How much do you charge for support?

2400 Views 53 Replies 32 Participants Last post by industrian, Feb 16, 2005

masque

Discussion Starter · Feb 11, 2005

I've been doing tech support for my family for years, and I'm wondering how you guys handle charging family for this help. I've been either charging money (for more distant friends/relatives) doing it for meals (close family) or for free (really close friends and my families personal computer). Assume they want you to do something relatively basic like installing hardware or clearing out adware/spyware. If you charge extra for different nasty jobs (evil viruses or incredibly damaged systems that need reformating) please say so.

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Nevermore

· #2 · Feb 11, 2005

how can you charge your relatives? Seriously, thats just wrong. If someone needs a hand with his PC, I'd give it a shot for free.

Unicron

· #3 · Feb 11, 2005

I offer my services for free, but if one of my hallmates wishes to donate a beer to my "I need a beer" fund I'd be happy to lighten their load.

D.D.

· #4 · Feb 11, 2005

my services are free as well, as long as they dont abuse it. even then i dont charge money...as long as they dont abuse it tooo much. and it just goes on >.<

Cid Highwind

· #5 · Feb 11, 2005

Unicron said:
I offer my services for free, but if one of my hallmates wishes to donate a beer to my "I need a beer" fund I'd be happy to lighten their load.

They are always free to give me a beer

I don't charge ppl, the only things I do are helping them with software, or checking if there is anything wrong with hardware, but beside time, it doesn't cost me a thing. When someone wants to give me something for my time, I will accept it, but I don't charge them.

n_w95482

· #6 · Feb 11, 2005

I don't set a price, I either do it for free or let the client set the price. It's worked out rather well ($40 for each of the last two visits I've done

). I don't mind doing it for free because I think it's fun to fix the computer and to see it operating at its peak, which is good enough for me

.

Typhoon 01

· #7 · Feb 11, 2005

I do it for free to my relatives and friends unless they are willing to trow in something, but i also do some freelance repairs for 40-50$/comp.

xRock

· #8 · Feb 11, 2005

Yup when my friends needs help,
they always ring my bell.

DAMN poetry....urrrm.. they dont literally ring my bell.... but u get the idea :idea: (DOORBELL people).

Valcrist

· #9 · Feb 11, 2005

I don't charge money to relatives (unless I don't like them

), my closest freinds I don't charge anything to either (i.e. my two best friends and my g/f) everyone else usually offers money b4 I ask so its ok. Usually its in the vicinity of 20-50 us dollars.

MaZa

· #10 · Feb 11, 2005

I personally dont charge anything, but if they (anybody who im helping with computers) ask how much it costs (after work is done, of course), i just answer whatever you want to pay and how much your selfconciousnes tells. I cant say any price since its more like hobby, and i like helping in computers. I cant leech money from something i love. :lol:

Boltzmann

· #11 · Feb 11, 2005

I do it for free... when I do it

I've so little free time these days that I rarely fix anyone else's computer.

But it's always good to do it for free, if not for altruism, at least for enlightened self-interest. You can always call them for a favor afterwards

Player-X

· #12 · Feb 11, 2005

I only do it when I feel like it

JAZ

· #13 · Feb 11, 2005

A friend of mine sells PC's via the local paper & he went on holiday for a month & left me his mobile to sell PC's & do customer support & I was charging depending on how rich the person was I was doing the PC fixing for was or the time it took.
I had one bloke phone asking for me to install XP on his machine & as he had a nice car & big house I charged him £40 for a couple of call outs (£30 to install XP & £10 to remove a couple of worms as he didnt bother following the instructions I left him).
I re-installed XP on a young lads PC & only charged him £10 as he didnt look like he was too wealthy (& due to the fact it didnt fix his PC as he had a hardware fault & had to buy some new ram).
The best one I did though was a family who had let there teenage boy buy parts & build a PC himself, I got a call saying the PC would beep then turn off only to go round to his house & find he had bolted the motherboard straight onto the PC case side without using any brass supports :rotflmao: so it was no wonder the thing didnt work, as he had a very nice PC (Nforce3/AMD64/Gforce6) I charged £20 for half an hours work.
If I do friends/relatives PC I would do it for free & if its a friend of a friend I would just charge a small fee like £10 or so.

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KanedA

· #14 · Feb 11, 2005

free servicer here... but almost always I get a couple of beer or sth like that

Quatro

· #15 · Feb 11, 2005

well if was me, I won't charge anything... well they could at least treat me out on good foods or a couple of drinks and cover my transportation

Toshiro

· #16 · Feb 11, 2005

Let see at the store obviously they will be charged by the company. Anything minor such as diagnostics I wont charge, but I will charge them if they expect me to overhaul and rebuild a system or OS. Only exception is obviously are family members and friends, the only other time it is free when I know they can not pay for it and it seems like they are in desperate need of help. Some ppl offer me first something that is worth bargaining. One time I helped a person who worked for Hip Gear, the ppl who made those third party cables. The guy bought me a couple of PS2 games of whatever value, so of course I agreed to that

The only ppl I wont service are those who ask ignorant questions or start barking at me that they know more than me when I am tyring to help them. Or if they can not answer simple questions with regards to buying a system, like what is their budget? (gee how simple of a question can I get to ellicit a response)

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Evil_Neko

· #17 · Feb 11, 2005

I have never actually had to fix anyones PC before (thankfully) however I have been asked a couple of times o fit a CD drive and a sound card and I said "yeah ok, next time I'm in town" but just never went

. To be fair though I did give him that PC for free so... I'm not a bad guy really.

If I was going to do work though I probably wouldn't charge unless it was something that was actually going to cost me money or I really really couldn't be bothered doing it and they offered money then I might.

Freckle_smoker

· #18 · Feb 11, 2005

free here too .of course sharing a spliff would be an awesome payment

industrian

· #19 · Feb 11, 2005

I actually WORK for a tech support call-centre, so if ANYONE asks me for tech support i generally go jihad on them.

Toshiro

· #20 · Feb 11, 2005

industrian said:
I actually WORK for a tech support call-centre, so if ANYONE asks me for tech support i generally go jihad on them.

Yeah, I know what u mean. Do not worry I am empathies you do not know how many ppl walk in and ask the most dumbest questions or even the way they handle systems. See the following examples of what I deal with on a daily basis: (It is pretty accurate, scarily enough)

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/?t=archives&date=2003-05-30

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/?t=archives&date=2003-10-10

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/?t=archives&date=2004-02-23

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/?t=archives&date=2004-02-25

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