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Hi All,

I’m sure at some point we’ve all been asked to pop around a friend of a friends house and take a look at a computer, I always find it uncomfortable when I do this and the person asks me “how much do I owe you?”

I hate it soo much I would rather say don’t worry… this is mainly because I don’t want them to think I’m trying to take them to the cleaners! however I have been told I should be more willing to accept these ‘gestures’ as a token of gratitude and to compensate for my precious evenings after work…

Well now I’m really stuck, I’ve a friend whom would like me to swap a faulty processor on a Dell laptop for her. I’ve quoted for the part but now she would like to know in advance how much I will charge so she can weigh up if it’s worth doing or getting a new laptop… I estimate the work will take two hours but I’m not sure how much to charge…

what would you consider a reasonable amount? How much do you charge per hour if you do this sort of work?

36 Spice ups
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How much do you like them? If they’re a good mate, they can take me out for dinner.

If they’re an acquaintance, I’d say anywhere from $20 to $50 an hour.

Ultimately it’s your time, only you can decide how much it’s worth.

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On the rare occasions I do charge, I have a standard rate of £35 p/h or part thereof.

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If you charge nothing, then your time is worth nothing to them.

I work on the basis of around half my normal consulting rate, but it depends on the customer. For a mate who’d help me move house or chop a tree down in exchange for food, beer and a good time, I’ll give my time for free. For a friend of a friend who wants a favour, I’d charge something approaching full rates.

13 Spice ups
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Have you ever thought about something like the time bank?
If you do your job for an hour at his house, he / she will do it as his / her job for you.

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Depending who it is and what it is i charge around £40 an hour. Or i take other things in return such as in the past i have had a free golf lesson in return for fixing a golf pro’s laptop or a car valet for sorting stuff.

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Funnily enough I have a sort of ‘time bank’ agreement with my Mechanic basically we never pay labor to each other whenever we need something done… I guess it helps he is a good friend though!

I am more then willing to accept food offerings in return for my help, but I think in this circumstance the user needs it to be a cash figure for some reason…

The component is £60, I’ve already spent a little under an hour investigating the issue without being paid so this would be a second visit so perhaps doubling the price of the component would be reasonable? £20P/H seems fair to me…

Some of the cost will be grievance money for time away from GTA :stuck_out_tongue:

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Worse, your time is worth nothing to you.

Keep in mind the following:

  • People don’t value things that are free. If you give away your skills, the recipient won’t think twice about the behavior that brought them to need your services in the first place. You’ll be back next week. And the week after. And the week after that …

  • You touch it, you own it. Congratulations, you’re now responsible for EVERYTHING that’s wrong with this computer until the time it dies. It won’t matter that her husband is really the one responsible for the porn pop-ups … it’s up to you to fix it. For free. Again. On your only day off in 8 months.

  • The local computer shops hate you**.** Seriously. We don’t come gunning for your job (and trust me, I can do your job for less even if the net pay is the same) … why do you insist on taking ours? If you insist on moonlighting for this sort of work (which you’ll learn to hate in short order), at least charge a competitive rate. Charging $20 or a six-pack of <<stuff that claims to be beer but isn’t really>> only serves to lower the value of every IT pro’s time everywhere.

    Don’t be that guy.

40 Spice ups
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I agree with what you are saying, however the nearest repair shop is over 10 miles away whereas im less then a mile. My intention is certainly not to take business from *‘*local’ shops however I’m not going to turn away extra work mainly because it opens doors… what would you consider to be a competitive rate for 3 hours work?

** I always explain to the user that the work I do is not insured and there is an inherent risk that I might not know what i’m doing and could break the device and they accept the risk when asking me to look at it. I also explain to them where the device could be taken as an alternative and normally I will make sure they do not have a service commitment with someone else.

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I dont do private work! It’s not worth the hassle, or my time. The furthest I ever go is fixing my parent’s equipment, or very close friends.

The last thing I want to be doing after a long day of work, is solving problems that do not relate to my work.

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I see you charging 20$-50$ per hour!! do you even earn half of that amount in your salary?

