How much to charge for PC help

Associate
Joined
3 Sep 2003
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Location
Staffordshire
My dad has offered my help to one of his customers to get them a new PC and get them set up. I've given help to family, friends and neighbours before but never wanted to charge.

Has anyone got any idea what a reasonable fair price would be? Would it be best to go by the hour or just guessimate a single charge.

Also, how would you approach the subject of charging them? I've never met them so I would hope they aren't expecting to pay nothing, but I don't want to sound cheeky. I think that they just want someone trustworthy, like my dad, not like the purple shirted peeps.

Cheers
 
Soldato
Joined
26 Aug 2003
Posts
24,261
If it were me I would state my rate as outlandishly high so that either:

a) They don't want to pay it so you don't have to do it - win

b) You get paid an outlandishly high amount for the work - win

What you don't want to happen is:

c) you spend hours working everything out, installing it and setting it up for pocket money, and then a month later when they get a virus through their own stupidity they phone you up on a Saturday afternoon and you have to go and 'fix' it, for free - big lose
 
Soldato
Joined
2 Nov 2002
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2,807
What kind of business does your dad's client have/run?
Servers, a domain to join, apps to install, data to migrate?
Or is this a home/workgroup setup?
Are you doing this as a friendly favour or as a replacement service for a professional company?

If he's paying business rate IT Support he'll be getting charged about £50-100/hour depending on area, I'd set your hourly rate at half of the going rate for your area.

Not really enough info about the environment to comment further.
 
Associate
OP
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Staffordshire
Well, my dad is an agricultural contractor, so I'm guessing the people in need of help will be farmers. It will be a regulary desktop buy or build then install apps, possibly some file moving but i doubt they will have lots to move.

Any ideas on how to bring up the cost? I haven't worked in a freelance kind of way so I've never had to tell someone hom much IM going to cost them; it's gind of unnerving.

Cheers for the good stuff guys
 
Associate
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Liverpool
I charge per job, recently did a build for someone at £500 which was £150 profit for me.

Base it on distance to travel, number of callouts necessary, price of parts to you and amount of time you expect to spend on the job.

Best advice for getting past the awkward money part? Work up a quote and send it to them via email, then ring them and tell them to check the email when they get a chance. Has the benefit of verbal conversation without the awkward "HOW MUCH" response over the phone.
 
Associate
OP
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Location
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Cheers for the helps guys, very useful. Except to those moaning that theres a thread like this every week; who, by the way, I assume search the forums - not to mention google - endlessly before daring to post a question.
 
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