Computer repair business

[cvrefugee]

Now that I'm done with school I've had some extra time to work on my computer repair side-job. This won't replace my current job as a pharmacy tech, instead I plan on supplementing my income with it. My question to the Final Gear community is this: what kind of pricing scheme should I use? I originally planned on copying Geek Squad's pricing and cutting it by 50% to undercut them, unless someone out there has a better idea. I nearly have all the equipment ready, I just bought some stuff the past couple of days:

Used desk - FREE


New keyboard/mouse combo - $30


Dad's old monitor - FREE


Various cables - FREE (got tons more stored in the drawers)


Never mind the GPU/CPU cooler, I only bought the PSU tester - $25


I also got a pack of compressed air and a 90-piece tool kit from Newegg. All I need now is a decent chair, plastic floor mat, and a good desk lamp. Anything else you guys can think of that would be helpful? I do have a portable external HDD as well. The room is also wired to our home network so I can do internet updates/patches/etc.

[jensked]

What you could use is an USB HDD dock so you don't have to screw your pc open to put a harddisk in.

[SirSmash]

I don't bother doing repairs at home; you can charge rip loads more by going to their place... my regular job is tech support anyway, so I get referrals to fix peoples home/business computers. Going to their place, if your good and get the job done, you can charge ~ $200 an hour without getting many strange looks. It's cheaper than geeksquad as I've heard people complain that they charged over $700 to do a wireless network setup and the guy was there for 2 hours. Geeksquad charges per thing done, not as many things they fix in an hour.

But when it comes down to it, it really depends how good you are. If you can do that network setup in an hour then anyone would gladly shell out $200 an hour as it's cheaper for them. If that setup would take you 4 hours then it's cheaper if they call someone else. But remember not to do it too quick; I've fixed systems where the only thing wrong was the firewall was set wrong (thus blocking any and all internet access)... it takes a minute to fix, but you got to sit there and bullsh*t a little at that point. In Windows you can get to every setting about 3 different ways, so learn how to make it look like your really working if the problem is going to be solved in a few minutes.

The only things that irritate me are: 1) Some people will come up with a bunch more problems than they said when they called or want everything explained to them; but I get paid either way so it's not that big of a deal. Just bring a copy of every piece of software under the sun. And 2) Take your cheap(est) car... You will get comments about how much you charge if you peel out of there in a BMW, Porsche, etc.

I did notice your home setup doesn't have a DVI video cable, get an adapter for that as you'll need one eventually. And get a huge backup drive... remember that unless you have them sign a nice legal form they will hold you responsible for data loss... so back the entire system up before doing anything.

Edit: You might also pickup an external burner (cd or dvd), as sometimes you'll get someone who just says to format it so it's like they bought the thing, but they generally want their photos or something on a disk.

[jensked]

And one of those cans with pressurized air in it to clean things like RAM slots etc...

[CyberMonkey]

My advise: don't overdo it. It's nice if you have lots of spare time and really need the money, but fixing computers is a really, really shitty job. Stupid people asking stupid questions about stupid computers, and you having to spend hours and hours trying to fix annoying viruses, trojans and spyware, or "installing the internets" or trying to find out why their childrens stupid five-bucks-game doesn't work on their five year old pc.

Anyway, I'd get one of those USB-to-ata cables (so you just plug the usb cable into your computer and you have access to the hard disk), and usb-to-sata too if that is already available. It will save you hours of screwing hard disks in and out, which gets really annoying after time.

Pricing is a difficult one. Having a little bit of honesty inside you is a huge handicap, as you don't want to let the people pay for the hours you spend searching for a stupid yet easy to fix problem. My advice is to not go too low since people will take advantage of you by letting you fix it for every stupid little problem they have.

[cvrefugee]

Originally Posted by jensked

What you could use is an USB HDD dock so you don't have to screw your pc open to put a harddisk in.

I don't plan on taking out HDDs for any good reason. I would take their entire tower/laptop and bring it to my house for diagnosis/repair.

Originally Posted by SirSmash

I don't bother doing repairs at home; you can charge rip loads more by going to their place... my regular job is tech support anyway, so I get referrals to fix peoples home/business computers. Going to their place, if your good and get the job done, you can charge ~ $200 an hour without getting many strange looks. It's cheaper than geeksquad as I've heard people complain that they charged over $700 to do a wireless network setup and the guy was there for 2 hours. Geeksquad charges per thing done, not as many things they fix in an hour.

Of course I sometimes have to go to their house, especially for home network issues. In fact, my coworker called me yesterday and I fixed her network in under 30 minutes. But I'm only charging $20/hour so I told her to give me $10 + a $5 fuel charge

Originally Posted by SirSmash

But when it comes down to it, it really depends how good you are. If you can do that network setup in an hour then anyone would gladly shell out $200 an hour as it's cheaper for them. If that setup would take you 4 hours then it's cheaper if they call someone else. But remember not to do it too quick; I've fixed systems where the only thing wrong was the firewall was set wrong (thus blocking any and all internet access)... it takes a minute to fix, but you got to sit there and bullsh*t a little at that point. In Windows you can get to every setting about 3 different ways, so learn how to make it look like your really working if the problem is going to be solved in a few minutes.

