Shop rate survey

[km6xz]

I was having a discussion recently about MI and pro audio repair shop labor rates and it appears that everyone assumes they know the rates but can't point to any survey that covers more than just those in one's neighborhood.
I would like to read a broader range of regions and cities. I get the feeling that the local repair shops are a dying breed not only because of hostility by manufacturers but by ever escalating labor prices above other comparable fields.
Some I know are $135/hour and others $45.
How much is the lowest, highest and average for your area and what type of area; large urban, small city, suburbs, small town, rural area.
Related, what is the average labor charge you are seeing, regardless of complexity of equipment?

[Enzo]

Though I have closed the shop, I was charging $60 an hour, typical for the area. Greater Lansing is an area of 400,000 or so. Other than obvious small fixes, I charge a minimum hour, $60. Average repairs are within the $69-120 range.

I was a full service independent shop. Of the four music stores in the area, one has a shop but only wants to service what they sold themselves, and are purposely not set up for warranty on many brands. One is a stringed instrument seller primarily and has no electronic repair, though their guitar repair shop is world class. The third is a seller of lots of used gear, and their long term repair guy left and I don't know if they are replacing him. Last is Guitar Center, and as far as I know all they do it basic guitar repair. And of course there are basement warriors around, "tube only" guys who lack the skills to work on a wide range of gear. My former business partner has a small part time shop.

[Chuck H]

Not a shop owner, so you can take or leave my input relative to your own criteria.

When I left the SF bay area I know that most shops capable of handling any electronic repairs (tube or SS guitar amps as well as mixers, high power amps, keyboards, etc.) were charging between $65 and $85 for a shop hour. The general practice was that any diagnostic time charge was waived if you chose to use their service. That is, free estimate as long as you're buyin'. I heard tell of prices for some shops going up to $100/hr. I don't expect things have changed a lot since I left due to the economy in Ca. during this period.

[Randall]

I work out of my home in SW Florida where there precious few repair shops that can get anything done in any reasonable amount of time. My current rate is $45, as I have no overhead costs and I'm new to the area. But, I may well raise my rates a little and become more exclusive in what I take in, as I have less and less desire to work on Behringer, and Line 6 etc for guys who cheaped out on their stuff right from the start and don't want to pay anything to get it fixed. I'm happy keeping the vintage stuff in good shape for those who can afford it.

[nsubulysses]

In my area of Chicago there are plenty of shops and it seems like they are in the $65-75 per hour range. The couple I know the labor costs of at least. Some are cool but a lot seem lazy and jaded.

I am somewhat in the same boat as Randall. I worked from home for a time but am not anymore. I don't have a legit shop I just have a workspace set up in a warehouse that I am fortunate to have access to -- it is a friend's family business. For now it is a temporary workspace and I have no rent or overhead cost other than buying test equipment which is too fun to buy. I'm well stocked though. I am in the process of building a 10' x 16' room in this warehouse that will be a true workshop and at that point I will start paying rent. I base my labor on a measly $30/hr but then again I have no overhead and I have not done repair for decades so I am not as fast as others probably are. My labor usually ranges from about $30-120. When I have the room built and I am paying rent and trying to start a real biz (LLC I suppose) I will probably charge $50/hr.

I have always worked on a desk, whether it was the one I had at home or the one I have here. When the room is built I will have BENCH which will be 10-12 feet long. I figure I have a bunch of meters, 4 scopes, 2 dummy loads and 2 variacs so I want to set up a space that has 4 bench work spaces. 2 benches can share the high power dummy load and the other 2 benches can share the lower power one. That way I will be able to work on multiple things and never have to move gear off the bench to make room for the next repair when I'm baffled or waiting for parts! Can't wait. I think this will help my productivity substantially and with the increased $50/hr labor cost my average labor charge per repair will stay about the same, but the time I put in will decrease

Also I have a part time job so repair is not my full time gig. Maybe one day.

