If I have to ask, can I still afford your services?

 

Let us start by pointing out that our smallest charge has been $25. Initial consultation revealed that someone simply needed to do a very quick restore of SQL database, which took us just 15 minutes. So we charged accordingly. We won't just sip coffee and send you a $10,000 invoice. That's simply not what we do.

 

That said, most cases need more than 15 minutes of our time to resolve, and there are great deal of unknown factors to deal with, which makes estimation a difficult process. However, we are confident that you will find the following system fair and understandable. Our terms, in nutshell, are as follows:

 

Total Fees = Setup Fee + Service Fee

 

Setup Fee is for us to cover the cost of setting up an enviornment for us to work on your problem. This fee may be waived or reduced to just one hour if you have a remotely accessible development server we can connect to. Setup Fee is currently set at $50.00 per hour.

 

Service Fee is calculated by actual hours we spent to resolve the problem. Our service fee is currently $100.00 per billable hour, and the minimum unit is quater-hour.

 

Example 1:   Slow stored procedure is timing out the application. Client had a dev environment with remote desktop access. We needed 0.5 hour to set up, 4 hours to resolve. Charges: $25 + $400  =$425. 

 

Example 2:  Client needed to explore high availablity options. Client allowed remote desktop access to production. We estimated 0.5 hour to set up, 8 hours to assess the current situations and compile proposals. Charges: $25 + $800  =$825.

 

Example 3:  Client needed an integration solution in which the system must accecpt a photograph from field technicians. We estimated 12 hours to set up, 12 hours to work - for a total of $1,800. (And yes, we delivered on time!)