How much to charge for a small office cme deployment?
At my job my boss has me deploying cme, cue, vpns, firewall on ISR router (later upgrading to 5505) and an aironet ap in the office and warehouse for 15 users. I've been setting everything up at home dedicating a lot of my time to get all the features going extensions, call park, hunt-groups, voicemail, and auto attendant basically setting up a whole pbx. So the day of deployment its basically plug and play when I connect the ethernet cables. He said he will pay me separate from my salary since I'm taking my personal time to get everything ready. He also said jokingly to give him a good deal. How much should I charge? We will install everything on a work day.
Comments
I think I am at $75-$100 an hour of real work. That is a low ball because there are only 15 users. Much more and I am at $15K for the entire deployment.
M.S. - Cybersecurity and Information Assurance
B.S: IT - Network Design & Management
CUCM SRND 9x/10, UCCX SRND 10x, QOS SRND, SIP Trunking Guide, anything contact center related
It really depends on the relationship, from the original post it sounded like a consulting type of situation. There is no way to determine by reading a couple of lines in a post on techexams all the intricacies of OP's relationship with his boss. We have no idea how much the boss is collecting on this job, if he is collecting at all, or if he is doing it as a favor. The 1099 rate is fair at $100 an hour. If $85 is reasonable considering the relationship, then that's where it is. I find it hard to believe that $40 is a fair rate and I think you underbilled. Be careful with favors and extending your home time to dedicate to work. You can and will be taken advantage of. I know, I have been down this road.
I based my judgement of rate on the PBX work. Many people can set up the data side of a 15 person office, setting up a PBX with all the bells and whistles is labor intensive and detailed. There is a far higher standard with phones since people pick them up, expect a dial tone, and expect everything to work right. You can mis-configure more on the data side and still have a semi-functional network. The first time someone gets disconnected in the IVR and it may very well be a resume generating event.
However, location is very important. The Twin Cities and Denver are very different markets than upstate NY, so drkat is coming from a very different perspective on that much alone. These rates would be absurdly low in NYC, but pretty high in other regions. That being said, I would still put $40/hr as an absolute minimum for anywhere in the US and Canada for this type of work.
Complete: 55/120 credits SPAN 201, LIT 100, ETHS 200, AP Lang, MATH 120, WRIT 231, ICS 140, MATH 215, ECON 202, ECON 201, ICS 141, MATH 210, LING 111, ICS 240
In progress: CLEP US GOV,
Next up: MATH 211, ECON 352, ICS 340
And remember, your boss is keeping you gainfully employed. Wouldn't be good to piss him off with to high of a rate. Plus if this is giving you experience with something you don't normally get experience with it will help increase your skills as well.
CCENT: 04/16/2012
CCNA: TBD
_____
"Grammar and spelling aren't everything, but this is a forum, not a chat room. You have plenty of time to spell out the word "you", and look just a little bit smarter." by Phaideaux
***I'll add you can Capitalize the word 'I' to show a little respect for yourself too.
'i' before 'e' except after 'c'.... weird?
That is probably OK as far as a salary goes but if you are getting paid 1099 style then it is way too low. As others have pointed out, a lot of this has to do with the dynamic between you and your boss and how this little small office plays into the grand scheme of things. If this is a small business your boss is "Helping Out" then I wouldn't feel bad about charging nearly the 1099 rate - especially if your boss is not capable of doing the work himself. If this is a regular client and this is a new office deployment, i.e. your regular client is expanding, then being closer to time and a half is probably reasonable.
CUCM SRND 9x/10, UCCX SRND 10x, QOS SRND, SIP Trunking Guide, anything contact center related
CUCM SRND 9x/10, UCCX SRND 10x, QOS SRND, SIP Trunking Guide, anything contact center related
For any CME work, I would likely charge $125 - $150 an hour, depending on the complexity and desired features.
Phones are almost always the rate setter whether you are on an IP office or a Ma'Bell. $400 is pretty low. For 15 people I would ask for $1000. An outside consultant would be $3K - that would include some post install support as well.
@it_consultant out of curiosity if you are charging $125/hr do you milk it?
Never. Round up after the 31st minute and charge half an hour for minute 30 and below. I always kept accurate logs of what I was doing and when. That way, when I was questioned (which happens) I can say "Well, it took me 4 hours to configure the voice router" or whatever. When you consult, you end up billing 80% of the actual time you spend dedicated to the cause. You can't charge your client for the time you spend thinking about the project, but you can charge if you try something, it doesn't work, and you have to go back and reconfigure something to get it to work. You can charge your client for the call to Cisco TAC (unless your incompetence caused the call to Cisco) for them to work out a problem with a device.
Phones, even for 15 people, are time monsters. For a shop that size, I would go hosted.