I would charge a minimum of 30 minutes time. For things that will take more than 3 hours, like doing a complete backup and reinstall, I would charge a flat rate since it takes a long time where I'm basically waiting for the computer to do it's thing.

Originally Posted by SirSmash

The only things that irritate me are: 1) Some people will come up with a bunch more problems than they said when they called or want everything explained to them; but I get paid either way so it's not that big of a deal. Just bring a copy of every piece of software under the sun. And 2) Take your cheap(est) car... You will get comments about how much you charge if you peel out of there in a BMW, Porsche, etc.

Paying by the hour would make that a non-issue, but like I said earlier, if it will take more time then I will charge a flat fee.

Originally Posted by SirSmash

I did notice your home setup doesn't have a DVI video cable, get an adapter for that as you'll need one eventually. And get a huge backup drive... remember that unless you have them sign a nice legal form they will hold you responsible for data loss... so back the entire system up before doing anything.

Edit: You might also pickup an external burner (cd or dvd), as sometimes you'll get someone who just says to format it so it's like they bought the thing, but they generally want their photos or something on a disk.

I actually have three DVI > VGA converters, so I'm good there! I have a 400GB external HDD, it's hooked up to my computer right now though. I plan on buying a larger one for myself and using the old one for my business. For data loss, I was thinking of doing a full image backup of their HDD before I made any major changes.

Originally Posted by jensked

And one of those cans with pressurized air in it to clean things like RAM slots etc...

Got lots of those!

Originally Posted by CyberMonkey

My advise: don't overdo it. It's nice if you have lots of spare time and really need the money, but fixing computers is a really, really shitty job. Stupid people asking stupid questions about stupid computers, and you having to spend hours and hours trying to fix annoying viruses, trojans and spyware, or "installing the internets" or trying to find out why their childrens stupid five-bucks-game doesn't work on their five year old pc.

It's a hobby of mine and I'd like to start getting paid for it

Originally Posted by CyberMonkey

Anyway, I'd get one of those USB-to-ata cables (so you just plug the usb cable into your computer and you have access to the hard disk), and usb-to-sata too if that is already available. It will save you hours of screwing hard disks in and out, which gets really annoying after time.

I'm not removing any HDDs, not really necessary with my setup.

Originally Posted by CyberMonkey

Pricing is a difficult one. Having a little bit of honesty inside you is a huge handicap, as you don't want to let the people pay for the hours you spend searching for a stupid yet easy to fix problem. My advice is to not go too low since people will take advantage of you by letting you fix it for every stupid little problem they have.

Well, repeat business will keep the money flowing!

[ChaoZ]

$20/hour seems low, especially if you're going by a 1/2 hour minimum.

[cvrefugee]

Originally Posted by ChaoZ

$20/hour seems low, especially if you're going by a 1/2 hour minimum.

Hmm, you may be right. I checked out the Geek Squad pricing, holy crap it's really high! Maybe $50/hr is more reasonable? What should I charge for backup and reinstalls? $150?

[SirSmash]

Originally Posted by cvrefugee

Hmm, you may be right. I checked out the Geek Squad pricing, holy crap it's really high! Maybe $50/hr is more reasonable? What should I charge for backup and reinstalls? $150?

Since your trying to base everything at home, I'd personally do $100/hr based on there being a little shop locally attached to a gas station and a psychic reading place that charges $125/hr. I would check the places around you, as the area matters when people are bringing the system to you. If the corner place in your area is doing $75/hr then I'd go with $50/hr.

Basically, the people are paying for your knowledge and when it comes down to it, they simply can't do it themselves. It's like hiring a lawyer, they charge a lot but your playing for what they know and the simple fact that you can't do it. Lawyers don't do much actual work either, as far as labor goes, but it's the knowledge that people pay for. The lawyer gets them out of a sticky situation at a price; you do the same thing but for their data. People pay good money for services like that; and remember that most people never backup their data even though that data is priceless to them.

[cvrefugee]

So far I only have business through work. Not all of them make lots of money, so I think by starting out at a lower rate I can build up a decent customer base (word of mouth). I'll let them know that this is cheap pricing and that eventually I will raise it if I get enough business. Otherwise a lot of them will go to someone else and get it done for free and I lose customers.

[Kip_6666]

The store I used to work charged upwards of 90 euros a hour.

One thing i didn't see, but then i'm too lazy to read each word here.. Are replacement parts to test stuff with. This is tricky, it's silly and expensive to buy every motherboard socket type around. But it is a great way to truly pinpoint the problem. In the store we had easy access to lot of parts, and we took quite a bit of advantage of that.

I'd go for a PSU and RAM.

Also the usb > hdd adaptor is very handy. Hard drive crashes happen quite a lot, and no one makes backups. Quite often you can still save stuff off it (get data back rocks at this). Which a usb adaptor you can play with the disk a bit more, and hear how it's doing.

Last tip, and doctor house is right about this. People lie, well it's not exactly lying.. they don't know better. Quite often any conclusions the customers make will make you start looking in the wrong direction.
Crap example, they say their hard drive crashed. Before you start taking out the hard drive ask them why they think this. "Well the computer doesn't turn on.."
So be very careful when people jump to conclusions, rather ask them what the computer is doing/saying.

[_HighVoltage_]

If only I received 5 cents everytime I fix a friend's computer (and in a couple of cases - hot girls' computers - there was no way I can charge them money )