what do you all charge to build?

[the_ub]

hey, i was thinking about building comps in my off time for people. i was wondering what you all charge though. i was just thinking $100 per build. is there a better way? like maybe a percentage of the total build? appreciate any responses

 

[V3NOM]

$100 sounds good to me... i seeth with rage at the prices most stores charge for the most retarded jobs... like my sister's graphics card was artifacting, so she took it to a store and they replaced it with some crappy 7300 or something, and charged her around $150! WTF! no need to go overboard and take advantage of poor innocent non-geeks..

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

Also, the other part you could do, when you buy parts, do a little markup. Think of it on these terms, people can buy say 1 gb of ram for 40-50 bucks. On newegg say 2 gb of ddr2 runs around 30, maybe a little under. So charge say 50 for the 2 gb, etc. If they buy more, then give them a little discount.

The thing you must realize as well, myself, I always like a good deal. And you say how mad you get when you go somewhere to look at a computer. True, but how many people equate price with quality?

In other words, let's say you find a dell, build an identical system, but charge 100 bucks less for it. People may wonder what is wrong with the system you put together and go get the Dell.

I would say a good way would be you can charge some for your time, like say figure 15 bucks an hour, plus a little markup on the parts. So then for the labor, add in the cost of actual research and ordering parts, as well as time building and configuring. What you could do as part of your package, preinstall useful things, like say Open Office, Adobe reader, etc. Then offer to sell them Antivirus and stuff with it.

I had actually thought about having a shop of my own, but found a job with a school district, so I get to work on Macs too. So that didn't happen, but I'm happy where I am.

 

[the_ub]

thanks for the reply guys, and yea v3nom, im not at all trying to rip people off. i too get very pissed when i see prebuilts that are waaay over priced, or claim to have a smashing deal! like "we have the latest and best AMD processors for only $200*"

*for socket 939 in small print.

and, ohiou, i didnt even think about charging for research time (of course on newegg) to find the best parts for their budget. lol, ill have to keep it on a time limit though, i can and sometimes do, dream shop on their for hours at a time.

thanks for the replies. if i ever do start building for people, ill take all that into consideration