How much would you pay for PC virus removal/cleanup

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I have this idea. I’m the person that my friend and family members always go to when their PC’s are malware infected, or just bogged down with years of software installs/uninstalls, temp files, etc. I’m very good at cleaning up PCs and making them run like new. My idea is to try offering my PC cleanup services for money, sort of as a side job.

The thing is, I’ve never done anything like this before. I don’t have a clue how much I should charge for it. I’m leaning toward a per hour fee, since a throrough PC cleaning can take anywhere from an hour to all day depending on how bad it is. On the other-hand, potential customers might not be comfortable with that since it would be hard for me to tell them how much it was going to cost until I got started and saw how bad it was.

So I have two questions for you guys:

  1. If you had an infected or bogged down PC, and you didn’t have the technical know-how to fix it yourself, would you be willing to reply to an ad you saw on Craigslist or your local supermarket/laundromat/whatever bulletin board?

  2. If so, what would you consider to be a reasonable fee? Would you be ok with an hourly fee?

2

You’re going to charge your friends and family?

3

I would NEVER hire someone from a random bulletin board. I’d take it to the Apple Store.

4

When I was in college (a very narrow window) I put an ad in the local classifieds for in-home PC service. I would and could do anything, but 98% of the people who called just needed a “tune up” – or an antivirus/antispyware installation and run, plus I’d install TuneUp Utilities demo and run a few of their utilities to get rid of some of the crap.

My rate was $25 per hour with a 2 hour minimum (since I was driving places, it would have been a waste of gas to drive somewhere 40 minutes away just for $25). I believe my rate was quite low, comparably.

Places like Geek Squad and their ilk tend to charge by the service, not by the hour. $60 for SuperOptimization or $168 for MegaUltraCleaningUpgrade whatever. It’s all a scam, and those guys don’t know how to do anything than the one thing they’re trained to do. I preferred to do an hourly rate so it’d be fair, since some jobs could be completed in 2 hours, and some stuff took multiple trips.

Usually I’d tell people if it would be cheaper to buy a new computer than for me to make something usable. Then I tell them that I can help them set up and optimize their new pc… :wink:

Currently, as a side gig, I act as sort of a in-home technology consultant for my sister’s boss, a man of considerable wealth and stature. Besides installing TVs and setting up their network and all their computers, sometimes I go there just to keep their computers (mostly Macs) up and running. Sometimes I go there just to run Software Update on all their macs, because when you’re that rich you don’t want to have to think about even that.

No matter what I’m doing there, I charge $50 per hour. Note that this is double what I charged only a few years ago, but my service is so personalized I think I’m worth it (no way in hell you could find a company who does all the things I do; AV wiring, networking, computer purchasing/setup/maintenance/backup… even stuff like Sonos and setting up new iPods and recommending what product they should get), and they don’t have a problem paying.

If I were striking out on my own, for the general (non-zillionaire) public, I might do $40/hr.

After the 5th or 6th PC tuneup I did while in college, I had the whole routine pretty much streamlined. I kept all the files I needed on a CD and a USB thumb drive (sometimes I’d run into Win98 machines without USB drivers) including (this is very important) the latest definitions for the antivirus AND the antispyware programs I used (you wouldn’t believe how long it can take to download those things over dialup… or on a computer without internet).

5

No you wouldn’t. There’d be no virus to disinfect!

6

Well for friends and family I’ll probably keep doing what I’m doing now. Offering my services in exchange for beer and pizza. :slight_smile:

7

I invite my family to bring their machines here (no more house calls), and I do the work for free but they have to sit here with me while I work and listen to me lecture them on their poor computing habits.

No one really asks me to help anymore… :smiley:

8

First of all make sure you are properly insured before you do this. Someone is going to claim you broke something and you could wind up in small claims court.

I did something very similar to this when I had my own business. I did some virus clean up and such.

The thing to do is call around your local area and get estimates what stores are going to do in your market. You’re gonna have to beat these guys by 50%, because as others have said, no one really wants to take a chance on their computer for a few bucks. So you got to give them a great deal.

Then you need to check Craigslist and get the estimates from others doing similar work.

Then you need to get a website. People are gonna ask, why don’t you have a website. I know the two are mutually exclusive but people like it. GoDaddy and 1and1 offer cheap ways to get on the web.

At minimum you need to an email address. You can’t use a hotmail or gmail. You need one that says something like Markxxx.Com or similar.

Don’t be scared basic HTML is simple or you can use a CSS form from Dynamic Drives and both 1and1 and GoDaddy have cut & paste type of ways to get on the Web. Though I think their templates are a bit too plastic for my taste.

9

Everyone already knows a guy like you who does it for free.

10

I have a friend who “does computer work” for a living. By this, I mean he puts together computers for clients, installs software, fixes virus issues, etc. He makes a decent living. I think he charges somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-70 per hour. He makes housecalls, and sometimes brings the broken computers back to his place so he can work on them in parallel.

So, the concept is a good one, and there will always be people who want the personal touch.

Having said that, I don’t think doing this for your family is a good idea. You will probably end up giving away your services for free.

There are also other problems associated with working on computers belonging to friends or family. For example, if you find a bunch of kiddie porn on Uncle John’s computer, are you going to turn him in? What if you find evidence he is abusing his daughter?

I have done computer work for people in the past, but have given it up because of the hassles. I was working on one guy’s computer (single man, living alone). He had some sort of insidious virus on his PC. As I was trying to clean stuff up, I found thousands upon thousands of pictures in his browser directories, many with very explicit names.

He kept saying how he did not know where he had picked up the virus, and I delicately said, “Many people will get computer viruses from porn sites.”

He looked me square in the eye and swore to me that he never visited porn sites.

OK, fine. Whatever. The jpgs and the contents of the Cookies folder must all be incorrect.

I realized then that I did not want to see any of the pictures, just in case there was something seriously incriminating.

11

Yeah, you are right. However, you always get what you pay for. The problems with using a free consultant is that the person may not ever finish the job to your satisfaction. At least with a paid consultant, the two parties can come to a mutual agreement or contract on what constitutes a job being “done”.

12

Not true. I work in IT, and routinely do work for co-workers at $50 an hour, fixing random stuff and killing viruses. I’m doing it at this very moment, in fact.

13

I run a one man PC repair business. It’s just not possible to charge by the hour for this work, as some of these jobs can easily be on the workbench for 2 days, more than a lot of PC’s are worth!

Of course I’m not sitting in front of them all that time!

You have to find a rate that, like any other business, is competitive, but pays you a living wage. You won’t get rich on it though!

You don’t need insurance, as long as you ensure your client is aware that data loss is NOT your responsibility. If they expect you to back it up, then charge them accordingly:-)

14

I think it’d be worth a few hundred dollars a year to take care of all of this. If there were a trusted service somewhere that could do this without my taking time off for work, or driving the PC someplace, I would sign up forever (or until the manufacturers fixed the underlying problem).

I think, though, that if I looked around and found somebody that advertised what sounded like this, and hired their service, what would actually occur would be that I would put a few hundred dollars of money and my own time into it, and not get a real improvement.

15

Ah, if only all my customers were like you, Napier!

Everyone knows the benefit of regular servicing of their cars, but you try and tell them that computers need the same sort of attention:-(
What I find is users will run their systems into the ground, then expect me to sort out years of neglect with a quick once over, usually after they’ve had a go themselves (by downloading “free” clean up utilities) and made the problems even worse.

Or, they’ve got their son’s mate to come round and have a go at it.

Still, I mustn’t complain, they get round to phoning me eventually:-)

16

Ah, if only all my vendors were like you, krebbin!