Home & small office
Fixed properly, or told it is not worth it.
No contract and no monthly fee — you have a computer that is broken and you want a straight answer about it. $89 to diagnose, credited against the work if you go ahead, and an honest verdict when a machine is past saving.
What it costs
$89 diagnostic, credited against the repair. Flat-rate jobs from $149. $185/hr on-site, $145/hr remote. No trip charge, no contract, firm number before we start.
The honest bit first
A five-year-old laptop with a failed motherboard is not worth $400 of repair. We will tell you that, recover your data, and point you at what to buy — without selling you the machine, because we do not sell machines.
That is why the diagnostic is $89 and why it comes off the bill if you proceed. It pays for an honest opinion rather than a free one that has to end in a sale.
What we actually get called about
It has been slow for two years. Usually a mechanical hard drive in a machine that should have had an SSD. A drive swap and clone typically turns a machine people were about to replace into a fast one, for a fraction of a new laptop.
It will not turn on, or it blue-screens. Power supply, RAM, drive failure or a Windows update that went badly. Diagnosis first — the symptoms overlap heavily and guessing wastes your money.
There is a pop-up saying we have a virus and a number to call. Do not call it. That is the scam. Bring it to us and we will tell you whether anything actually got in.
Everything is on that drive and it is making a noise. Stop using it now — every extra hour of a failing drive spinning costs you recoverable data. Power it off and ring us.
The printer works for one person and not the others. Almost always the network, not the printer. Cheaper to fix than to replace, whatever the store told you.
On-site, remote, or bring it in
Remote at $145/hour is the fastest and cheapest route for anything software-shaped: viruses, Windows problems, email, printer drivers, slow machines. We connect, you watch what we do, and it is often finished inside an hour.
On-site at $185/hour, billed in 15-minute blocks after the first hour, with no trip charge anywhere in our coverage area. This is the one for anything involving cables, hardware or more than one machine.
Bench work starts at the $89 diagnostic, with most flat-rate jobs from $149. Best for hardware repairs, drive replacements, clean reinstalls and data recovery, where the machine needs to sit with us for a while.
Data comes first
Before anything else happens to a machine, we get the data off it if we can. That is true even when the diagnosis is terminal — a dead computer with your photos on it is a very different problem from a dead computer.
We do not go browsing through your files, and we do not keep copies after you confirm you have everything. If a drive needs specialist clean-room recovery we will tell you and give you the realistic cost rather than opening it on a workbench and destroying the chances.
Small offices in between
Under five computers, hourly is genuinely cheaper than a managed agreement and we will not try to sell you one. Ring when something breaks, pay for the time, done.
Above that, the arithmetic starts to shift — and once you are spending several hours a month reactively, outsourcing the whole function usually costs less than the fire-fighting. We will point that out when we see it happening.
FAQ
Questions we get asked
How much will it cost to fix my computer?
$89 for the diagnostic, credited against the work if you go ahead. Most flat-rate bench jobs start around $149. On-site is $185/hour, remote is $145/hour. You get a firm number before we do anything — no surprises on the invoice.
Do you charge a call-out or trip fee?
No, not anywhere on our service area page. We also keep a current certificate of insurance on file so downtown building management is not the thing delaying your fix.
Can you get my files off a dead computer?
Usually, yes — a failed computer very often has a perfectly healthy drive in it. If the drive itself has failed mechanically, we will tell you honestly whether it needs a specialist recovery lab and roughly what that costs, rather than making it worse on a bench.
Is it worth repairing or should I just buy a new one?
It depends on the machine's age and what has failed. An SSD upgrade or a power supply on a decent three-year-old machine is easily worth it. A motherboard on a six-year-old budget laptop is not. We will tell you which one you have, and we do not sell computers, so there is nothing in it for us either way.
How long does a repair take?
Remote sessions are usually same-day. On-site is next business day for anything non-urgent. Bench work is typically 2–4 business days, longer if a part has to be ordered — we will tell you which when we diagnose it.
Do you work on Macs?
Yes for software, data recovery, network and general troubleshooting. For in-warranty Apple hardware you are better off at an Apple Authorised Service Provider, and we will say so rather than take the job.
Describe the symptoms. We will tell you what it is.
Most problems can be narrowed down over the phone in a couple of minutes, including whether it is worth fixing at all.