How much to charge for building?

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vegetash

Weaksauce
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This kid at my school wants me to build him a computer and he is pretty ignorant about computers. He is running a Pentium1-2 system with about 32 megs of ram (im guessing by his vague description) and he is using windows me :p. I put together a little parts list that ran at about $550. Now at first he offered to pay me $400 to build it. Yes, just the labor $400. Of course that would be a rip off :D but i dont really know what to charge him. I am trying to go by the kind of system I am building him and try to get him a good overall deal on it. What do you think?
 
My advice:
Charge him $100 bucks and build him the best system you can...
 
Originally posted by isp
My advice:
Charge him $100 bucks and build him the best system you can...
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Yeah, 100 bucks is exactly what I'd charge for that system.
 
Originally posted by Kido1986[LG]
I usually charge $100 for basic systems.
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Agreed, I charge $50/hr and it usally takes 2 hours, and I don't round up.
 
Let him pay you 400 dollars, and tell him you will help him out with any problems that may arise for awhile..
 
I wish someone would offer me 400 bucks. Actually I wish someone would give me anything. I also help friends, my parents, and friends of my parents with their computure problems. Or give them my old parts I have laying around to upgrade their old computers and I never get anything.
 
Personally, I've only built a few other systems for other people, but most of my experience is for myself.

I haven't charged over $50 for labor, simply for the simplicity of the systems I have built for said individuals. I suppose you should base your price off how complex the system is that you are building. If you have multiple hard drives, optical drives, and controllers to install, then up the price. For most users though, you shouldn't be a dick about it. In fact, you should pat the guy on the back at the same time for trusting you instead of opting for a garbage Dell or Compaq.

Dark Assassin
 
I usually provide comp help for free; will probably build the comp my friend's friend just ordered the parts for for free.

I'd say 50 - 100 for the labor. Good for you not to take the $400. ;)
 
100 for basic system

150 for advanced

150 for basic w/ lots of software

200 for advanced w/ lots of software

300 if water-cooled

350+ if they want other assorted custom stuff

most i ever charged was 550 cuz it was a high end video editing system, water-cooled, custom modded case, with cathode lights hooked up to external switch to turn off at night (the thing lit his room like a street light :p )

charge what you think is fair
 
For family, how much would you charge if lets say, one of their games starts to crash or if they catch a virus or something that requires you to fix it?

sorry for hi-jacking :(
 
Unless they offer to pay, family repairs/upgrades/general computer housecleaning has always been no charge when I do it.
 
I've never charged my family a dime in the 5+ years of owning a PC. I figure that my father has gone through enough hell and Benjamins to warrant a little help from me, despite the fact that nowadays, he or my mom will call me from across the country to walk them through setting Yahoo.com as their homepage instead of Google.com.

Oh, the things I do for my family...

Dark Assassin
 
In the real world I charge 50 an hour to fix mal ware and viruses :D. Be a salesman, everyone else is.
 
Well, figure if you want to charge him for tech support or not. Yeah, $100 is good for just building it, but if he expects you to help him with the software and stuff, it can get quite expensive on your time and you've burned through $100 worth of tech support in no time at all.

For family, tech support isn't usually a problem, but for non-family, it can get difficult. I usually avoid the whole tech support route and let them know upfront that I'll help with the hardware that I sold them but the software is their responsibility. Most people are smart enough with computers anyways to figure out most software stuff, it's the hardware stuff most people don't want to deal with.
 
I would just take the money (as in $550 + $400), pocket $100 of it, and build him a nicer computer.

Seems pretty simple to me.

Or you could build him a PAIR of nice budget boxes, still keeping $100 for yourself. ;)
 
For an unwarrantied / no-service system (manufacturers warranty only for hardware), I charge 100$ CDN for building a system. I then charge 50$ an hour for service beyond that point if it's required, with a minimum of one hour's service (though if a problem is just a five minute fix over the phone or in person, I tell them not to worry about it).

For warrantied work, I charge 150$ or 50$ an hour, whichever ends up being more. I then do full on-site warranty work for one year.

I find this works very well for me personally, because I do my computer work on the side rather than as my main job. My rate is cheaper than any other (certified work) in my city so I can always pick up some extra cash. Plus I'm far more qualified than the vast majority of people who work on computers as their only job, and my clients tend to find that reassuring :).

Erik
 
Originally posted by Cows Milk Thrown @ U
For family, how much would you charge if lets say, one of their games starts to crash or if they catch a virus or something that requires you to fix it?

sorry for hi-jacking :(
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Free...or just buy me food :)
 
when I built a high end system for my friend (2.8 P4 when they were new, stuff like that) I just threw in some stuff from newegg for myself...mini itx board, socket A board, new proc, etc. it was a fraction of the price of everything else :D
 
Every system build is an opportunity for you to upgrade.


Sit down with him or her and determine his or her needs. More often than not you will have components that you wish to upgrade that would be perfectly suited to his or her needs. So you tell them up front .

