Fair Price for Building a Computer?

[GunXpatriot]

What do you guys think a fair price to build a computer is?

I kind of have two situations in my head. One would be if they said what they wanted, and I would have to go and research and figure out what would work well for them.

And second, if they already have a general or complete idea of components that they want, and I would only have to assemble it.

For the first, I'm thinking something like $100+ is fair. I'd have to put a bunch of hours into research, order components, wait for them, then spend probably spend a decent amount of hours on a more complex build. This could be lower if the build is simpler.

As for the second scenario, $60+ seems more fair.

Some of you may think this is on the high end, but I was thinking about time to install OS, drivers, etc, especially if they want other things configured. This is time consuming, so if they wanted the whole setup, I'd almost say these prices can be low in some circumstances...

My only question is, how would you guys handle warranties and rebates? When you buy components, a lot of them come with rebates. Who's job would it be to fill out those rebates? Customer fronts the money, then fills out the rebate for themselves?

And as for warranties, that would be the same deal. They're more or less buying the components, so I guess you'd leave that up to them?

I'm trying to make some side money and I do enjoy working with computers, so I figured this could be a way to make a few beans when I have free time. What do you guys think?

 

[Wolfshadw]

Fair price is whatever someone is going to be willing to pay you. Just understand, if you charge too much, there's nothing stopping someone from just going to the store and purchasing a prebuilt system.

Research shouldn't take all that much time. Before you get into system building, you should already know what components for what type of build and budget. The actual time spent putting it together shouldn't take more than one hour. Installing and configuring windows is mostly waiting. Actual hands on keyboard time is less than one hour. Personally, I wouldn't charge more than $50.

As for warranties, rebates, and technical support. That all falls on you. If a customer has a problem with any part of the system (hardware or software), they're going to come to you for support. If you're not going to provide that support, again, why would I purchase anything from you?

-Wolf sends

 

[GunXpatriot]

My baseline was that they could still pay me to build and still save a decent amount of money compared to a pre-built system, but that may not be saying much. The difference in price between pre-build and custom build can be pretty damn big...

Really? $50 for the build? Getting the system together, getting the best price for components is a solid two hours even for someone who is quite knowledgeable. Then build the thing, which is still at least an hour for a really simple build. Could be a few for a complex high-performance build. Then you're talking OS install, driver install and any other time consuming stuff. You're right, none of that is much work, but your time is still worth something, and that could potentially be up to two hours, depending on several factors. For a friend, I'll do it for nothing, and I have, and they've still tipped me for the time I put in.

Absolute worst case scenario, you're looking at 8 hours if it is just not your day, and everything is going wrong. Best case scenario for someone who is incredibly fast at it, and you're still looking at 4 hours of total work put into it. When I was new and building my first rig, I didn't know how things performed, or what would do what job. That didn't stop me from putting in like 15+ hours of grueling research because I wasn't really sure what I wanted and had to really debate myself. Then I did run into issues during the build with the PSU, etc.

And none of that takes into account shipping delays, DOA components etc, and despite people knowing what goes down when it comes to shipping and DOA items, no customer is happy when those things happen. I'd rather have to discount them later on if anything.

Normal build time for an intermediate to expert level, 5-6 hours for a good build. If 6, that's 8.33 an hour, and it could be longer again, if things go wrong. That's an awful lot of processes for 8.30 an hour. Just my .02. I didn't mean for this to be a rant, but I think experts kind of discount their days when they were still noobs/intermediates and just consider their expertise at current time. I mean maybe, I dunno.

 

[Gam3r01]

The thing is building computers these days is very simple, almost anyone can do it.
With a moderate amount of knowledge someone can make a build on PCPartpicker within 30 minutes, or come here and ask for components. Many users (such as myself) typically respond to these posts within a few minutes, and depending on how long PCPartpicker takes to load I can have a build made, cheapest prices, in a solid 2-5 minutes.

Shipping and DOA is not really anything to be considered, shipping has nothing to do with you, and DOA rarely happens these days.
My first build took me about 6 hours at the age of 16, second build for a friend took 3, now I can do a teardown, cleaning, and re manage cables in a solid hour.
Installing windows takes little to no effort, and not long either.

I would say 50 bucks is very reasonable. Anything more and the offset price could have been put to better components had the client taken the "risk" themselves and built it.

Also something overlooked by many people who want to do this: Are you making them pay for the components first. IE, do you charge them and then order the components, then charge for assembly, or do you charge them at the end? Not many people want to order their own parts just to have someone else build it, they have no idea if they are getting ripped off, and many would rather just walk into best buy and have the system that day (as horrible as that is)

 

[unksol]

The simple reality is that you don't make any money building a few PCs for strangers. You can not get the parts cheap enough. Or the Windows license. They can buy a prebuilt for cheaper with an actual warranty from a major company. Instead of buying from some random "noob/intermediate" at a higher price. You have one issue and any profit will be gone.

This doesn't even consider the fact that you will be running a business and need to deal with all the legal considerations and taxes

 

[Gam3r01]

Technically you do not have to deal with any legality issues unless you are operating under a name.
If you just talk to the people, and get paid in cash, there is nothing business or tax related. Under the table, or favor work, requires no license, taxation, or legality issues regarding businesses. Now if you gave it a title and started attempting to operate a larger front, that is a business.

Its like splitting firewood, Im not mentioning I split wood for cash on my W2.