1

I’m currently cleaning off a Microsoft Anti-breach infection for a co-workers nephew, and she asked me how much this would be. I never gave it a thought, but I guess I probably should make some money. So what does everyone think I should charge? I was thinking $20, he is a college student, don’t want to be too mean and charge a real freelance rate haha.

47 Spice ups
2

Don’t sell yourself short - otherwise people wont respect you or your time. Call other local firms and ask what they charge and find the rate you want to charge.

13 Spice ups
3

I find that if you’re doing work on the side it’s better not to charge if you’re not doing it purely for the income. Once people pay the expectations change and you get an endless string of support calls that they feel should be part of the service they paid for.

If you want to charge money to deter them from asking all the time you can simply ask them to make a donation to a charity as compensation for your time. I do that and it manages to reduce the “but I paid you for this” calls, and eliminates the people coming to me with every silly question because my services are free.

12 Spice ups
4

I usually just offer it as a barter if at all possible. Setting a monetary rate could backfire in that a similar problem would be construed as something they could purchase from you for the same price(or tell friends and family that it’s how much they paid for you to do it).

When in doubt, beer is a good payment.

18 Spice ups
5

how-about-1.jpg

mwahahahaha

41 Spice ups
6

Hmmm seems a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation.

1 Spice up
7

I have learned in the past two things, what is your time worth, and what are you going to do in the future when this happens again and they come back. To me, my time is valuable, especially outside of work, yeah I might do something here and there for someone (always free for family). But most the time my rate is $100 per hour. If they value your opinion, they will respect what your time is worth and pay what ever your willing to charge.

5 Spice ups
8

I tell people that fixing computers is just what I do, and there’s no charge. Often people will bring me a gift, ranging from a 12 pack of some nice imports to a gift card for walmart, starbucks, iTunes, whatever.

I would probably go somewhere along the lines of $50-$75/hr if a friend or neighbor was asking what I would fix someone else’s computer for.

14 Spice ups
9

You charge whatever is fair. I tried flat rate for a few months for personal computers and it was just a bad deal. The worst job I took was 14 man hours, 250 hours of the computer running deep scans consisting of 35 sweeps, and finally removed 22 infections. When they got the bill for $150.00 they thought it was too much. If I did that job for business client it would have been over a $1000 job.

I do not fix personal computers anymore unless we are related by very close blood. The moral of the story is you charge what your time is worth to you and since it seems like this is off hours non business thing then they can buy you pizza or beer.

5 Spice ups
10

That’s my standard rate for friends. :slight_smile:

1 Spice up
11

If I work with my clients again (I haven’t in some time), I charge them 40/hr. I think last time I checked the average was 50-80/hr. IMO I see this as fair, I did work, if you didn’t ask the price beforehand, thats not on me.

12

I only do it for certain people, if I don’t know you typically I won’t get into it. For me though I do it as a favor for a friend because usually at some point I’ll need their help on something so we all help each other out. I fix a computer, they come over and help me build something. It all evens out in the end. Now if its a person I work with I just tell them bring it into work and i’ll do it when I get some time in between calls. Typically I never take money but as some of you have said I’ll usually come into work with a gift card or something on my desk the next day to show the appreciation.

13

I charge $30 if I have no overhead.

2 Spice ups
14

I’m normally paid in alcohol.

8 Spice ups
15

Denatured Alcohol is a commodity man.

1 Spice up
16

You should charge something

1 Spice up
17

You can try to charge, but it’s never enough. If you do it for free or they buy you dinner/beer/goats as a barter trade, then a precedence is set that will either keep you from saying no, changing rates/currencies, or they think they get warranty work. Easiest answer is either “Hell no!” or only for sexual favors.

Very much a damned either way situation…

1 Spice up
18

Goats?

2 Spice ups
19

I charge $40/hr which undercuts pretty much everyone in my area by at least $5-$10. For friends and family I accept goods and services in exchange. I do my best to make sure they understand that its not something easy and free I will do all the time, but I am putting in effort and time to give them something that is honestly, worth quite a bit of money.

I do my side business on a very small scale, its pretty much my play money so I don’t need to be raking in lots of cash to cover expenses. I’m happy with just a couple hundred a month profit. I do like to make sure that if someone does come to me, that they don’t need to look any further and if they do, they will realize they shouldn’t. Go to bestbuy and they will charge you more and do less. I guarantee data recovery to the point that you will barely realize I worked on the computer, and only make you pay for what is 100% needed, consulting with you the whole way. Others will probably give you an external harddrive they make you pay for that has most of your data on it and a completely wiped copy of windows that they didn’t even activate for you, or bother to try and retreive the key before they wiped since the sticker on the bottom of the laptop was worn off.

Give them good quality and a good price and they will keep coming back. research people in the area and get some quotes and if you aren’t looking to make this a primary income source, undercut the cheapest shop by a couple bucks and call it good.

$20 is too low in my opinion. $30 would be the lowest I would go (ironic since I’m paid less than that at my day job)

6 Spice ups
20

is it worth trading “services” with her??? maybe she has a thing for you?

damn Matt_P beat me to it!

But I would always ask for something in the $40 range. Bottle of good liquor or 2. buying things for service seems to be easier than straight cash for people.