Hourly rates

[ianh21]

hi all

what do you guys charge as your hourly rate for repairs and general labour charges.

i charge £40 per hour, first hour on home visits is always £40 unless i'm there for like 5-10 minutes then i usually charge £15-20.

am i to cheap?

i think i provide a good service to my customers and have repeat business and word of mouth referrals.

 

[Calx]

Residential or business?

Prices are about right for residential, more than me, but I keep toying with going to £40. As for the 10 mins you still have to drive etc, so don't undercharge by too much, perhaps charge £30? You need to factor this in. I try to, but I tend to undercharge all the time.

I also have fixed prices for certain things, like reinstall, data retrieval etc.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

I can't comment on the price specifically as I have no idea what your average market rate is, however, you should have a 1 hour minimum. As said above you have travel time and time away from the office/shop that should be covered and you fixed their issue.

 

[Moltuae]

Most of my work is remote, for which I charge a minimum of £50/hr. Sometimes I charge more for server-related remote work or remote work that needs to be performed outside of business hours. On-site I charge a minimum of £60/hour. I don't do residential work though ('cept for one or two hangers-on from the past) - I'm 99.9% business.

It's difficult to charge properly for residential work. Been there myself. Did it for years. IT work just isn't that valuable to most residential customers, no matter how well you do it. Businesses, on the hand, usually see a direct correlation between IT downtime and profit loss.

 

[cypress]

I can't comment on the price specifically as I have no idea what your average market rate is, however, you should have a 1 hour minimum. As said above you have travel time and time away from the office/shop that should be covered and you fixed their issue.

Agreed. Whatever your price may be it should be a 1 hour minimum regardless if it was a 15 minute job. Although you should be providing value and ask if there is anything else you can do while on site. Check for windows updates or something of that nature.

 

[mraikes]

Agree with above. The one hour minimum charge, communicated clearly up front. It's also a filter.

I was recently reminded that there isn't any less value simply because I can resolve a problem quickly. Remember, you're being paid to solve a problem, not being hired to warm a seat for a specific time. When the problem is solved, you're done and the customer has received the desired result for the exact price they've agreed to.

As already mentioned, it's certainly good form (and an opportunity to add additional billable time if appropriate) to ask if there's any other questions or anything else they need help with, but if the answer is no, then 40 pounds for 15 minutes is exactly appropriate.

 

[Mick]

I guess much depends on your local market. Where I am is a pretty prosperous area and people seem to expect to pay for services. Local plumbers charge 70 pounds p.h., so I'm not too far off that. Too cheap, and folks start wondering if you really know what you're doing. Do you have much idea what your competition charges?

 

[Pixelated Tech]

Agreed. Whatever your price may be it should be a 1 hour minimum regardless if it was a 15 minute job. Although you should be providing value and ask if there is anything else you can do while on site. Check for windows updates or something of that nature.

Absolutely charge 1 hour minimum if you are going on site. You lose money otherwise. In some cases, you may want to charge a travel fee. I charge a fee in excess of 20 miles one way.

 

[HCHTech]

That is my line as well. 1 hour minimum for onsites, travel charge for over 20 mi. That's for residential work. For businesses, I have a higher hourly rate, still have a 1 hour minimum, and charge travel for all calls (smallest rate for clients within 5 miles, next rate for almost everyone else, then a third highest rate for folks over 20 miles).

 

[ianh21]

i work mainly residential, businesses i can't cater for due to my main full time job - working hard this year to do more it! i have the odd business client and i charge them hourly rates without them raising any issues.
it seems i'm being soft, i think i'll charge a 1 hour call out however long, even if i feel its not right although you are all right in that it is. need to be more 'business' ruthless!
i also would charge for mileage over 10 miles out.

my competition charges around the same, some less and are always busy but i do get some of there kick backs when they do shite jobs which is nice. i may try and get some referrals from a tech shop locally that no longer does there own on site repairs. i spoke to one guy who does - little white lie to his customer that came to me form a job that failed - and he said he's to busy, gave him my details and said pass them my way.

 

[thecomputerguy]

I work in Southern California so things are a little more expensive here. I actually have two rates. For business clients the rate is $95 per hour. For residential the rate is $125 an hour. I'm trying to get away from residential because it can be so much more trouble than it is worth sometimes, but if the person is willing to pay me $125 (or £87) to install a printer ... hell ... I'll do it.

 

[NETWizz]

I am $0 per hour, but it ultimately leads to a contract for a project. Then it is thousands of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars, yet somehow I often end up worse off after hiring and paying subcontractors to do the work. Nothing like spending $15,000 on a contract that pays $12,000... Been there... done that... hopefully not again.

 

[acs]

Residential at £40 for first hour seems around the mark here. It helps weed out the bottom feeders and make it worth while to travel to and from. If a couple of calls are close together I might drop a little for a quick job for a regular customer. Businessd I charge more especially if servers are involved as there is less competition in that arena around here.

 

[resolvetech]

Typically $100-125 per hour depending upon difficulty, how big of a project, how much I like client and how much they're spending with me. There's fudge factor in all my pricing. Personally, I think its hard to have cookie cutter pricing for everything. It's limiting.

Now if you work with residential or have a shop then please disregard above. You're in the volume business and dealing more with hardware. The only thing I replace as far as hardware these days is HD, memory and graphics card. Although, I will swap power supply tomorrow for client but that's because I like them and it's a specialized PC.

 

[kwest]

One million dollars.

 

[TenYardFight]

I am $0 per hour, but it ultimately leads to a contract for a project. Then it is thousands of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars, yet somehow I often end up worse off after hiring and paying subcontractors to do the work. Nothing like spending $15,000 on a contract that pays $12,000... Been there... done that... hopefully not again.

You could always get your subs to quote you a flat rate!

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