Charge for building computers?

[Cyanotical]

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 :>?

usually something like that will take 15-20 careful hours, and the math shows when the system stays cool under full load, and even $100 an hour is still cheap compared to say geeksquad, or most computer service shops who wont even touch watercooling, let alone guarantee the work, and it's ridiculously cheap if its a server

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

The place in town does a build + OS install + 2 year warranty (take the broken part and you get a replacement for the duration of the repair/until they can get a new one in) for €70.

[laurent71]

I wouldn't charge much or anything for friend but you can charge like 5-7% of the total build cost if you really get that much people who want you to build their computer

[Tyrianth]

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.

That's ridiculous. He has every right to charge them. He's spending his time (which I assume he values), and providing a service. That's like saying the 12 year old boy down the street has no right to charge people $5 to mow their lawns just because he can't provide a guarantee that their grass wont grow back in x amount of days.

Or the little girl with the lemonade stand has no right to make a profit off the lemonade she sells.

[Biernot]

The company i work for, charges about 50-80 euros depending on the complexity of the build with the following conditions/guarantees:
- Parts are purchased from us
- No water cooling except ready-made closed loop (like corsair H60 etc.)
- No OC
- 2 year warranty on the whole computer*
- "Out-of-the-box" windows installation included (if desired)
- Build time 1-2 weeks (this being done at our headquarters and then either shipped per mail or delivered to one of our shops)

* this means: in case of a defect, the computer is repaired (most of the time) in one of our shops either immediately (if possible) or within a few days (depending on workload and availability of parts). No waiting for RMA.


You as a private person can't give any (real) warranty, so you can only charge for your time investment. And if you are doing this non-commercial then you won't be paying taxes, so i would say $20 per hour is the maximum you should charge. If the computer does not have any special time-consuming features (custom water cooling, etc.) then a fixed price of $50 including windows installation should be ok. Charging more would be ripping of your friends, because for that price they would be better off letting it done professionally (with warranty).

[kidsafe]

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.

It's really not that modest. Slapping together a PC takes at most 2-3 hours if you want tidy cable management. So that's $50-80 for 3 hours of labor by one employee that probably makes less than $15/hr. Retail margins on high-end components like CPUs, motherboards, video cards, etc. are tiny. Labor/services and accessories are actually how most B&M computer shops make money.

Getting back on topic though...if someone is truly your friend, you don't charge them for helping build a computer. If he isn't a dick, he'll buy you a steak dinner or something.

[Boogdieb]

My real good friend just helped me build my pc for nothing. Giving he's like my best friend we just always look out for each other. Like a week later I got up at 9:00am to go help him pick up his new car.

[Chronius]

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

Damn some of the machines I've put together cost 5-6000USD =)
If I where to charge 10% I could have made a living out of it =)

---------- Post added 2012-02-01 at 10:02 AM ----------

My real good friend just helped me build my pc for nothing. Giving he's like my best friend we just always look out for each other. Like a week later I got up at 9:00am to go help him pick up his new car.

Sorry mate, but I couldn't help but laugh a bit. 9am, what time do you usually get up to make 9am a hassle?

[Lollis]

I charged my brother a new cpu fan worth about £60 ($94) for picking all the parts for him, doing all the installation including wire management, and basic software installation.

Total build was around £870 ($1,371) and it is slightly more powerful in the graphics department than my £1800 PC from 3 years ago

[Boogdieb]

Damn some of the machines I've put together cost 5-6000USD =)
If I where to charge 10% I could have made a living out of it =)

---------- Post added 2012-02-01 at 10:02 AM ----------



Sorry mate, but I couldn't help but laugh a bit. 9am, what time do you usually get up to make 9am a hassle?

Lol guess I should of added that I work midnight swing shifts so my sleep schedule is kinda crazy.

[Chronius]

Lol guess I should of added that I work midnight swing shifts so my sleep schedule is kinda crazy.

Ah that would explain why =)

[Deleted]

Don´t charge your friends, just ask them to retun the favor when the time is right ^^