[km6xz]

Thanks all for responding. i was curious because I am on another forum for shops only and the lowest rate is $75 and average labor is $150-300 with minimum bench fee of 1/2 hour or more. I was hoping some customers would respond, it would be interesting to see what they think is fair and at what level they would balk.
My shop in the US was a large high volume shop in the San Francisco Bay Area, where salaries and living costs are a lot higher than most places in the world. For 12 years kept it at $65, free estimates nd 1-2 hours average billed time. We were the lowest by $10-60 at the time. I gave the shop to the employees and moved to Russia in 2002 so have not stayed in the loop for charges. I have a small shop here as a side business with one employee, a girl with a Master degree in EE who I am training on MI. I will probably give the shop to her eventually and kept a private shop just for experimenting and building things because I intend to start traveling more and a repair shop and international travel are not compatible. My main business is not related to electronics or repair.

The fact that the reported rates are lower than have been told to me by members of the other group might explain why several of them are complaining that they are hurting due to fewer customers.
The key to making a living is increasing efficiency and keep honing it so fewer hours are needed, fewer dogs are encountered(directly related to class of units worked on and volume of each model serviced), and focusing on types of gear you can stock effective levels of parts. Every time a unit is put aside and waiting parts is a big black hole of inefficiency. If one is not able to repair 80++ % of units without ordering parts maybe the shop takes in too wide a range of models and types. We did everything but it was a very large shop with a full time parts department, doing just the 54 brands we were warranty for. Parts ordering was primarily replenishing stock to predetermined levels and not much ordering for specific repairs. Manufacturers are carrying lower levels of parts themselves so backorders and NLA are becoming a serious problems for shops. Few manufacturers will sell parts to non-warranty stations nowadays so some types of gear are just not viable specialties without warranty authorization.
When shops are not profitable it is almost always for basic business reasons, the same causes of all small business failures; ineffective market research, low efficiency, and not enough capital to weather down months.
Every small business startup I see has an owner who thinks they know what the market is for their product or service before they start but that alone it the biggest mistake of all, few actually do. They have firm opinions but no actual market research. Doing that before even taking out a business license, and really paying attention to the data gathered makes the difference between making it and growing versus struggling and having no fun as it sinks slowly.
A small business should be the easiest to start and grow but they are in reality the most likely to fail or struggle for the same reason GM got toasted in the market, they assumed they knew better then potential customers what customers would value enough to pay for. It took a slide of 30+ years of failing to understand the market and customers for GM to go bust, small businesses fail very fast because they do not have reserves or investors to keep it afloat despite all the negative indicators.

[J M Fahey]

I guess you are referring to PASTEG.

Different league: most have a real shop, registered where it's due, pay taxes, are official service for main brands, can't compare to people who operate from home by any means.

The most expensive there work straight withn the most important Recording Studios , or get a truckload (literally) of struff by, say, U2, before a World Tour, or are in charge of maintenance of all stuff used in Oscar or Grammy nights, Hanna Montana shows, etc.

I've seen one Tech there showing over 100 Crown/Macrotech rack amps stacked in his shop awaiting repair.

Not the typical Midwest town Tech, Pop <30000 , who services whatever the musicians 30 miles away need.

And yet, some at PASTEG complain, but mostly because there is not much Pro stuff servicing available around them, but a few who are, say, in Vegas (imagine servicing all those expensive shows stuff, and in a hurry) or in Nashville, similar thing, are doing very well.

As an example, doubt Cirque du Soleil complains much about a few thousand dollar invoices when their monthly fixed expenses must run into many tens of thousands dollars (if not over 100k $) .

But yes, if most stuff you get is entry level amps, Behringer, house brands , stuff which sell for $199 new and which can be found on Craigslist for $60 ... that puts a real hard clamp on servicing prices.

We often see here on MEF people who don't want to repair their own amps because "it can be found on EBay/Craigslist for $60/90" .

