When determining pricing for IT audits, use your hourly rate to guide you … but give a discount so you can get on the good side of your customers.

IT Audits:  Your Hourly Rate Should Lead You

When figuring out pricing of IT audits, take your hourly billing rate and realize you’re probably going to spend two or three hours on the call.  You will then spend another hour back in the shop writing reports for IT audits and writing down an estimate.  With all these factors in mind and your average hourly billing rate, what should you be charging?

As an example, if you’re charging $95 per hour and you figure out the above information about on-site client time and time spent back at the shop along with a follow-up question and answer session afterwards, you can guess you will spend about five hours.  This means this IT audit will be worth a bit under $500.  To figure out the real price, round down and discount.

Never Bill the Full Amount for IT Audits

The idea behind IT audits is getting a foot in the door with clients.  Therefore, you would be wise not to bill IT audits at their full amount.  You want to give prospects the peace of mind in knowing they can afford your services.  You want to start off with trust that you’re not trying to run up a bill.  Your goal is to find out what their biggest problems are, help them organize and help them address major issues.  They could very well be your future clients.

You can expect to spend a couple hours coming up with recommendations, what it will cost the prospects and when they can schedule time.  Don’t give your time away for free, but don’t charge regular price for IT audits.

IT Audits:  Discount!

Your goal with IT audits is getting prospects to open up their wallet and spend money on future services.  Even if you only make 50 to 75 percent of regular price on IT audits, just call it cost of sales and an investment in your future.  

While it’s up to you what you charge, the typical range for IT audits is $250 - $350.  If you want to be really aggressive charge $199 or $200.  Make IT audits available at a fixed price and get prospects to prove they will spend money on IT audits.

Added By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit