IT call out charges?

SteveS

SteveS

SteveS

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Joined
22 Sep 2006
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328
Location
London
so, i know a london company who have adsl/connectivity issues, they have done everything they can and want me to come in asap to fix. tonight...
i probably wouldn't get there till 8pm via train!

what would you charge for such a call out?

on weekends i usually charge them £60 per hour.

?
 
charge whatever you can get away with

out of hours call out, sounds like you traveling a bit to get there...
 
Do you charge £60 on sat and sun? I would charge the same for weekend and out of hours support.

/edit so £60 p/h + travel
 
yea train fee only £9 or something..

really not sure whats fair though. may only take me a few mins to fix, but its my whole night gone
 
As a small IT company, we charge £65+VAT per hour, evenings rises to £75 and weekends it goes up to £100 per hour. Bank holidays is £150 :p
 
hmm,
i guess i could walk in and just fiddle to fix the issue and only be there 30mins. yet i spent two hours on train. so that's where im lost.
 
SteveS said:
just 60pa, not call out charge.
Click to expand...

No I personally wouldn't bother with a call out charge, but have a minimum charge of say 30minutes.

For reference, I used to be charged out at £80p/h mon-fri, £120 for sat work and £160 for sunday, if you didn't have a contract set up.
 
so im thinking min charge of £160 , that's £80 pa for travel, then if its longer than few mins on site another £80pa ?
 
Charge them a fair but firm price that means its not a waste of your time. If they says its to expensive then let them find someone else.

After being self employed now for 4 years doing kind of work thats how i do things and its done be fine so far.

I found that if you do cut price jobs early on for small business' it becomes a problem when you try to start charging the actual going rate. They get all arsy and funny with you.

If its a company that you feel you may well get a lot of work from then of course you have to judge the way to approach it.. but beware of ending up feeling obliged to help when financially its really not worth your time.

I would also avoid charging for travel time as such.... just factor your time into the call out fee. The fact that you had to travel by train and it takes hours is your problem not theirs, so make sure your hourly charge reflects the financial facts for you.

Like i say the issue of losing 2 hours of your time travelling is not really their problem, they are paying for your time THERE and what is usually a flat out of hours call out fee. Now i dont know london prices but i would think a min charge of £120 and work from that.

Is it really worth your time to do this? will you get more work from it? is your time worth £80 an hour in the evening if you didnt do this?
 
Last edited:
agreed,. but it's a job on the side. so will never have a proper contract i doubt.

im not sure whats fair as i have no idea on the going rates, apart from whats stated here.

as above, i was thinking
£160 min covering callout\travel time and costs.
£80pa if its not a quick fix.

that way i walk away with min of £160 which seems ok?
 
SteveS said:
agreed,. but it's a job on the side. so will never have a proper contract i doubt.

im not sure whats fair as i have no idea on the going rates, apart from whats stated here.

as above, i was thinking
£160 min covering callout\travel time and costs.
£80pa if its not a quick fix.

that way i walk away with min of £160 which seems ok?
Click to expand...

Like i say i dont know london prices but i suppose that sounds about right. I would charge £75 for a call out to a local business, that includes the first 45mins then its £55 per hour after that. ( im in the manchester area )

I personally dont charge for my travel costs and time i just factor it in. If its particularly far away i maybe just add a tenner to the call out fee to cover my petrol and a burger on the way :p

I have found that being honest and reliable is a far better way to be than greedy upfront. Return business and word of mouth is my lifeline.
 
Asides from my main job as a Network engineer, I do local work on the side around my area.

I charge £25 per hour witht the 1st hour fixed, these are mainly home based customers though. If it was for a business I would think about charging more but dont "really" get envolved with businesses because of the hassle with support during my normal working day.
 
It's out of hours and takes time to get there. You also have to see how much getting the problem fixed is worth to the customer. A couple of hundred pounds sounds a lot to some, but if the problem does not get fixed, how much would the buisiness lose a day? Tens? Hundreds? Thousands? More?

I would say a fair rate would be £85 per hour with a minimum of 2 hours billed.
 
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