How much would you charge?

At all the places I worked there was a 4 hour minimum. At one company I think the rate was $120 an hour, at another it was $150 an hour. This is in the US. Also the customer was charged more if it was after hours (nights or weekends). The customer always knew these rates up front before the job was started.
 
Ronnie, emergency situation?
I do not have a price to offer, but this for the nay-sayers to the price offered by L D[AR2,P#0.0]
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/charles-proteus-steinmetz-the-wizard-of-schenectady-51912022/

Love The Steinmetz story. It is a classic.

We have a 4 hour minimum and set rates on our web site. Depending on circumstances w sometimes waive that or modify the rates. This is especially true if we have a maintenance contract to do regular scheduled preventative work.
 
It amazes me that people do not want to pay travel time, they think it should be free.

My rate to the customer is "portal to portal" at $150.00 hr flat and overtime is rarely charged.
I live in Southern California and travel time is sometimes high due to traffic and location.
Some place may take 2+ hours of travel, each way.
And when I fly...travel time approaches 8+ hours each way. It is a loss to me to travel and not charge.
 
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When I was on holiday we had a PSU go down on a compact logix, so they called a company we had on the books at the time.

This was around 2am I belive and he had around a 45 minute travel time. He swapped out the PSU for one we had, and then redownloaded the program.

£850!
 
When I was on holiday we had a PSU go down on a compact logix, so they called a company we had on the books at the time.

This was around 2am I belive and he had around a 45 minute travel time. He swapped out the PSU for one we had, and then redownloaded the program.

£850!

Seems about right to me considering a 4 hour minimum and 2am certainly would be a premium rate.

Not charging a 4 hour minimum opens you up to becoming an extension of their maintenance team and is most likely a hassle unless you really need billable hours.
 
I would ask him how much it costs to have the machine down... You could very well have milked it for a full morning but didn't. Understood the problem and fixed it in a pretty good time.
In that guys shoes, I wouldn't have *****ed... I would have thanked you and asked for a print of the logic if it was in ladder so that his boys could look into the magic box next time it happens.
 
Probably a 4 hour minimum..

The SIs we deal with usually charge around £700 a day (ex-VAT) for coming to site, and that is planned work...

Better get your T&Cs sorted...
£xx for call out
£xx per hour with 4 hour minimum as their call-out meant your day was disrupted..
 
I'm sure you want to know - I charged him £120 for cash.

If I had known he would have blown up on me, I certainly would have charged more.
It's ironic that I charged low to maybe one day get more business from him and he told me he would never call me again.

It is a massive scrap yard and scrap men??? are queing out of the gate all day long.
It's nearly all cash deals - even though it is now illegal in the UK to deal in cash at scrap yards.

When he had finished telling me that at least Dick Turpin wore a mask when he robbed people, he reached into his inside pocket and pulled a rolled up note wad that he could hardly get out of his pocket. It took two hands to hold.
He then realised he had pulled out his £50 note roll and stuffed it back, bringing his £20
note roll out from the other pocket.
He peeled six off, put them on the desk not in my hand and walked off.

As for giving T&C's before commencing, (which I normally would) I didn't get a chance really. It was a friend that was working there for the day that gave him my name and he who called me to go next morning.
The boss was not a listener type. He barked at me that I couldn't park my car there then took me halfway to the machine, pointed at it and left.
 
I'm sure you want to know - I charged him £120 for cash.

If I had known he would have blown up on me, I certainly would have charged more.
It's ironic that I charged low to maybe one day get more business from him and he told me he would never call me again.

It is a massive scrap yard and scrap men??? are queing out of the gate all day long.
It's nearly all cash deals - even though it is now illegal in the UK to deal in cash at scrap yards.

When he had finished telling me that at least Dick Turpin wore a mask when he robbed people, he reached into his inside pocket and pulled a rolled up note wad that he could hardly get out of his pocket. It took two hands to hold.
He then realised he had pulled out his £50 note roll and stuffed it back, bringing his £20
note roll out from the other pocket.
He peeled six off, put them on the desk not in my hand and walked off.

As for giving T&C's before commencing, (which I normally would) I didn't get a chance really. It was a friend that was working there for the day that gave him my name and he who called me to go next morning.
The boss was not a listener type. He barked at me that I couldn't park my car there then took me halfway to the machine, pointed at it and left.

120£??? That is crazy low in my opinion.

This reminds me of my first job as a service engineer when I basically went out to force a bit in the PLC (it had to be forced because the remote IO was so old it didn't work on a field bus. It was actually a multiplexer).

Either way, the place was on the way to the office from where I lived.
I was in that place for about 40 minutes.
Arrived in the office and put on my report a grand total of 2 hours. I accounted 30 minutes to download the software from the server and 30 minutes for the expense report (I took the liberty of taking a taxi instead of the usual bus).
My manager flipped out and basically charged the company a full day... it was half a day for getting the software and analysing... and another half a day to do the job. Mind you that I arrived before her after going to the site. LOL

This being said, my company was once charged 6k for a Saturday and it was literally 3 hours work on site with a short commute.
 
as far as I can see, the guy got a bargain...!

What does he have to greet about?

Many people especially those without technical knowledge don't realize that value of PLC knowledge until they actually need it...and even then. OP should've just pretended to do stuff for a couple hours.

I can say for travel and everything that's at least $250 for me to charge. I know in my area I've seen companies pay upwards of a $100 an hour for a PLC contractor, makes me wonder why they don't just hire one full time. PLC people can do more than just fix things, they can improve your machines by adding new systems or changing how they function to better operate.
 
Can't really see you did much wrong, I would of probably done exactly the same myself.

Moving forward, it's his loss, at least next time when he calls you (and I believe it will be when, rather than if) you know what to expect.
 
How much would you honestly charge?

My minimum charge-out is 2 hours during the day instead of 4, 4 hours if they wake me up (midnight - 6 am).

Rate is $250 so I'd have charged him $500 for the call, likely another hour and a half for the travel (you mentioned 40 minutes each way). Total $875.

I don't encourage emergency calls from unknown sites. If they call me, it's because no one else can make it to site.

I think that this thread has convinced me to tell the caller up-front that it is at least $1000, before I commit to driving out.
 
The customer should have the rate sheet and agree on portal-to-portal cost before the tech leaves for the call. Then he can't complain about surprises. If its not agreeable, he can call the next person on his list.
 
Funny that he thought he'd be charging you as one of his employees for say 30-60 minutes... Or maybe it's just his way of haggle with anything, with his line of work in mind.
 

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