No packages to decode, no tiers to compare, no number that changes depending on which page you landed on. Here is the whole thing, and then the reasoning behind it.
That is it. There is no first-visit premium, no separate consultation fee, no minimum callout charge, and no different rate for clients who prepay.
Until September 2026 this site quoted a phone call eight different ways. The rate sheet said $100 an hour. The support page said $75. The prepay packages worked out to $60, then $57.70, then $55.55, then $53.57, depending which card you clicked. Veterans landed somewhere else again, and a consultation credited back inside fourteen days came to nothing at all.
Every one of those numbers was real and every one was defensible on its own. Together they were a shell game, and I do not want to run a shell game. If a customer has to work out which of my prices is the real price, I have already failed the part of this job I care most about.
So I collapsed labor into two rates and one discount, and I brought the on-site rate down from $125 to $100 in the process. The posted number is now the number. If you prepay, you get bonus credit and you go to the front of the queue — you do not get a secret hourly rate that makes the published one a lie.
Three kinds of people cost me less to serve, and it seemed dishonest not to pass that along.
It is 20% off labor and diagnostics, it does not stack with anything else, and the way you claim it is to tell me. There is no card, no code, and no form. I may ask veterans for proof of service at our first visit, and that is the entire process.
If you are a veteran and you are doing the arithmetic: the headline went from 25% to 20%, but the rates it comes off of dropped further. On-site was 25% off $125 — $93.75 an hour. It is now 20% off $100, which is $80. Remote was $71.25 and is now $60. Every number you pay went down.
Phone calls. Texts. "Quick questions." Second opinions on gear someone is about to buy. Walking somebody through a problem while they are standing in a store. That is the work — knowing which question to ask, and which three hours of your life you can skip.
It was also, for a long time, the single largest unbilled part of my week. I kept a 100% satisfaction guarantee, went well past where most people would stop, and acted like none of it was worth anything. That model never once left anything behind as savings. A business that cannot cover its own costs is not generous. It is quietly failing, politely, on someone else's schedule.
The 15-minute block is the fairness mechanism. If your problem takes four minutes to solve, you pay for four minutes' worth — $18.75, not an hour. Being fast should not cost you more than being slow would have.
It has never been about greed. If it were, I would not give away as much free information as I do, and I would not have this little set aside to show for the work.
But it stings to spend two or three hours untangling someone's mess, hand them a clear answer that actually works, and then hear that next time they will take it to a club they pay ten dollars a year for. By all means — take it there. That is what it is for. Some of the people I have helped for nothing are considerably better off than I am, and the thanks came as a lunch offer or nothing at all. I do not say that to shame anyone. I say it because I let it happen, over and over, and the only person who can stop it is me.
I would rather do excellent work for people who value it than endless favors for people who do not.
If you already pay for a support plan, a club, or a big-box membership, use it. Get your money's worth out of it. I just cannot be the free backstop for when it does not deliver.
I am not going to pretend the alternatives do not exist. Best Buy's My Best Buy Total membership runs about $199.99 a year and bundles Geek Squad support; their in-home service calls generally run in the $50 to $405 range depending on the job, and remote services roughly $40 to $150. For some people that is the right call, and I mean that. If you have it, use it.
What happens in practice, constantly, is this: the plan does not fix it, or the answer comes back as "buy a new one," and then my phone rings. I am glad to take that call. I am no longer able to take it for free.
I have never upsold anyone, and I never will. I have never recommended a part, an upgrade, a subscription, or a service that a person did not genuinely need. If your machine is not worth repairing, I will tell you that and lose the job. If the fix is free and you can do it yourself in ten minutes, I will tell you that too.
Big-box tech support is not built that way, and that is not my opinion so much as a documented one. A former Geek Squad technician described stores where "selling services and warranties are pushed more than actually completing repairs," where employees were "required to track each individual sale" and get a manager to sign off on their numbers before going home — with extra coaching for anyone who fell short of their targets.
When the person diagnosing your computer has a sales number to hit, their incentive and your interest are not the same thing. I do not have a number to hit. Nobody pays me a commission. When I tell you what your machine needs, that is simply what it needs — and that is a large part of what my rate buys you.
Sources: Consumerist, "9 Confessions Of A Former Geek Squad Geek"; published Geek Squad and My Best Buy Total pricing as of July 2026. Prices and programs are theirs and may change — check with them directly.
These do not move when the hourly number does.
If I did not fix it, we are not done. That has never been contingent on price.
Telling you what a defined job costs is not consulting. You will never be charged for an estimate.
No commissions, no quotas, no "recommended" work you do not need. Not once, and not ever.
I do not play markup games on hardware to quietly pad an invoice. Parts pass through honestly; I charge for labor.
The guides, blog posts, resources, and videos on this site stay public and free. That is the giving-back part.
You can see exactly what was billed and when, in your portal. No line item you did not agree to.
Then no hard feelings, honestly. The free guides on this site stay free, and you are welcome to them whether you ever hire me or not. I am not trying to squeeze anyone — I am trying to build something that can still be here in five years, doing careful, honest work for people who want exactly that.
If that is you, I would be glad to work for you. Thank you for reading all of it.
— Sid