[antisthenes]

The tradesmen in higher COL areas seem to have no problem charging dev hourly rates ($150-200/hr) and also upcharging ridiculous amounts on materials (one of them tried to charge me $75 for a $3 capacitor).

Maybe there is something to that after all.

[leakycap]

> (one of them tried to charge me $75 for a $3 capacitor)

How much do you upcharge people for your services and "products" (often virtual)? What is acceptable to you?

If you had to have a physical copy of the apps you work with, in your truck, had to buy them in advance, pay shipping, store them, then take the right copy with you to a client's house. If they paid $3 would you be OK with $30? $60? You seem incensed with $75

I used to work retail. Belkin cables were under $2 each for the store, they sold them for $39-$69 depending on what it was.

If you work in a professional role, your markup on services (almost no costs involved) and products (usually very low costs) is probably many many thousands of times more than the hardworking tradesperson you think ripped you off when they were solving an issue you needed help with and had the expertise, time, and parts to help.

[antisthenes]

I don't mark up anything on physical goods, because my profession is services-only.

If the tradesman wants additional income, I have no problem with that, bake it into their hourly rate.

> had to buy them in advance, pay shipping, store them, then take the right copy with you to a client's house.

A warehouse/shipper already does all of this, perhaps not for $3 but for $3 + shipping.

For this purpose in my relationship with tradesmen, I just pay them whatever their rate is to identify what the problem is, and then fix it myself at my own leisure using my materials, unless it involves something hazardous or requires a license.

> I used to work retail. Belkin cables were under $2 each for the store, they sold them for $39-$69 depending on what it was

You certainly don't have to explain these banalities to me (I also worked retail and ecommerce for 11 years) and they don't really contribute to the point. There are scenarios where you can get away with charging exorbitant markups and maybe 1% markup, and everything in-between. The question here is should you take advantage of under-informed homeowners

For professional services, I do mark up my time, obviously, but it is not a 25x markup as in the capacitor case.

If I calculated strictly my bare necessities to live (e.g. mortgage/food/healthcare/utilities), my rough markup would probably be around 2.5x-3x.