Data Recovery Pricing for 2018 - Thoughts?

[Jared]

So I'm looking to update my pricing for the new year. Given that everything in life keeps getting more expensive, I think it's finally time to up the rate for certain projects. But, I also want to keep things affordable on the lower end of the spectrum.

Currently, my pricing is as follows:
Logical - $300
Easy hardware (not bad heads) - $450
Head swaps and more difficult firmware issues - $650 + parts
And occasionally I'll quote a Tier 3 (custom quote)

For the new year, I'm thinking it's time to add some tiers. Looking back I'm seeing where I'm really losing money. Especially when it's difficult logical cases I've been spending far too much time for what I'm billing. Here's my current plan going into the new year.

[shadow=blue]Suggested 2018 HDD Recovery Prices:[/shadow]
Logical Cases (3 tiers now)
Easy Logical (deleted files, lost partition, minor corruption) - $275
Moderate Logical (over installed OS, severely damaged file systems, custom file types, etc.) $475
Difficult Logical (VMs, fragmented file recovery, etc.) - Custom quote

Hardware Cases (4 tiers now)
Tier 1 - Easy firmware fixes, lots of bad sectors, blown PCBs, etc. $450
Tier 2 - Hard firmware cases, easy head replacement cases such as WD with one bad head - $675 + parts
Tier 3 - Hard head replacement cases with lower odds/likelihood of needing multiple donors (e.g. most Seagates esp. Rosewood) - $775 + parts
Tier 4 - Cases that are a long shot, botched or already attempted by another lab, or cases I really don't want - Custom Quote

Any thoughts or feedback? Suggestions for adjustments?

 

[pclab]

Well, the values will always depend on your country (cost of life, wages, etc, etc).
I would like to do those prices here, but it's not possible....

 

[Jared]

Obviously, the price scale will vary a lot from place to place. I was more looking for feedback about my planned tiering and relative scale of pricing for different project types.

 

[LarrySabo]

They look fine, but the customer has no idea what category or tier his drive falls into so all jobs end up being a custom quote whose value depends upon your assessment of the drive. Perhaps a general description/list of what comprises logical and physical and indicate "Prices depend upon the exact cause of failure and the extent of the damage. Typical prices include: Logical: $250 - $475, Physical: $450 - $775, higher for exceptional cases. Over the past year, 90% of cases cost less than $xxx." Or something like that.

 

[Jared]

They look fine, but the customer has no idea what category or tier his drive falls into so all jobs end up being a custom quote whose value depends upon your assessment of the drive. Perhaps a general description/list of what comprises logical and physical and indicate "Prices depend upon the exact cause of failure and the extent of the damage. Typical prices include: Logical: $250 - $475, Physical: $450 - $775, higher for exceptional cases. Over the past year, 90% of cases cost less than $xxx." Or something like that.

Yes, I plan to do that. I'll have pricing tables where each tier spells out the type of cases it typically includes. I'll also be updating my online estimator tool with a few additional questions to hopefully provide a near estimate of what tier a given case will fall under.

 

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

Well,
How about a low assessment feee for each case and then letting them know which tier it falls into .I use this strategy in india

 

[Jared]

":agbu0qd2]Well,
How about a low assessment feee for each case and then letting them know which tier it falls into .I use this strategy in india

I always do free evaluation and then provide a written quote with the tier and final dollar amount spelled out, which they have to sign.

I don't plan on changing that part of my business. Free evaluations gets people in the door.

 

[Jared]

OK, prices have been updated: https://www.data-medics.com/cost-of-data-recovery/

Now to just get around to updating my online estimator tool :roll: This is going to take a while. It's a lot of work changing prices on a website that's been around for a bit. I keep finding references to prices all over the place. I think I need to get better about just linking to my pricing pages when I blog.

 

[LarrySabo]

It's a little overwhelming, but helpful, I think. Smaller fonts and graphics alignment would help. (I don't understand why the first column is above the others and highlighted in blue.)

 

[Jared]

It's a little overwhelming, but helpful, I think. Smaller fonts and graphics alignment would help. (I don't understand why the first column is above the others and highlighted in blue.)

That's because I marked that one as "featured" so it'll stand out. I'd prefer the lower prices stand out to people for psychological reasons. If the first price they see is $800, they might just bounce, but if they see some lower prices first they are more likely to actually make contact.