Rate for travel time

[wickedmojoit]

No travel time charge here either. Its a flat hourly price. I personally hate when companies have the charge then the fees then extra charges. Just give me a price!
My onsite rate is 20 an hour more then in shop. we charge from the moment we show up to when we are done working. This covers the cost of travel and get you priority in scheduling. Shop turn around is up to 3 days, on site is almost always same day.

 

[goldmercury]

When I was doing this I made all customers come to me. It frees up so much of your time and most folks did not have a problem with coming to me.

 

[SprinterTech-WI]

$85/hr port to port. We bill the Google map times if we're coming from another site.
Same day $129/hr emergency same day, $149/hr we travel all over the Midwest for commercial clients with multi locations at $1/mile all miles run. Works well... Bill over a quarter mil in travel fees a year so it pays.

 

[Digital Sage]

I incorporate travel into my minimum rate for onsite. I ask for $100.00 which includes 45 minutes onsite, and travel.

"Onsite Mac Support - First 45 Minutes" - $100

My hourly rate after this is $90 (Easy as it's $1.50 per minute), so i make $32.50 per trip which i think is reasonable considering some trips can take up to an hour both ways. Most don't, but some do. It's time you're working, so you need to make some $$$ out of it. Car expenses / Fuel / Wear & Tear / 1 Hour in a car / Unable to work during this time - it all adds up.

 

[Diggs]

Wow. You people are crazy for charging as little as you do. We have a flat rate $169 trip charge over 10 miles. If it's under 10 miles, it's $129. If they want to take away a tech from his workbench where he can be working on 4-6 computers at the same time, they're going to pay dearly for it. Honestly we don't even want to go on site for what we charge. It's always best to get the customer to come in. During busy times, we charge up to $369 for a trip charge for businesses. It's just not worth it to go on site unless it's a business that you know you're going to make $1,000+ on. For residential, going on site is a losing game. We just charge the $169 to help absorb the cost.

Don't mean to be rude or snarky, but it's rates like these that keep us busy. But then again, residential is our forte.

 

[sapphirescales]

Don't mean to be rude or snarky, but it's rates like these that keep us busy. But then again, residential is our forte.

Hey, if it works for you go for it. This works for us. It makes it so we get very little on site work and do at least 95% in shop. Our costs are little to none. To be honest, if a client isn't willing to pay $169 to come out, they're a cheapskate and aren't worth our time. Our average business ticket is about $750 and residential is $300-$400. On site, it's even more.

With laptops, no one really cares if we can come to them or not. And if they have desktops, once they hear all they have to do is disconnect the cords from the back and bring it in, it isn't a big deal to them.

I suggest you look at the math and see if you're actually making a profit by going on site. But then again, there are many variables. If you're in a poorer area, I don't think anyone would be willing to pay $169 for you to go on site, and your old customers are probably used to you coming to them and wouldn't take too kindly to having to bring it in every time now.

It costs $1/mile to drive when you factor in insurance, wear and tear on the car, depreciation, and gas. So if you're driving 10 miles to a client, it costs you $20 plus time. If you're charging $100/hour, that's $33 plus $20 so your cost is $53 if there's no traffic. If there's traffic, it can cost up to $20 more (it depends on where you live). You need to make some profit too to account for taking a tech away from his bench. So let's say you charge the $169 we charge. You're making about $100. After the government gets through screwing you, you've got about $45 profit and have lost a tech for however long the appointment takes. It doesn't make sense even at the $169 we charge. But if you're only charging $50 to go out to that client, you're actually PAYING to go on site. If you're doing it for free, it's even more ludicrous. At the $169 we charge, we barely make anything.

 

[seedubya]

We charge our full rate door-to-door

 

[jeffmatheny]

We don't charge travel time inside our 35 miles radius but we charge our rate of $100 per hour as if we were on site outside that radius.

 

[Rosco]

I charge for a long distance. outside of my service area. I have a few clients with satellite offices in different parts of the state. So i do charge a travel fee.

 

[joydivision]

I don't charge travel time unless it is out of my area and they don't want to come to me. Normally if possible I get them to come to me if it is outside of my service area.

 

[SprinterTech-WI]

We service the Midwest, probably bill more on trip charges then onsite... Often creative billing though... Aka only a $165 trip charge but a 4hr minimum onsite... We're in and out in 2 hrs but have 4hrs travel so we get 85/hr in the end...
Had one site... $2700 trip charge... 4hrs onsite so $500 onsite. Otherwise it's usually built into our bids.
For local customers usually no trip charges... But those are for our local local customers... We have 3 retail stores so rarely do we see many who are outside of that area.

No sense losing money on travel... It's a cost you shouldn't absorb