[km6xz]

Juan, I was asking for customer rates reported by either customers or shops just to get rates in regions. I made no distinction between 40 tech shops and those working from their barn, just the experience expected by the local market.
Regarding the group, it is typical of those found here, most are one man shops any working out of their garage or spare room. There is only one with more than a few techs. The most expensive are small.
Many times the complaint sessions are customers drying up because "some hack down the street opened and are too cheap" I followed one of the references to the "hack" and found the web site and services, shop and outreach to the community far more impressive than the one many "pro" shop who insisted customers should be happy to pay 2-3 times as much because he is a "pro". The questions asked in the past suggest he does not have the test gear or fundamental education to be calling anyone a hack, particularly one that is a multi-tech shop with pro appearance and policies.
I am curious simply because all the complaints of dwindling customers, and those balking at "professional" prices are the customer's fault for being cheap. I get more evidence that the reason for the shift away from repair is that it does not attract business people who pay attention to business and customer needs. If a real business wanted to start in any one of those markets, with normal attention to the customer needs and wishes, and efficiency, they would take over any urban market in the US.
One of the most frequent complainers of being on the verge of closing because of "hacks" stealing his business, complains most bitterly about how cheap customers are and don't value all his long experience. I know his experience intimately and ask anyone who knows him, he has been fired from a dozen tech jobs for bad attitude and refusing to get along with others, clients or employers. The simple fact is, customers prefer dealing with shops which friendly and helpful, have convenient hours, where they are not called "idiot" by the one man shop that doubles as his bedroom in an old warehouse. The fact is prices are too high for the services rendered and the if in other industries, prices would be much lower with better customer service. If a cafe was run like these one man shops, a tuna sandwich would be $40 and be complaining that the lunch crowd are idiots for going to Subway next door for faster more cheerful service for $4.99.
The value of a repair has little to do with one provider's ego or long experience, it is determined by the value the customer places on his need being taken care of. What really is the value added for a tech charging $200 plus tubes in retubing a guitar amp, over another who charges $50? What specifically does the extra $150 get the end user? Surely not longer warranty, or friendlier treatment, or better lobby waiting room since the expensive ones seem to have no customer immenties. These amps and keyboards are not rocket science, and most people in the business have no formal training, very few have EE degrees. Since board replacement is becoming more common so customers are not only paying high prices for swapping the board plus the cost of the board, when a competent tech should be able to replace the $0.10 part on the board in about the same time, the concept of value goes out the window. So the customer is paying a $500 bill solely due to the tech being able to get the board because of manufacturers not selling parts to end users or non-warranty stations.
By most calculations and rules of thumb in repair industries, tech is paid about 50% of the labor charge. So by your view a non-degreed tech, earning individually, getting $100 for replacing some tubes is a fair deal in light that there are a lot of people with more education and work harder in the US who can only get $8/hour? I seeing that as gouging even if you are a proponent of it. There are reasons why the repair of MI gear is slowly fading away and it has nothing to do with customers being "cheap" or "idiots".

[Mick Bailey]

I've spent years in industrial electronics, mainly managing teams of technicians and the comparisons to working on MI gear as a one-man-band leads me to consider that at best this approach has more in common with the earning-power of medieval farrier. Let's say that farrier can shoe at best 15 horses in a 12-hour day and he can't shoe any more unless he works longer hours. And let's say there's a maximum, or established rate, that someone is prepared to pay. Then how much he earns is governed by how many horses he can shoe in a day. If he can get the work. If he wants to earn more then he has to work longer hours, be more efficient, or charge more. But there's still a limit on how many horses there are and how far someone wants to travel and how much they're willing to pay.

