How much to charge for Tech Support?

[limegorilla]

So here is the rundown. I do tech support for my community. Nothing much, the most advanced stuff I’ll be asked to do is hardware swap outs or restoring corrupted data - standard IT guy stuff. I’m not sure what to charge for all this. I’d prefer to charge by the hour. Currently I just sort of freeze when asked

 

I dont want want to overcharge anyone - I know the value of money, but I do want to earn something for my work. I usually have to find my own transport (as someone who cannot drive a car yet legally this can be an issue) and this normally takes between one and a half hours to three. I end up providing all tools and everything (thank you iFixit) and have so far had a spotless record.

[Oshino Shinobu]

In the rare occasions I do work for family/friends, I tend to charge around £50 base rate and around £30-£50 an hour if it takes more than 1 hour. 

 

There are some exceptions where I'll do it for much less, but it really depends on the person. If I know something is going to be a one time job for a personal friend, I'll do it for cheap. 

 

From my experience, doing work for family or friends of family (or really, people that know you, even indirectly) is a massive pain, which is why I charge a fair bit when i do it. I've had very few times doing it where I haven't then got a load of follow up questions/requests for completely unrelated issues to what I fixed before and they insist that "ever since you did this" something has been broken, even if the change was months ago.

 

My point of view on it may be different from yours, but that's my own take on IT support for locals/friends/family and such.

[Nick Burns, Company IT Guy]

yea, $50 an hour is pretty standard.  so 40-50 € seems right.

[Princess Luna]

6 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

doing work for family or friends of family

Not worth it from personal experience...

 

I only bothered with it once when I wanted to replace my personal use PC (had a cheaper i7 6700 + H110M + 8gb VS 2133mhz system, along side case, PSU and what not) and my mother's church wanted a capable computer for them to edit videos of their ceremonies.

 

I offered that computer alongside a GTX 1050 for them at great pricing, obviously below brand new and this was before Coffee Lake released and we were on Ryzen 1st gen so the i7 6700 was still a perfectly relevant CPU.

 

To me it was a great deal as I'd be able to rebuild from scratch which I did and I gave them the computer all ready fully functional all goodie which fit what they could afford perfectly, like for what they could pay there was hardly a better machine to have, it was the classical win-win situation.

 

2 weeks later they reach me on whats app claiming "Oh the 'tech' 'brother' guy from church decided to install Win7 (I handed it with Win10) on it and now it blue screens all the time you have to come fix it".

 

I said I never offered "tech support" I gave the machine fully functional the rest is on them and didn't get involved any further, I know better than get on this endless pit.

 

So yeah issues will always rise because people don't take proper care of their devices and it can become really annoying really fast.

[Oshino Shinobu]

Just now, Princess Luna said:

Not worth it from personal experience...

 

I only bothered with it once when I wanted to replace my personal use PC (had a cheaper i7 6700 + H110M + 8gb VS 2133mhz system, along side case, PSU and what not) and my mother's church wanted a capable computer for them to edit videos of their ceremonies.

 

I offered that computer alongside a GTX 1050 for them at great pricing, obviously below brand new and this was before Coffee Lake released and we were on Ryzen 1st gen so the i7 6700 was still a perfectly relevant CPU.

 

To me it was a great deal as I'd be able to rebuild from scratch which I did and I gave them the computer all ready fully functional all goodie which fit what they could afford perfectly, like for what they could pay there was hardly a better machine to have, it was the classical win-win situation.

 

2 weeks later they reach me on whats app claiming "Oh the 'tech' 'brother' guy from church decided to install Win7 (I handed it with Win10) on it and now it blue screens all the time you have to come fix it".

 

I said I never offered "tech support" I gave the machine fully functional the rest is on them and didn't get involved any further, I know better than get on this endless pit.

 

So yeah issues will always rise because people don't take proper care of their devices and it can become really annoying really fast.

Friends of family are the worst from my experience. 

 

Now days, I'll only do it for a few people. Mostly the ones that haven't come to me for followups or are already going based on the assumption that a followup will also need to be paid for. 

[AngryBeaver]

48 minutes ago, limegorilla said:

So here is the rundown. I do tech support for my community. Nothing much, the most advanced stuff I’ll be asked to do is hardware swap outs or restoring corrupted data - standard IT guy stuff. I’m not sure what to charge for all this. I’d prefer to charge by the hour. Currently I just sort of freeze when asked

 

I dont want want to overcharge anyone - I know the value of money, but I do want to earn something for my work. I usually have to find my own transport (as someone who cannot drive a car yet legally this can be an issue) and this normally takes between one and a half hours to three. I end up providing all tools and everything (thank you iFixit) and have so far had a spotless record.

I personally do it for free most of the time to help out people around here... not really in the need for cash and I like to help out my local community as I can.

 

Now that being said the hourly rate can be anywhere from 25-100/hr. It really just depends on how well known you are or if you have a little self run business for it. I have taken little 1-2 night gigs from a few people I know in the field to just help them get caught up and normally the rate is close to the upper range on 1099. I rarely do this anymore though as I have twin boys I am raising. 

[MrTiC]

If its "under the table" 25-35 euro/hour + transport costs

If its legit 50-70 euro/hour + transport costs

 

Cause fuck EU taxes

[NineEyeRon]

Friends and family I charge food and drinks.

 

My  parents bought me a "double the capacity" SSD when I fixed their laptop as I gave them mY used one and prices had come down in the meantime when it came to buying equal cost new!

[maestro0428]

I charge $50 per hour for my mobile service with no trip charge unless its over a 20 minute drive.  For smaller businesses and solo operations, that seems to be the going rate in the midwest US where I live.  Big box stores charge a considerable amount more, especially when coming to your home or business.

[deguzi]

corporate costs range from $30-$100/hour based on the level of support. 

[LogicalDrm]

I would say it depends. If its something small like cleaning physically or running some diagnostics, I probably wouldn't take anything. Maybe if I would need to travel significantly I could ask something which is still under the rates local shops asks for things (here its €30 for basic diagnostics, €60 for OS install, parts change and anything bigger). Family is always free. I'm doing tech as hobby so asking money of it isn't my thing.

[K3rupt]

Friends and Family tend to take advantage very quickly, If selling them a computer that i put together for cheap i normally charge a little on top to cover the guaranteed "Öh this stopped working" and always the typical i didnt touch it

 

$30-40 an hour AUD is a cheap rate here in AUS