First paid repair

[Enzo]

Here in Michigan, I need a sales tax license if I intend to sell parts or anything, there is no tax on labor/services. It used to cost $1, and that might be just the first year, because I send in the tax I collect, less a small percent for my trouble, and no extra dollar each year since. Then if I do business under an assumed name, as opposed to just using my name, I need to register the business alias with the county. SO the name on my door costs me $10 every five years. That's it.

[rjb]

Yes, even if it takes you five minutes, always charge at least an hour bench minimum.

Dumb question: For one in a similar situation to the O.P., what would be considered a reasonable hourly rate?

[Enzo]

Hah, my mom was from Brunswick, not far from Harpers Ferry, and she said Balmer the same way. The neighbor was from across the Potomac, so he'd say it was "faw molls tada shopm senna." Dad drove his Shivvy across the crick. I came out of it all fairly neutral.

A reasonable rate? HArd to say. WHat do others in your area charge? I charge $60 an hour here. Frondelli is in Manhattan and charges twice that. But those reflect where we are. I suspect my monthly rent is astronomically lower than his.

Your rates have to reflect your costs and a reasonable profitability and be reasonably close to the going rates in your area. And by going rates, I mean commercial shops. A kid in his basement has zero overhead and can charge $10 if he wants to, we can;t. People call qand ask rates, and you know they are shopping on that number. If I charge $60 and a guy across town charges $40, they'll all go over there. They don't know any better and assume fixing things is generic. Doesn't occur to them I;ll get it done in an hour and charge them $60, that other guy will take two or three hours and charge them $80-120.

The other side of the coin: your rent or other overhead in a tired neighborhood might be lower than the guy in the fancy strip mall, and you might be able to run at a lower price, but that is no reason to give away the store. If I had an uncle owning my building and it was empty and he charged me no rent, I'd still charge the going rates. Just becuase I have an advantage doesn;t mean the value of my services is diminished.

[Chuck H]

The only other thing I might add. And this is speaking stricktly personally but I'd like to think the world is fair

Being a noob to some of this I'm going to spend time sourcing parts and learning unfamiliar circuits that an experienced tech wouldn't. I can't, in good conscience, charge for THAT time. I'll need to guestimate the time it would take an experienced shop to troubleshoot the problem. I don't expect my working skills are slower. So I'll charge for time doing the actual repair. But time spent learning about a problem I wasn't familiar with and time spent sourcing parts that a bona fide shop is likely to have on hand I won't. And since I'm not a bona fide shop yet, meaning I don't have a legal right to even do this work, I feel there should be a cut for that too. I'm working from my home bench right now with no shop overhead, no insurance and no licence. That's called being a scab. I'm just getting my feet wet but do intend to go legit if/when I think this could work out. So I'll charge a lower shop hour rate for these preliminary exercises. I also won't attemt to go into direct competition with any legitimate business until such time as I am one myself. Now, I know the real world doesn't always work this way. But mine does.

[Enzo]

Just because you are a home bench jockey, doesn;t make you less legit. The kid down the street who mows your lawn is an amateur too, is his work not legit?


The smaller you are, the more relaxed you can be, the more informal. If you have 10 bench techs cranking out a lot of stuff, then you have to be pretty tightly organized. Techs need to keep track of all their time on a log, and see that most of that time gets billed. Need a part? Ther will be someone whose job is to order parts. More than one tech winds up working on something? The time logs will show that and billing will happen. A much more formal situation.

My shop is small, its just me. If I want to study something, I can. I agree, if I have no idea what I am doing, I may have an ethical problem charging for all my time. ON the other hand, while taking lessons or reading texts may not be a billable activity, the time it takes me to look up some data sheet to see how some IC works, is part of things. We all (should) know how op amps work, but what if you open a synth and see Curtiss chips? You will need to look them up. Might need to hunt them down too, if you have a bad one. That's not me learning the basics, that is me doing necessary research for the repair.


I don;t charge for bonehead moves. I leave my signal sources running, I pick up the cable, I expect a signal there. My landlord gets on a save money kick. He started walking through the building, and he'd turn off my gear on the way by. Never mind it uses about as much power as an alarm clock. First time that happened, I was working on a mixer and spent a half hour trying to figure out why it had stopped passing signal since I came back from lunch. There was a half hour I couldn;t really justify charging for.

WHatever you charge, I expect you (and me) to treat the customer ethically and fairly. But I also expect you to treat yourself fairly. It it makes you uncomfortable to do something, then don;t do it. If it seems like the right thing to do, then it probably is.

[Chuck H]

+++
Right. I'm sure everyones line is a little different too. But hopefully not too different. I like to think that on the whole people are reasonable with each other. If you delete the real a$$ho!es and the door mats anyone left probably has a fairly similar ethic about these things.