Music gear is mainly commodity items and the cheap stuff rules. Mostly customers are hobby players and have a day job. Whether to have a piece of equipment repaired or replaced is optional for them, so the price on its own isn't necessarily a factor - its the cost in relation to buying a replacement unit. This means that the repair cost has to be cheap; the diagnosis has to efficient and the turnaround quick. By far the highest volume of repair work is centred around replacing a very small number of low-cost components. More often than not, a single component failure. The limit is still 'how many can you do in a day'. Just like the farrier.

By contrast, my Sister has a little unit to help her walk - it delivers nerve impulses to her leg muscles. She gave me a call saying it wasn't working. She was quoted £300 for a fixed-price service-exchange unit, plus a 90-mile round trip. I took a look at it and it was a simple fix costing pennies and 20 minutes work. The point is, she would have paid that just to be able to walk with a little less difficulty. There were fewer components than any stomp-box. Could you get £300 for a fix on a £15 Behringer compressor?

[Randall]

Stepping up to bat for the one man in a garage argument... I don't need a business plan. I don't have extra bills each month. I don't need to stock big inventory to satisfy any manufacturers. I don't need to maintain a storefront or a customer service area, and I don't need to accept every walk-in piece of junk that comes my way.

I have always been by appointment only, working by local word of mouth recommendations, and by this I usually become the guy to go to for the working area players who appreciate having what amounts to a good old fashioned, fair and competent neighborhood mechanic that they trust and appreciate. I get to work whenever I feel like it, in whatever I am comfortable wearing, including pajamas if I can't sleep at night. (I do some of my best work during these times). This tends to weed out the non-repairables we have been talking about, since most of my customers are working musicians and mostly have decent gear. If not, I can always gently refer them to the local Guitar Center, admitting I don't have a Behringer authorized account. Convenient, actually. I mostly see nice vintage-y tube gear, my favorite.

And not the least of all is the sense of gratitude from the folks who I service who know the alternative is dropping off their cherished old amps and such at a music store for as long as it takes, and for always more money and less confidence that it is actually repaired. I will spend the time to go through the receipt to walk them through what I found and what I did, and I have found this extra bit of time helps to make a customer feel like I have taken care of them the way I would my own gear. (I am also a working guitar and bass player). In the end they always thank me from the heart, and leave with the knowledge that they "know a guy".

And this last part is every bit as important to me personally as the money part. Yes, I am profitable, but I am also satisfied, and those are not always the same thing. I enjoy being a respected amp guy, and I enjoy helping people, so where I am at is a good place for me. And I wouldn't have it any other way. So even if a full sized pro authorized shop opened in my area, I don't really think it would impact me negatively, heck it might even flow some more work my way over time, as I'm sure I could do it faster and less expensive and at least as well, and probably make a new acquaintance in the process.

[nsubulysses]

Again I would say I am in the same boat as Randall. I have played in bands since I was in high school so I know a billion musicians. Once the word spreads that I can fix your gear everybody and their friend and their friend calls me. I just worked on my own broken stuff initially and that's how the whole thing started. Fix a thing or two of your own then all your friends start asking for your help.

They trust me because I am nice and kind and I have built that reputation for years just by being myself. I can have a personal relationship with the customer and treat them as a friend, keep them in the know about what is the nature of the repair, and charge them a fair rate. People know me and like me, and appreciate that I can help them. This is opposite of a shop where you never talk to the person who actually works on your gear and you don't get any info on the repair, and half the time if you try to inquire some snob just gives you quick lip service so you will go away. If no one will talk with you, you just wait anywhere from 4 weeks to 6 months, get a bill for $200+, the receipt is non-itemized, and you may have to bring it back. There is such contempt for shops I feel that I get work easily. I can do 5-20 repairs per month with no effort at actually trying to get business. I know this is still not that much but as a side gig it keeps me more than busy, and it seems like it wouldn't be hard to eventually make it more than a side gig. It's hard to imagine ever wanting a store front or employees (at least at this point).

