Remote billing

[Greg Kristy]

It astounds me what people in major metro areas, or who serve niche markets that need serving, can get per hour.

I recently raised my rate for on-site to $80/hour, and there is no way in the area I live in that you could charge $150 plus per hour for "general tech support services." You might get away with that for very specialized stuff (e.g., the kind of work that @callthatgirl is doing) but I'd never have a customer were I to try anything that high here.

But, yes, $50 hour is ridiculously low in the area you're serving.

How did your regular clients respond to you raising your rates? Did you give an explanation, such as costs of overhead rising etc?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

You really think an IT contractor/consultant can charge $100 per hour for any sort of work?
You may be right.

Absolutely...at least triple digits if you're servicing business clients..and dealing with firewalls like Sonicwalls.
Leave the 75 dollar an hour stuff for geek-squad grade residential jobs reloading Windows on 400 dollar computers.

 

[britechguy]

I have never explained raising my rates, nor would or will I. I simply set them, and, unlike many (and, no that's not aimed at anyone here specifically) I make a point of publishing them on my website where I state: Rates should not be a mystery.

People know what the costs are up front, at least as far as hourly rates go. If they do not feel mine are fair, then they should shop elsewhere (and then determine that they're quite fair).

 

[britechguy]

Absolutely...at least triple digits if you're servicing business clients..and dealing with firewalls like Sonicwalls.

This could not be more correct, and correctly stated. The nature of the work matters. When I'm doing esoteric work, like setting up assistive technology that no one else even knows what it is, my rates are higher than for "the run of the mill residential break-fix or computer setup."

My rate for businesses, though, for most typical stuff is the same as residential. It seldom involves any niche expertise, really. I have to learn a thing or two at times, but I don't do the kind of stuff described above, and don't want to.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

How did your regular clients respond to you raising your rates? Did you give an explanation, such as costs of overhead rising etc?

The cost of servicing business clients is expensive.
We need to have high quality, centrally managed services, RMM, managed antivirus, a helpdesk system, good patching, watching daily backsups ...and since most businesses run on Microsoft 365...we need to properly secure tenants..and have a central management system to manage all of our 365 tenants, keep an eye on things, get alerting when something happens.

Servicing small businesses/businesses is a LOT more time consuming on the back end than residential..."if you're doing things right"....because you're always monitoring everything. And there's a lot of continuous work you should be doing...keeping their systems patched, monitored, constantly tweaked to keep up with things like the CIS standard. Managing small business clients is not "set and forget".

Offering security training, offering 365 training (one of my favorite things), get involved with the clients.

The hourly rate...there's an advantage to having it high. Because your goal is really to get the client to sign up with one of your "managed plans". I have a long thread on that around here somewhere...a pricing structure.
Level 1...onboards the client, gets your tools on their systems, rights to call you, helpdesk, an SLA, documentation, and..a lower hourly rate (like $160/hour instead of $210). It's the entry level "gym membership".
Level 2.....takes above and adds remote support..we also offer monthly BSN training and password management
Level 3...takes level 2 and adds onsite support

But clients that don't want to sign up on your managed plan, ...call them "break/fix"...(which...we really don't want to have any)....raise those hourly rates to drive them to sign up for a managed plan, or...if they're going to play the "cheap" game...go find some craigs list pizza tech.

 

[HCHTech]

It sort of began with $50 an hour being the standard rate for Work Market/Field Nation gigs. And when I started getting my own clients here and there via craigslist or word of mouth, nothing else changed so I kind of priced it the same.

I was in your shoes when I first started back in 2004. I was leaving a job that paid about $40/hr, so based only on that, I set my rates at $45/hr. Time and education in the school of hard knocks taught me to take a survey of all of my competitors and use that as a basis. I was a first-time business owner, so I had to learn a lot of things the hard way. Now, we update the survey twice per year and adjust prices accordingly. We have a different rate for residential service (where we are right there at the top rate in the area) and business service (where we are about 15% off the top rate in the area - we'll almost certainly raise business rates on 1/1).

We do get folks that won't book us once they find out our rates (ok with me, we're plenty busy), but to my knowledge, we've never lost an existing customer because of rates.

 

[cypress]

I have never explained raising my rates, nor would or will I. I simply set them, and, unlike many (and, no that's not aimed at anyone here specifically) I make a point of publishing them on my website where I state: Rates should not be a mystery.

People know what the costs are up front, at least as far as hourly rates go. If they do not feel mine are fair, then they should shop elsewhere (and then determine that they're quite fair).

I just took a look at your website and it is very simple and laid out. I liked it a lot. I am charging the same rates as you are. Although I been charging in 30-minute increments after 1 hour. Ashamed to say I didn't break down the math properly that I could do 15 min increments after the 1-hour minimum lol. Agree with you that rates shouldn't be a mystery though.

I do mostly residential but do take on some very small business clients (SOHO) type here and there, rates are higher for them though.