Charge 10€/h or estimate the time you would require to “loose” with the problem and give it a number.

if you estimate 2h of laptop surgery make it 20€ or 15€.

In the other hand you can ask in an establishment how much would they charge for that kind of work.

Ask 50-75% of that amount to your friend.

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Great idea in theory. This is really just another term for barter.

Barter in the modern world sucks.

Why?

Because one side always gets shafted. This isn’t like the old days where you’d trade a pig for 6 bushels of apples. The relative value of material goods can be agreed upon, and the quality of those goods is simple to determine. If the pig is sick,maybe the deal is off. If the apples aren’t fresh, maybe I’ll offer a smaller pig or a couple of chickens.

When you get into barter for services, things get squicky in a hurry. Is an hour of my time (valued at $125/hour) worth the same as, say, a mechanic’s time (typically clocking in between $40 and $60 an hour)? Based on the billable rates, the answer is pretty obvious. How do we tell if the services we exchanged are of good quality? More, how do we address problems that may arise from the work?

If I pay the mechanic and he botches the job, there are legal avenues I can take to either get the work done right, or recover my costs, or both. If I trade an hour of my time for an hour of his, what happens if he botches the job? Same issue the other way: If I remove, say, the FBI ransomware from his computer and three days later he’s re-infected it with the same bug, what happens? In a paid contract, it’s clear where my responsibilities begin and end.

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The component is £60, I’ve already spent a little under an hour investigating the issue without being paid so this would be a second visit so perhaps doubling the price of the component would be reasonable? £20P/H seems fair to me…

I always point home users in the right direction to buy any parts or software theirselves unless i have them kicking around in my garage. Its alot less hassle than having to buy them yourself and getting the money back.

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Most PC repair shops would charge about £100 an hour in the UK. So $50 is perfectly fair.

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Depends on the going rates in your market. Around here, my main competitors are Best Buy, Staples, and the shop down the street. $100 - $150 to clean the crap off a PC or to wipe and reload. Your market may be different. Also, 10 miles is nothing. Best Buy is 22.3 miles from my shop. I have people driving 35 or 40 to come to me.

Explaining means exactly nothing, by the way, unless you have it backed up with something singed. Without some form of contract you can find yourself in court in a he said/she said situation. With one, the client can’t claim ignorance. They signed a document indicating they had read, understood, and agreed to your ToS. If they sign but don’t read, that’s not on you.

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If you’re doing work on the side, ALWAYS require the client to buy the parts themselves. Running afoul of your local sales tax regulations is not a headache you want to deal with.

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The problem is that friends and family expect you to do it for free. If we were plumbers or electricians and we were getting facebook messages and phone calls at 10pm to ask for 2 minutes of our time (that turns into 3 hours when we visit them), then people would expect to be charged for it. But for some reason if you work in IT people expect your services to come either for free or a very meagre fee.

Nowadays if people ask me to replace a hard drive or part I just email people the product link they want and a youtube tutorial video on how to do it for themselves.

  • Because being paid a £5 bottle of wine for 3 hours work isn’t really fair in my opinion.

Rob

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I’ve done favours for friends, I haven’t charged but usually I got some compensation out of it. Be it drinks or something.

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Hi Mike!

If it’s for a company or someone I hardly know, I charge £50 for the first hour and £30 an hour thereafter.

If its a mate, and doesn’t seem to involved I’ll charge them £20 and often get that and a crate thrown in as well.

Just go with what you are comfortable with, but don’t let friendship drive your prices too low, or your are devaluing yourself.

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thanks for all the answers so far guys! its interesting to see the different opinions on it!

I can’'t believe the thread has got this far and no one has pointed out to me that the first line said ‘who’ instead of ‘how’ Also that I have something on my teeth… :stuck_out_tongue:

just to be clear guys I’m not looking to establish myself as a business this is just an odds and end work because someone approached me and asked for my help… I think tax for the component would be covered in the VAT as I am not tax exempt! I will stress to the person that the work I carry out is under the condition that they understand the risk of letting me fix things and ask them to sign something :slight_smile:

I’ve got to be honest I thought £20 an hour was quite steep!?

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