What do you guys charge for parts?

[ER]

Starting to actually get asked to do mods and repairs more often now and it's dipping into my stash and I'm gonna need to replace stuff.

What do you guys charge for parts so it's fair and you're able to replace stuff? Wait and order stuff for the job at hand? Or should I just eat it with the bench time? I like having parts around for my own builds and it's nice to be able to work on stuff with parts on hand for quick turn around, I like having my bench clear for when inspiration strikes.

[eniam rognab]

i dont do repairs or anything, but i feel like you could add a 'procurement' fee if you need to order parts for other people. your time is valuable, you have the skills and knowledge to order the correct part/s. that should be worth something. let your customer know the part cost, shipping and tack on a little something for your time. if they dont want to pay, then have them order it

mark it up a little just like a business does

$0.02

[johnnyreece]

I don't do much work for other people, so I charge actual cost of parts plus shipping. I'm a horrible business-person, though...

[stretch2011]

In reality if your not making 100% profit at the end of the day your kicking yourself in the ass. I know you can't charge a lot for little things but if your just supplying parts, no work, then 30% profit payment up front. It must be worth the time involved.

[Phil_S]

I don't do repairs. I am a consultant and I do bill clients. Don't nickel and dime folks. Build the small stuff into your labor rate. People don't like to see a parts charge for $1.10 and I think it leaves a bad taste.

Give the nature of the beast where there are lots of parts that cost less than $1, you are walking the line. Establish for yourself the minimum parts charge -- not something you tell the customer. Let's say it's $5 as long as the bench fee is at least $50. Keep track of what you use. Once you put $5.01 in parts into the job, run the list, add a profit factor -- 50% is reasonable (IOW, a 10 cent part is sold for 15 cents; there's nothing wrong with 100% markup.) -- and bill that as part of the job.

[Structo]

Auto service shops use a simple formula for pricing parts.

Take the wholesale price, elevate it to retail price, then at least double it.

For amps charge for the time and money required to acquire parts.
Add to troubleshooting or bench time.

I know, I always feel guilty for charging people the total cost of replacing parts.

As mentioned, it would be nice to make at least 30% on the jobs to make it worth it.

[Leo_Gnardo]

One of the local music stores takes my bill and adds 60%. No complaints so far.

And, one of the modern bugaboos is, any dope with a plastic pocket pal can look up parts prices & give you an argument over what you charge. For this reason I ordinarily tell clients to "buy your own speakers, I can't get 'em any cheaper than you can" which is about 90% true. Also if the speaker arrives damaged, THEY can hassle it out with the dealer or OOPS or Fedex or USPOX, I'm done with that game. Much the same with tubes too.

For those who simply have to go "cheapest" I tell 'em "you pay peanuts, you get monkeys."

[ValvElectric]

I'm not as involved in the business of repairs as I used to be, but when I was working for a very busy guitar/amp repair company in Chicago it seemed like the most important policy we had was a $100 upfront troubleshooting charge on all amp work, which would then be applied towards the cost of necessary parts and the repair.

We would have a fair amount of commonly needed parts on hand for convenience and quick turn around, but most modifications would require ordering parts. If I had to guess on average I would say that each part was marked up about 30% to account for shipping costs, but the profit was primarily in the hourly labor charge.

[ER]

Thanks guys-

My guy is pretty generous with his hourly bench rate that he pays me, I think I'll just eat the parts.

Thinking back he did give me the .022/400v sprague black beauty out of his parts bag (I always give them the old parts I pull along with a full write up on the work performed). I pulled the death cap out of his gibson amp along with some other work and after he said I could have it I put it right in my les paul, so I probably owe him!

I think going forward in the future I won't feel bad to order their parts, tack a bit of my own stock up stuff on the order and have them cover the shipping. I hate seeing $7 shipping for 70 cents worth of parts anyways.

[gui_tarzan]

I charge a $50 bench fee that is applied toward any extra labor it might need, and typically charge a reasonable markup such as $1.50 for a fuse, $1-2 (or more) for resistors depending on what it is, 30-40% for filter caps and so on and if it's an order just for one repair I add the shipping in or divide it accordingly.

