How much do you charge for support?

2399 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.

21 - 40 of 54 Posts

industrian

· #21 · Feb 11, 2005 (Edited)

I get calls from people that defy belief. It makes me feel severe empathy for outsourced jobs in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Not only do they have to worry about the racists, they also have to worry about the stupidity.

As a note: i once had an English person ask specifically for someone his own nationality, I then retorted "well sorry ah'm tae busy eat'n ma haggis" then hung up. Tech support is one thing, having to put up with frustration and bigotry is another. But I get around £12,000 a year, so screw them all.

Chrono Archangel

· #22 · Feb 11, 2005

I help family and close freinds for free, but they usually throw in beer or a meal so im happy. They offer to pay when its a huge job.
But for friends of friends

i charge but pretty low. like 20$ an hour.

bahamut_2006

· #23 · Feb 11, 2005

I dont charge to fix a comp because I may not always get to fix it exactly like the person wants (and I dont want to rip people off). However, I do charge to build one since that takes a lot of my time and I could not, in good conscience, do it for free. When I build one I put all the software they want on there and make sure they're set to go before I leave

masque

Discussion Starter · #24 · Feb 11, 2005

Lots of interesting replies. Most of you are really close to what i do (family/friends free). I do a lot of charity work with computers (the local school district) so I don't feel that bad charging distant friends (my mother's-friends-sisters-uncle kind of ****).

Grv

· #25 · Feb 11, 2005

Generally, I'm a nice guy, but I don't do it for free.

Unless I'm redoing a favor.

masque said:
If you charge extra for different nasty jobs (evil viruses or incredibly damaged systems that need reformating) please say so.

I make sure I get payed by the hour. Nasty jobs take longer. Hence, they pay more. Then again, small jobs can easily be fixed through email/phone, as long as you take in account the user's level of experience. Or atleast, I'd like to think so. My memories from certain tech-support related jobs tell me otherwise.. ;/

My friends can take care of their own PCs. On the other hand, a few of them sometimes need help in scripting/coding problems, but these are my friends for a reason and they are always very generous to me, so I don't charge them anything. Nor my parents.

Nevermore said:
how can you charge your relatives? Seriously, thats just wrong.

Excuse me, mister morally inclined person

, but A) I have a rather large family who abused my services which was also apparent to others when B) my rather large family quenched their requests when I proposed hourly fees much cheaper than the general professional back then (far from it now, though

). Not to forget, that C) my time is thoroughly precious to me as no time spent on education, more serious working projects (=mucho €€€), and much needed relaxation costs me my money (=half of my happiness). I already had to give up on exclusive federal sponsorships and 3 years of time for various reasons, and I'll be damned if anything else passes me by. The comparison might look ridiculous to you people, but it is only there to illustrate how I feel about wasted time and money.

Other than the aforementioned, there are no exceptions.

It has become painfully clear to me early in life that you don't choose your relatives

, and that the sympathetic ones die much too young. Anyone that does nothing but leech my time and possibly profiting from it is never going to be an exception. When I was a little younger and more naive, my time and variety of skills were abused a LOT by family. Much too late had I drawn the line.

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RF

· #26 · Feb 12, 2005

usually $50 for freelance stuff here, things that take no longer than 2hrs or so.

CD

· #27 · Feb 12, 2005

Didn't you post this on broadbandreports.com?

n_w95482

· #28 · Feb 12, 2005

masque said:
Lots of interesting replies. Most of you are really close to what i do (family/friends free). I do a lot of charity work with computers (the local school district) so I don't feel that bad charging distant friends (my mother's-friends-sisters-uncle kind of ****).

I do the same thing too

. I volunteer a LOT of time working on the school computers (4th period and usually my lunch time as well) and sometimes I stay after school for an hour or two to finish up some work, like today (90 mins after school); not to mention that working on the computers is my 0 period class as well. If I'm working on a teacher's computer during lunch they usually feel bad for taking that time up but I don't really care

.