[Enzo]

Mick, if I work 8 hours a day, you might be tempted to think I could only bill out 8 hours of labor, as in your farrier example. But I charge an hour minimum, but as anyone in this business knows, most repairs are simple, so they take a lot less than an hour to perform. On average, a good tech will bill more than 8 hours in an 8 hour day. Sure there is still a limit too what one man can make on labor, but it is less bleak than your prediction. I also profit on parts. Larger items I sell at a "A" markup - double my cost. But the lest I charge for a part is a dollar, so those signal transistors I bought for 8 cents each, I sell for $1. Simple op amps cost me something like two or three for a dollar, but I sell an op amp IC for $4. Obviously $4 ICs sell here for more. Jacks cost me a dollar or two and I sell them for $4. So there is profit built into those small parts I use all the time.

[Mick Bailey]

Yes. That's where the money lies - billable time vs hourly rate and that's where the farrier model moves to economics and that arguement falls down, because there's no longer a direct relationship between effort and reward. Building on experience and already knowing what's wrong before you even open up the equipment. Often before the guy has even put the phone down. There's a subtle difference there between labour rates and repair cost, and breaking that link is the basis for much of our economy. We don't buy something for what it cost to make - mostly there's no relationship between cost and selling price. Equally the repair charge can be abstracted from the actual cost, or hourly rate.

This may seem to a customer to be an obscene model - "it took 5 minutes to fix and you charged me an hour, plus you doubled up the parts cost". Missing the point that the 5 minutes is the distillation of practiced experience, knowledge and skill. Would they rather take the same job to someone who takes three hours to fix the same fault and says "Man, I really struggled with that one". Maybe in some cases they would. One the one hand they would feel cheated out of 55 minutes, on the other they paid three hours for blood, sweat and tears.

In another post I mentioned repairing SMPS battery chargers used in the construction industry. The value to the user was high - they couldn't work without them and many were self-employed timber-framers. The first one took me about 1.5 hours to figure out and identify equivalent parts and upgrades. I quickly got to fixing them in just a few minutes. Those kind of jobs aren't sexy, but I'd rather have a room full of those than a room full of tube amps when it comes to income.

[Chuck H]

The first one took me about 1.5 hours to figure out and identify equivalent parts and upgrades. I quickly got to fixing them in just a few minutes. Those kind of jobs aren't sexy, but I'd rather have a room full of those than a room full of tube amps when it comes to income.

A little off topic, but...

If you take a fascination and turn it into your income it will eventually become a job. The hope then is that there's something else to hold your interest (other than just income). The best I can say about my "job" is that I don't mind most of it I love designing and fixing my own amps. Not so much building them, but I like the pride of creation in the end. Any repair work I've done for $$$ hasn't even been as enjoyable to me as contract painting. And the only thing different would be the pressure of an expectant customer. Hmmm.?.

May we all find income (and at least "not mind" doing it)

[Mick Bailey]

It's a difficult balance between income and enjoyment and whilst I enjoy repair work there comes a point where it's a real grind. I have to remind myself of the positives, the freedoms, and all the acquaintances I've made (including people on this forum). One thing that has become apparent in moving from a Corporate life is that many of my customers have done the same. They're sick of the system and have given up high-pressure, highly-paid jobs that are killing them every living second in favour of something more meaningful.

One guy who left banking commented that he didn't realize how little money you actually need to live on, and since he started to earn money from music didn't yearn for any of the things he used to buy. He's a lot happier, too.

Overall though, we all need to earn a living and if that living is repair work then you still have to eat, and plan for old age, pensions, emergencies, health care and the rest. So the rate and earning-power has to be commensurate with those things. The biggest wakeup to what your actual rate comes to is compiling your end-of-year tax submission.

There's not enough of the stuff I like to work on around where I live to be choosy, so I take the rough with the smooth. Sometimes it can work out quite well and a grudge-repair pays off with a cascade of high-end interesting gear. For the same reason I don't turn down SS starter amps or non-audio repairs - you never know where it will lead.