charge by the hour not the service...$200 I worked at a computer repair shop for 2 yrs.
I wanted to point these two little babies out to you I swear by them.
http://trinityhome.org
http://www.clonezilla.org/
Best thing is they are free I have saved a few Windows boxes with them.
I’d add 20% to the cost of the bullet you use.
I charge $100 flat fee to do this if the customer
drops off the computer. $75 an hour for a
house call. The customer must have all original
Software and licenses. The standard deal is for
OS and office suite + necessary extras ...
(Flash, adobe, extra browsers etc). If they want
Other stuff loaded it’s $75/hr minimum 1 hour.
How old is laptop? Where are you located? Is this a friend or is this a business thing? What is your time worth? Are you taking the laptop completely apart, or are you cleaning the outside? (if you actually take apart the laptop then thats a "whole nuther can o worms".)We can only assume that the client has GIVEN you all the required licenses.
I did exactly what you did before I moved, (about 5 years ago) everything you detailed would, honestly take about an hour of your time,(note: not how long it actually take)(the rest is the machine loading files, etc.) while you twiddle your thumbs.
I would call other techs/business and say you are getting prices for all the things you are doing to the laptop and find out what THEY charge.
Hope this helps.
I used to charge about $100 for similar work.
charge by the hour not the service...Goto Fryes and get an estimate of what you propose.
Do it yourself. Installing an OS is not that hard. I’ve done it. Are you are a wussie? This is something people are perfectly capable of doing on their computer.
I charge by the hour. That’s basically the only fair way for myself and my customer, because every job is different. I do, however, have enough experience to make a pretty good estimate, and I usually (but not necessarily always) offer a not-to-exceed charge.
I also charge travel time for house calls. If a customer doesn’t want to pay this and doesn’t want to drop off, then I ask them how much an electrician or plumber charges to roll a truck. If they still don’t get it, then I’m very happy to not have this person as a customer, because they are very likely to be a cheapskate.
I turn down lots of potential clients if they want unreasonable work, such as big-bucks repairs that are likely not to have a good outcome on some home-built or ancient POS PC that they are emotionally wedded to.
I’ve also found out the hard way that it pays to try to weed out people who are OCD, brain-damaged (literally), or who are going to be impossible to please, though this last category is pretty hard to determine in advance.
I guarantee to take care of any problems without charge for a couple of weeks after the work, and I provide free remote access to make tweaks so neither I nor my customer has to travel.
I also offer a free interview and assessment to make sure myself and my customer are on the same page in terms of expectations. You have to remember a PC has “personal” in the name for a reason. A trip to the PC repair person is a cross between going to the doctor and the auto mechanic.
I won’t order parts or PCs without upfront payment for new customers, and except for well-established customers, payment has to be made at the time the repaired PC leaves the shop.