Evil_Neko

· #29 · Feb 12, 2005

>>As a note: i once had an English person ask specifically for someone his own nationality, I then retorted "well sorry ah'm tae busy eat'n ma haggis" then hung up.

heh, fortunatley I dont work in a call centre but I always find it hilarious when people can't understand my scottish accent, it usually just makes me talk in a more extreme accent

industrian

· #30 · Feb 12, 2005

Evil_Neko said:
>>As a note: i once had an English person ask specifically for someone his own nationality, I then retorted "well sorry ah'm tae busy eat'n ma haggis" then hung up.

heh, fortunatley I dont work in a call centre but I always find it hilarious when people can't understand my scottish accent, it usually just makes me talk in a more extreme accent

Sassenachs = wasters. I had a lot of calls today from people complaining that they couldn't get online. I explained to them that the North East of England was experiencing downtime, but then they're all like "could i cancel my service." Excuse me for saying this, BUT WTF?! YOU'VE HAD THE SERVICE FOR A YEAR BUT ONE DAY OF DOWNTIME WANTS YOU TO CANCEL IT?! Godamn, the Jacobites should have kept going until London if you ask me...

Edit: Any North East English Tiscali broadband users: if you couldn't get online, you now know why.

Evil_Neko

· #31 · Feb 13, 2005

>>Any North East English Tiscali broadband users: if you couldn't get online, you now know why.

Yup never ask for someone your own nationality of youre connection will get wtfpwned

industrian

· #32 · Feb 13, 2005

Evil_Neko said:
>>Any North East English Tiscali broadband users: if you couldn't get online, you now know why.

Yup never ask for someone your own nationality of youre connection will get wtfpwned

lol, no, seriously, the downtime WASN'T my doing. >_>;

Esturk

· #33 · Feb 13, 2005

Reichfuher said:
usually $50 for freelance stuff here, things that take no longer than 2hrs or so.

Same here. I just got back from upgrading a computer with some old parts I had. Made $370 canadian today. $50 for the service, and $320 for the parts.

Evil_Neko

· #34 · Feb 13, 2005

>>lol, no, seriously, the downtime WASN'T my doing. >_>;

heh, the reason they were probably so angry is because world of warcraft war released on friday and most people didnt get to register until suturday morning because of blizzards rubbish servers if they can't even connect to the net they are going to be extremly angry

industrian

· #35 · Feb 13, 2005

Evil_Neko said:
>>lol, no, seriously, the downtime WASN'T my doing. >_>;

heh, the reason they were probably so angry is because world of warcraft war released on friday and most people didnt get to register until suturday morning because of blizzards rubbish servers if they can't even connect to the net they are going to be extremly angry

Maybe.

But back ontopic though...

"Could i get a refund of my missed day of service?" = a prime candidate for stupid-sh't-of-the-year award.

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FLaRe85

· #36 · Feb 13, 2005

Let's see. Here's this year's invoices so far for only one of my support clients:

02/14/2005 Invoice #1033 [ pdf invoice ] $50.00 paid
02/11/2005 Invoice #1034 [ pdf invoice ] $20.00 paid
02/01/2005 Invoice #1030 [ pdf invoice ] $300.00 sent
01/28/2005 Invoice #1032 [ pdf invoice ] $25.00 paid
01/28/2005 Invoice #1031 [ pdf invoice ] $225.00 paid
01/25/2005 Invoice #1029 [ pdf invoice ] $100.00 paid
01/25/2005 Invoice #1028 [ pdf invoice ] $175.00 paid
01/16/2005 Invoice #1027 [ pdf invoice ] $250.00 paid
01/10/2005 Invoice #1025 [ pdf invoice ] $210.00 paid
01/10/2005 Invoice #1024 [ pdf invoice ] $225.00 paid
01/01/2005 Invoice #1023 [ pdf invoice ] $300.00 paid

Most of that is development work, writing various custom scripts and the like for his servers and/or websites. I also get $300/month for managing his servers and network.

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CD

· #37 · Feb 13, 2005

You're also a gay! <3

masque

Discussion Starter · #38 · Feb 14, 2005

CD said:
You're also a gay! <3

I've been seeing a lot of you. You're definitely a very negative person.

industrian said:
"Could i get a refund of my missed day of service?" = a prime candidate for stupid-sh't-of-the-year award.

I run tech support for our school's LAN parties (I do it in exchange for their bandwidth). We kicked a guy out for combination teamkilling/cheating/being a total jerk (it seems the word I wanted to use is censored). He came back later with his mother demanding a refund.

Radix865

· #39 · Feb 14, 2005

Well I don't really charge my relatives because I know they pay me anyway... BWAHAHAAA!!!

Oh, come on! who in the hell takes fares from relatives?

CD

· #40 · Feb 14, 2005

masque said:
I've been seeing a lot of you. You're definitely a very negative person.

Die!

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