The number comes first, not last.
Most of this trade will not put a price in front of you until it has had you on a discovery call. This page is everything I can tell you about money before you have spoken to me at all.
The short version
Quotes are free, written, and never chargeable. On site and remote cost the same. Travel inside the Valley is included. There is no contract to sign.
How billing works, in full.
Every line here is something you can hold me to.
- First conversation
- Free. Twenty minutes or so, and it ends with you knowing whether this is even a job worth doing.
- Quotes
- Free, always. No quote is ever chargeable, including the ones where I tell you not to bother.
- How the price is set
- A fixed price for the whole job where the work is defined well enough to allow one. An hourly estimate with a ceiling where it isn’t.
- On site vs remote
- The same rate. Charging more for turning up would only encourage me to turn up.
- Travel
- Included anywhere in the Fraser Valley. You are not paying for my drive.
- Going over the estimate
- On a fixed price, that is mine to wear rather than yours. On an hourly job you get a phone call before I pass the ceiling, while there is still a decision to make.
- Hardware
- No markup. You buy the equipment directly, in your name, at the price anyone else would pay. I will tell you what to order.
- Commissions and referral fees
- None, from anyone. Nobody pays me to recommend their product, which is the whole reason I can tell you the cheap option is fine.
- Contract
- None required. No minimum term, no retainer, no cancellation fee, no notice period.
- Out of hours
- Evenings and weekends where a shutdown during trading would cost you more than the work does. Arranged in advance, and priced in the quote rather than added to it.
- GST
- Shown as its own line, never folded into the total.
- Invoices
- Itemised, with the hours broken out. If one ever surprises you, ring me and we will go through it line by line before you pay a cent of it.
Ask, and you will have the number the same day.
I have not put an hourly figure on this page, and I would rather tell you why than leave you guessing: the same hour is worth very different amounts depending on whether it is one laptop or eleven, and a number with no job attached to it tends to be the wrong one in both directions.
So ask. Describe the job in a few lines and you will have a real number back the same day, in writing, at no cost and with nothing to sign. That is the whole gate — there is no call you have to sit through first.
Things I will not invoice you for.
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The first conversation
However long it takes, and whatever it concludes.
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Any quote that comes out of it
Including the ones where the answer is that the job is not worth doing.
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Being told it is not worth doing
If a forty dollar subscription solves your problem, I will say so, and there is no fee for the sentence.
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The documentation at the end
One page covering what is plugged into what and which accounts exist. Included with every job.
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Fixing my own mistake
If something I set up breaks because of how I set it up, putting it right is not a second job.
A monthly fee is excellent value right up until the month you do not need me.
Mark Sawaf · Mission, BC
The usual arrangement in this trade is a per-seat monthly fee that covers everything, forever. For a business with fifty staff and constant change, that genuinely is the cheaper option, and if that is you I will say so.
For most businesses of one to fifty people, it is a subscription to a problem you have four times a year. You pay in the quiet months to be covered in the loud ones, and the quiet months are most of them.
I charge for work I have done. Some years that will cost you more than a retainer would have. Most years it will cost you a good deal less, and you will be able to see exactly which.
Describe the job. Get a number.
Free · In writing · Nothing to sign · Reply within one business day
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