One thing the mandatory bench fee does is keep the "tire-kickers" away.

[Leo_Gnardo]

I hate seeing $7 shipping for 70 cents worth of parts anyways.

I'll very rarely do parts shopping like that. Can pretty well anticipate what's going to be needed for the next couple months. Tubes, reverb tanks, certain resistors, filter caps, fuses, some odds n ends for special repairs. Sometimes the crustomer just has to wait 'til I have an order put together, either that or fork out the shipping charge. Last month $1000 at Antique/CE, soon come same at Magic, another couple hun at Mouser. Keeping a lot of stock most of the time don't have to wait for parts to come in. OTOH a lot of $$$$ is tied up in parts.

Whether to do it this way depends on your normal job flow. If you're doing it for a living, pays to stock up. Just a fixit every now & then, order as you need and don't stock much. One thing that I've found a problem, customers seem to have rotten luck buying tubes from music stores. If they insist on buying their own you might want to point out a good source at a good price like Doug's Tubes or Hoffman.

[sliberty]

In the past when I have done repairs and/or mods, I charged approximately what the parts would have cost me (including shipping - don't forget the shipping!) if I had to order them specially for the job. I make my money on the labor. Sometimes I would actually go to Mouser and put the order together as a guide. I don't mark the price up in any significant way, but I will round up ($48.75 becomes $50). One exception is tubes of course - if they come from my stash of used and NOS tubes, those get priced based upon my mood. I mean it. The price of NOS Mullard EL34s for example is all over the map on the web, so I charge whatever I feel like charging for them. The customer can take them or leave them, and I can always use new stock tubes instead if he balks.

[dorrisant]

You must keep in mind... Are you running a business or a charity? If you have to turn it in on taxes you better make sure you have charged enough that you are not the one covering those taxes out of pocket. With CE/AES or Mouser orders I usually save project lists that include most of the parts that I've ever changed for a particular amp in the past. This way I can quickly add the parts needed from this list. If your looking these parts up even once save them this way and you will speed up your process probably by the second time this model of amp comes around. I usually select the parts currently needed from a project list along with any other parts particular to the job. Then you can mock the checkout to get the full price shipped. So, you did a little work to set up the account, you spent time compiling the parts list with price and your superior knowledge of amp repair saved the customer time in knowing what parts and where to get them reasonably... No matter how quickly you did your parts order, your time in doing so is equally as valuable as knowledge of how you actually repair. Only experience has taught me how to be efficient at both. Keep in mind this is why they bring you the amps to repair in the first place.

All this said, I figure cost of parts plus shipping and add 60%. I charge a bench fee that covers the first half hour. I keep my time down by not changing for research and I will do the job on a bid basis when it looks like a lot of time involved. I try to keep the bench fee competitive with Nashville. There are plenty of people that would rather not make that drive so they stop here... I even have a few customers that come here from Nashville... That makes me feel good!

[Structo]

It's a weird phenomenon but if you charge too little, sometimes the customer
will think you aren't good at your job.

I found out with a lot of side work in the trades, that you should charge a price that covers your material costs and labor at a rate that is fair to both parties.

Check out what other similar businesses charge for a bench fee/ diagnostics,
and for removal and replacement of faulty components.

Sure you can cut friends a deal but, if you are in it as a business, charge the appropriate amount for your time.

[ER]

Thanks you guys are awesome!

I'm not really looking to go into the amp repair business, things have just kind of gone that way through word of mouth. I'm on disability retirement, so it's nice to do a little side stuff that I can do part time from home and have some hobby money to put back in. I don't have the health or energy to put a shingle out and start fixing peaveys or line 6.

Mostly people bring me their stuff to make it sound better, and they keep bringing me other stuff, so I must be doing something right!

I want to be thoughtful of finances though because I would like to grow it into building some amps, monitors, and mic pres of my own so I can work when I have the energy at home on my own time.