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How much do you charge to FIX a PC?

B

Benny Blanco

2[H]4U
Joined
May 4, 2003
Messages
2,609
I know there was a thread similar to this recently.

Lets say someone has a PC that wont boot anymore and wants you to look at it, see what you can do to get it back up and running. No backup of data, just get it working again.

How much do you charge?

Specifically, what I did, after seeing windows ME fail to boot with my own eyes (what a shocker):

- Flash update the BIOS
- run memtest (had 1 bad stick of RAM actually, which I removed)
- installed windows 2000
- installed norton antivirus
- did all the windows updates/IE6 SP1
- installed & configured easy cd creator, quicktime and real player

Also went on the net and got the latest drivers for the chipset, modem, sound card and VGA card.

Total time, maybe about 3 - 4 hours.

Whats a fair price to charge for this?
 
Ive worked for an hour hour and a half and charged 30 bucks. Maybe $60?
 
Originally posted by Foxcow
Ive worked for an hour hour and a half and charged 30 bucks. Maybe $60?
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Thats exactly what I charged.... but I'm wondering if I should have charged more, lol
 
For "customers", I get $50.00 / hr for service work, or $100.00 flat fee to build, format, and load the OS on a new PC.

For "friends" a bottle of Wild Turkey "Cask Proof" usually gets it done.....:D

Cheers - B.B.S.
 
Originally posted by Benny Blanco
- installed windows 2000
- installed norton antivirus
Click to expand...

Did it already belong to them or did you give them 'free' versions ?
Here in england most people whether they fix your problem or not charge a £10 callout fee which covers their petrol apparently so that's maybe $18 for that.

Then your 4 hours work charged at about £10 an hour is another $72, so that's $90 altogether. That's how much it would probably cost in the UK but the standard of living in the US is slightly cheaper, I think anything below $78 is a fair price.
 
I usually dont charge anything cept parts, but I only fix computers for good friends.
 
If your doing work for an attractive woman (who's not related to you), I've always subscribed to the thinking that a good BJ is an acceptable form of currency.
 
Originally posted by djnes
If your doing work for an attractive woman (who's not related to you), I've always subscribed to the thinking that a good BJ is an acceptable form of currency.
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You have to have a penis for such a request.

Idiot.
 
Originally posted by usernamebetaken!!!
You have to have a penis for such a request.

Idiot.
Click to expand...

Nice...another ignorant newbiecheeze trying to be funny....but sadly fails.
 
Originally posted by usernamebetaken!!!
You have to have a penis for such a request.

Idiot.
Click to expand...
Right, and I'd bet he assumes someone named BENNY does. At any rate, the question is what would YOU charge. Oh and flamming like that is grounds for banning because it's not necessary, not because people can't take it. You could have made the exact same point sans 'idiot.' But by all means troll/flame on.

Anyways, $60 does sound too cheap unless it's a friend, I mean that's $15/hour for 4 hours. Was it onsite or at your leisure at your home? On site is 4 hours now! Them dropping it off and you working on it between watching TV and cooking dinner is a lot easier. $50/hour for onsite is very reasonable, I'm thinking something around $30/hour for a drop off and fix when you can.
 
Originally posted by djnes
Nice...another ignorant newbiecheeze trying to be funny....but sadly fails.
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I don't know how/why but you seem to draw them out of the woodwork. :p

edit: gah, meant to edit the other post, sorry for the double...
 
Originally posted by Phoenix86
I don't know how/why but you seem to draw them out of the woodwork. :p

edit: gah, meant to edit the other post, sorry for the double...
Click to expand...

It's my moron magnet. I have one on the front of my car, which explains what I see on the highways.
 
lol

Typical charges for technicians run up over $30/hour. Still, if you're not WORKING as a tech, probably something like $15/hour or up?

You should definitely consider charging for Windows 2000 Pro and Norton, though—otherwise you just committed piracy. :eek: :)p)
 
Originally posted by Stiletto One
You should definitely consider charging for Windows 2000 Pro and Norton
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How would I go about doing that? Just buy a new oem or retail windows 2000 cd (or windows xp) and norton antivirus? Whats the best way to do that (for the lowest cost of course)?

w2k is $137, xp home is $93, but can a serial/key be gotten for less?
 
NO!NO!NO! Don't give something away that you don't own and then charge for it. Piracy(arrrgh!)=1 crime, Piracy+profiting off of it=2.

edit: Since you are installing it for someone else, get a full retail or upgrade version. Don't jack around with just getting the license, it'll be a PIA for the customer down the road.
 
It's a flexible scale for me.
For people who know me only to fix thier computers, I charge $40 and hour and 15% on all parts I buy.

For people I actually know outside of fixing thier computers, $20 an hour. And if it's me running virus checks, i usually take that into account and only charge for an hour or so.


If it's close friends, usually they help me out at some point so i only charge them for hardware I have to buy.
 
Since I don't do it professionally, I do it for free. Last big thing was my friend's girlfriend's comp was screwing up; I took a Saturday afternoon to fix it up.

Now a few weeks later she decided to just buy a really cheap new Dell, even though it was running perfectly after I messed with it. :confused:
 
Originally posted by usernamebetaken!!!
You have to have a penis for such a request.

Idiot.
Click to expand...
Not acceptable. Reading and following the rules is strongly recommended, if you want to retain your posting privilages.
Absolutely NO FLAMING OR NAME CALLING, this is grounds for immediate removal of your posting privileges.
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B.B.S.
 
I normally just charge for parts, usually they give me some kind of compensation even when I do not ask for it.
 
username: you have been warned..consider yourself lucky that B.B.S is such a nice guy. If i were admin i woulda banned you already.

ok back on topic. i charge $30/hour for onsite service, and $20/hour or less if they bring it to me. if it's something really simple (like removing spyware, updating etc.) i usually charge $10.

My friends i usually do it for free, or they take me to BK or something, food is always good payment.
 
i charge $40 just to install the OS and update it with the latest patches. thats all. if anything else. they have to bring it to my house i do it on my own time. they come pick it up for a flat price of $100.
 
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