"lets help each other" "I will charge you only 100 to build and I will discount you for some of the components I have that would suit you nicely as I am about to upgrade anyway"

This is a win win. You get nearly what you paid for your stuff in an expeditious way and order the upgrade stuff for your rig at the same time as you order the balance of the components for your client.

This methodology builds a circle of clients that stand poised to upgrade everytime you are. The advantages are obvious. The more you build for people the more often you can "refresh your own rig," change out diff components and gain tremendous experience playing around with different components at a lower cost of ownership.


Good luck .
 
Originally posted by Craz_3
In the real world I charge 50 an hour to fix mal ware and viruses :D. Be a salesman, everyone else is.
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Its easier to do this when you have a degree, but go for it.
 
Originally posted by KingPariah777
Let him pay you 400 dollars, and tell him you will help him out with any problems that may arise for awhile..
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Thats rippin the kid off..

"what comes around goes around"

$100 for a build is plenty.
 
Originally posted by Stiletto One
I would just take the money (as in $550 + $400), pocket $100 of it, and build him a nicer computer.

Seems pretty simple to me.

Or you could build him a PAIR of nice budget boxes, still keeping $100 for yourself. ;)
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Usually when someone asks me to build them a computer, I don't charge. As Dark Assasin stated, I'm happy enough that they trust me to build one, rather then buying one retail. And most that ask me, are my friends so I know that by building one for them, I'll be able to play online games with them (which is always more fun with your own friends):D. But if the person you are building it for isn't necessarily your friend, I'll go with what Stiletto One's said in his post.

Since he is willing to spend around $900 ($500 for the computer and $400 to pay for your labor), tell him that the most of that $400 can go towards his computer to get better components (particularly the CPU and video card). Then just buy around $750-800 worth of stuff, and keep $150-100. That way, his computer will be more up to date and perform better, which will keep him more content with it.

I know from experience, that usually if the person wants to use the computer for games, but doesn't really know much about computers, when they finally receive it, they expect to be able to play most of the latest games, even the high-end games. But when the computer you built for them doesn't run the game that well because it doesn't have a good video card, they may be a bit dissapointed. So by only keeping $100-150 for you and using the rest to go towards his computer, you'll still be able to make some money while making him a better computer.
 
I would say $100 or 10/15% of the computer. Depends on what that want. You all charge family, man that is wrong.
 
^^^
lol...I have a $3000 deal coming up, and I don't think that the guy's parents (this is for a college computer and some other stuff, the computer itself is "only" $2000) would want to pay me $300.

Probably a more reasonable way to charge for builds is simply to charge whatever sales tax would be (if your state has one) over the parts cost—here in North Carolina, at 7.5%, it works out pretty nicely. People getting inexpensive computers don't get gypped, and people getting expensive computers give you a nice chunk o' cash.

Of course, if you run an actual business, you'll have to set up something more formal.
 
Like someone else said, hardware support is usually no problem, even for long time periods, but people can royally pooch screw software, download virii, spyware, etc. and that can be massively time consuming for something that had nothing to do with how you built, what components you used, etc. Even Dell charges for crap like that and you should too (but not family!).



I always install AVG antivirus (freeware) it works great, and you can set it to auto update since most ppl don't update manually. Norton is fine, but the subscription runs out and they never check it or buy the update....and putting a good AV software is important because the average user gets all kinds of shit in the system...
 
UMMMMMMMM CHARGE $400.. Why in the hell would you charge less if he offers you 400 ? lol. Business people, not making friends, making money lol.
 
Give the kid a break, and charge him $100 max. If it was some rich guy that wanted a super rig then $400 would be understandable, but it is a kid so have a heart :) .
 
I charge $30/hr (with a minimum of one hour) and estimate an average of 3.5hrs to build the machine, and get all the software loaded.
 
Originally posted by theNoid
UMMMMMMMM CHARGE $400.. Why in the hell would you charge less if he offers you 400 ? lol. Business people, not making friends, making money lol.
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Actually I would call that taking advantage of people. Some of us have a little more dignity and morality than others though. I wouldn't charge someone four times what the work is really worth.
 
Originally posted by ZigZagZeppelin
Thats rippin the kid off..

"what comes around goes around"

$100 for a build is plenty.
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have you ever dealt with building someone a computer and supporting it?

i usually charge around 20% of what the system costs, and then charge 30 dollars every time i have to drive out , and 20 bucks an hour after the first hour of support.
 
For me it depends on the type of system. Building a Celeron 266 out of spare parts for my sister, no charge. Helping my brother build a gaming rig, buy me a game, Mom and Dad's internet machine, no charge. Sometimes I'll use it as an oppurtunity to buy OEM software though.

But I always tell them that when they pay for the box, they pay for the support and restore discs and other conveniences that their friend's HP came with. They know not to call me at midnight and they know I'm not making special trips to fix it. But they also know that they are getting a quality system that they'll be able to use and they won't have to figure out where to plug stuff in unless they want to.
 
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