling that they need your restore CD. If you have a bunch of important data and applications, you may want someone who can dig deep into the Windows OS and figure out what is really going on. If not...the problem may just reappear after Restore.

My 2 cents .

[nemowolf]

LOL well your welcome to your opinion of course ...

Anyone working on a small business is going to be a "special agent" and is required to have received their MCSE by Geek Squad, so they better know the in and out of AD. Storage Area Networks are not your everyday, but thats why they have four countries, soon to be six, worth of agents including phone, email, and online support. If they dont know it, someone they know does.

I will admit that some of the non-commercial agents are subpar when it comes down to it. They know how to use the tools they are allowed to use and that is it. Which often means they dont really know what they are doing, often times causing revisits and additional charges. The level of expertise that is required to work in the field is something that Geek Squad does see and often times works hard to maintain. Despite a few bad apples in the bunch, they keep a really high level of IT knowledge if not always with paper and monogram signatures.

One of my good friends is an Inhome agent, he could easily have had a MCSE and all sorts of other nifty certs if he wasnt working 6-7 days a week and working 12-16 hour days more often then not. There is a reason for that and that is because he is one of the best agents in the country. He has taught me a thing or two and still can teach me more.

[famosbrown]

LOL well your welcome to your opinion of course ...

Anyone working on a small business is going to be a "special agent" and is required to have received their MCSE by Geek Squad, so they better know the in and out of AD. Storage Area Networks are not your everyday, but thats why they have four countries, soon to be six, worth of agents including phone, email, and online support. If they dont know it, someone they know does.

I will admit that some of the non-commercial agents are subpar when it comes down to it. They know how to use the tools they are allowed to use and that is it. Which often means they dont really know what they are doing, often times causing revisits and additional charges. The level of expertise that is required to work in the field is something that Geek Squad does see and often times works hard to maintain. Despite a few bad apples in the bunch, they keep a really high level of IT knowledge if not always with paper and monogram signatures.

One of my good friends is an Inhome agent, he could easily have had a MCSE and all sorts of other nifty certs if he wasnt working 6-7 days a week and working 12-16 hour days more often then not. There is a reason for that and that is because he is one of the best agents in the country. He has taught me a thing or two and still can teach me more.

I began my certs a couple of years ago when I was working 12-15 hours a day 6 days a week as a contractor migrating and supporting new environments. You just have to fit the study in during lunch or skip an hour of sleep. Also using what you've learned in what you are doing helps to while working long hours. I do agree that it's hard since reading books and web sites won't suffice since you need some hands-on to get thorugh the exams unless you cheat.

Geek Squad must have changed since I looked them up a year or so ago. They have MCSE's with network environment experience? I thought Geek Squad was only paying max 17 bucks an hour in most places? I wouldn't waste my time for that kind of money, but that is me...a few years ago, I'd probably jump at it, but a few years ago I probably wouldn't have known what MCSE meant .

What's an InHome Agent? There was an article about GeekSquad getting sued because Agents were coming to the home stealing porn and placing it on YouTube . If I find the article, I will post it.

[nemowolf]

ive read them all and it was actually instore agents who were recorded. ;>

Geek squad has two services, In Store and In Home. In home starts with A+ and basic residential services like setting up a home network and installing hardware.

Out of stores with a BBFB, best buy for business, Special agents are MCSE certified and expected to handle all the small-mid sized businesses. This could be installing/configuring a new server or repairing an Exchange server.

As for pay ranges it depends highly on your area, market, store volume, and such. Being in California and having been in a high volume store, i started in the teens with no actual job experience with computer. I know that Double Agents doing regular inhome services are making from the low 20's to the low 30's if they are in an area without a Special Agent otherwise its upper 20's. Special agents typically start in the very high 20's and i dont know their cap but i would imagine its low 40's an hour.

Benefit would include having a company issued car and in most markets, you take it home. Company gas card, too.