Charge for building computers?

[Deleted]

Hello! so beginning this year alot of my friends decided they want to upgrade their system/buy a new one.

Most of them know nothing of building computers so they ask me, (pick the pieces + then build it for them).
Usually this is just a fun thing to do, as most often I get to build one every fourth(?) month or so.

But as of now I've helped like five people build their computers in just 2 weeks, and it's starting to get somewhat time consuming.
So I was thinking, while I still bust my ass helping them, would it be okay for me to charge something?
Generally it's a 1-2 hours work first building the computer and then installing OS + drivers.

Now most of them are good friends of mine with a budget at ~ 800-1000€.
So I'd rather not overcharge them.

So what would be a decent price?

[GKLeatherCraft]

i reckon, about 10% of the price of their build

[Tholyn]

Most stores that custom build PC's generally charge between 49.99 and 79.99 in my area. Which is a rather modest price. I figure if they have the money to build new PC's every 4 months they can through you some money for building it.

[Nengal]

For really close friends, I don't charge anything. I just expect them to help me later. For people that aren't 'best friends' (for lack of a better term) of mine, I usually charge a minimal fee of like $50 or something just to buy myself dinner and movie or whatever. For clients, I'll bill them based on the difficulty of the PC which is usually 7-10% of the cost of the computer.

[Shruikah]

$50 seems like a fair price to me.

[eriseis]

30 euro per hour? A static rate becomes problematic when you get to higher prices. It's easier to save another 30 or 40 euro when you're spending less than 800 than to save another 110 when you're spending over 1000 already.

[Deleted]

a REALLY small amount of money shuld be okay, a pac of ciggies or whatever, hope you get me

[Brett Skullcrack]

Are you a registered business? Will you offer professional support and a warranty for your work? If not, you are in no position to charge them anything.

[juzalol]

For strangers, 50€
For friends, 20€

I personally wouldn't charge anything from good friends as the chances are they will
return the favor in some way but if you have to go through the trouble repeatedly you might
as well charge ~20€.

[Myrlae]

if they're really good friends, see it as investment and if you need help: "remember the last computer i built you?"
if they're just random friends 20€/hour or 50€ for the whole whatever you like more

[Deleted]

Are you a registered business? Will you offer professional support and a warranty for your work? If not, you are in no position to charge them anything.

Right,

And OT.

My "best friends" will get it for free, and they'd just owe me a favour or something.

And I'll charge about 25-40€ for building a computer to everyone else then

[Nellah]

Maybe I just charge higher.

I charge $75 or 10% of the computer's cost, whatever is higher. For friends I usually do a "buy me dinner after" or something though. I tend to fix my wife's co-workers' computers for homemade cookies.

[Cyanotical]

i charge 15% of the parts cost, and then static fees for watercooling, $100 for a basic CPU loop, $1000 for a full system, but i add a guarantee to my work

friends are free

[Ghâzh]

i charge 15% of the parts cost, and then static fees for watercooling, $100 for a basic CPU loop, $1000 for a full system, but i add a guarantee to my work

friends are free

That's crazy o_o Do people actually pay that? Are we talking about real customers here or friend's friends? One thousand for a full watercooling setup, that's one and three zeros ?

[Fuzzykins]

That is pretty steep.
As far as reducing the amount of work that goes into each laptop, slap Windows 7 on a USB and just type in the key or whatever instead of installing through the disc. It'll be significantly faster.

[inux94]

i reckon, about 10% of the price of their build

Then I'd get $3500 from building computers at my local café, 10% is fine for a single computer, if it's 50 computers it's just ... Boom.

That's crazy o_o Do people actually pay that? Are we talking about real customers here or friend's friends? One thousand for a full watercooling setup, that's one and three zeros ?

People buy expensive clothes which are made cheap (Hurr my girlfriend, BUT THEY ARE MADE FROM DESIGNURS!), they buy $2000 facebook machines, $400 headphones worth $100, some people do it XD

[Cyanotical]

That's crazy o_o Do people actually pay that? Are we talking about real customers here or friend's friends? One thousand for a full watercooling setup, that's one and three zeros ?

when your talking about putting waterblocks on 2-4 GPU's, CPU(s), MB, RAM, multiple radiators, pumps and reservoirs, multiple loops, and the math needed to convert LpH, rad surface area, and fan CFM into watts dissipated, and then guaranteeing your work, a $1000 is not that much

[Ghâzh]

And how much that is in hours :P? Ten hours sounds about right to me, that's $100/ hour.. And like the customer is going to know if you actually did the math or not :>?

[coldfiredragon]

For me it goes like this:

Service / Price
Take your budget, plan the build, *I* order the parts, build & install OS / Drivers $150 + Cost of parts
Take your budget, plan the build, *YOU* order the parts, build & install OS / Drivers $100
Take your existing parts and do the build & install OS/Driver $75
Take your existing parts and do teh build, no os install $50

[Evil Inside]

Personally I charge anyone that asks me, the price however depends on what needs to be done, if its just building the computer I charge about 10% of the price, if it includes windows and other stuff I charge more.