How Much Should I Charge? – Pricing Strategies for Computer Technicians

‘How much should I charge?’ That’s a common question among repair technicians just starting out, and sometimes even veteran technicians will want to revisit their pricing and rate strategy from time to time to re-evaluate their options. Should you charge by the hour, charge flat rates, or charge variable rates?

How much are you really worth? How much should you be charging? Let’s go through a checklist of factors you can use to get a better idea of how to orient your pricing strategy.

1. Your Value

Many technicians undervalue their worth considerably. The years of experience from dealing with common and sometimes uncommon issues is invaluable expertise that can be used against future issues with similar software and hardware. How much more experience do you have than the average computer user? Factor that in when you decide on your rates.

Yes, many computer users can ‘Google’ their computer issue, but when presented with the task of actually fixing things, they often don’t know what they’re doing because they haven’t done anything like it before, and sometimes it is the solution for another problem entirely, and they just make things worse. Think about your experience with various operating systems, the training you’ve had, any certifications you have, and how many years of on the job experience you’ve built up.

2. Income Requirements

This is an obvious factor. You need to make enough to make ends meet, and if you’re charging $10 an hour and not getting many service calls a week, you’re just not going to make it. While that’s an exaggeration, you need to take into consideration your income requirements and at least keep that in mind while you’re figuring up your rates and your pricing strategy, especially for technicians just starting out.

3. Profit Margin

What expenses do you have to run your operation? This could be rent, utilities, taxes, phone service, advertising, maintenance, and any other costs you incur while running your business. Do you use legal services or accounting services? You need to cover your expenses with your rates, and have a profit margin on top of that. That may increase the level where your rates should be, so if there’s any way you can cut back on expenses to increase your profit margin, do it. One exception is if it cuts into your efficiency so much that you lose valuable time trying to cover necessary tasks.

4. Rates of the Competition

Do you have competition in your field? How much are they charging? You can be the business with the competitive rates and undercut the competition slightly, but spend less in advertising costs. Or you could be the business that charges more, is known for fast high quality work, and spends more on advertising. You could also perform other services for the same rates, or even include more bonus addons in your services for the same rates, in essence, offering more for less. Just remember that if you undercut too much, prospective clients may doubt your value and choose other service providers.

5. Pricing Strategy

How will you fix your rates? Hourly, flat fee, or variable rates? There are pros and cons with each strategy. If you choose hourly rates, clients can sometimes be apprehensive about exactly how long you’ll take to do the job, unless they’ve had good experience with your efficient work before. On the other hand, charging by the hour can save you when unexpected problems come up, such as with very old systems or proprietary software. What looked like a half hour job may just turn into three hours in an instant when error codes start popping up.

If you choose the flat charge system, it may even out between the jobs that take twice as long and the jobs that take half the usual amount of time, but you can get into trouble when most of your jobs take more than the average time to perform. On the other hand, flat fees tell your clients and customers exactly what the charge will be, and they can either take it or leave it, as they know if they can budget it in or not. The risk is on your shoulders as the service provider, though. The variable rate plan is a bit more complicated. You can charge your full rate for the first hour of work, and then half rate charge for every hour afterwards, and that pricing strategy works for some businesses.

6. Your Clients

This is the last contributing factor we’ll cover. In some communities, people are comfortable paying $95 an hour or more for computer repair work. In others, if you try to charge that much, especially just starting out, you’ll be fortunate to even get one client. Consider your community, what people are used to paying service providers and other technicians, and factor that in with the other considerations.

A very successful businessman I knew gave me an insight into his rate strategy, which was to charge what he thought his services were worth, based on current going rates, and if his work dropped off, he would lower his rates gradually as he picked up more work, and when he started getting more work than he could handle, he would gradually raise his rates again until it leveled off. While that may not work for everyone, it’s a good strategy to keep in mind when you encounter dips in your work load.

I hope these tips will help re-evaluate your worth and what you can do to strategize your pricing methods for technicians just starting out. If you have a tip you feel like sharing, drop a comment below.

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