C# 服务合同 - 我们应该为 12 个月的服务合同收取多少费用

Service contract - how much should we charge for 12 month service contract

提问by Justin

We just finished a small project for a client (~35k), and the client would like to open a service contract with us to respond to any issues within 4 hours. The client would pay a monthly fee regardless of if there are any issues or not. Since this is a new product, it is likely that there will be issues, but we think that they would be small.

我们刚刚为客户完成了一个小项目（~35k），客户希望与我们签订服务合同，以便在 4 小时内响应任何问题。无论是否有任何问题，客户都会支付月费。由于这是一个新产品，很可能会出现问题，但我们认为它们会很小。

We're in Salt Lake City, and the client is as well. We're using a c# front end and mysql backend.

我们在盐湖城，客户也在。我们使用 ac# 前端和 mysql 后端。

I've read that some people charge by the hour after fixing bugs for free the first 3 months.

我读到有些人在前 3 个月免费修复错误后按小时收费。

Should we go with a service contract and how much should we charge per month so that we don't shaft ourselves? Or should we go with an hourly rate to fix issues as they come up?

我们应该签订服务合同吗？我们应该每月收取多少费用，这样我们就不会自暴自弃了？或者我们应该按照小时费率来解决出现的问题？

采纳答案by Jas Panesar

Advice:Start with hourly fixes. Unless you are dead confident in your code and the airtightness of everything you put in a spec and put blueprints on, go hourly.

建议：从每小时修复开始。除非你对你的代码和你放在规范和蓝图上的所有东西的密封性非常有信心，否则每小时去一次。

Why?

为什么？

Every time I have launched a new project I try to leave it hourly to build a history of cases that need to be resolved. Once I have some data (average amount of time to fix, type of bug, etc) to back it up, I see if I can average out a price for the year. So If I figure I use 100 hours a year of "support", I can then come up with a yearly cost, pad it due to the programmers genetic make up of underestimating and then present it.

每次我启动一个新项目时，我都会尝试让它每小时离开一次，以建立需要解决的案例的历史记录。一旦我有一些数据（平均修复时间、错误类型等）来支持它，我看看我是否可以平均计算出一年的价格。因此，如果我计算出我每年使用 100 小时的“支持”，那么我可以计算出每年的成本，由于程序员的基因低估而填充它，然后将其呈现出来。

Critical considerations for service contracts:

服务合同的关键考虑因素：

First, it has to be good for you and them. It has to stay good for you and them. There can't be more bad months than good for either of you. Regardless of what you are paid you will have to present value or lose the support agreement at renewal.

首先，它必须对你和他们都有好处。它必须对你和他们都有好处。对你们中的任何一个来说，没有比好的月份更多的月份了。无论您获得多少报酬，您都必须在续订时显示价值或失去支持协议。

• What does it cover?You must be careful when it comes to Fixing "anything". Becoming the catch-all to support the entire application even if it's not your problem (hardware, or network issues, etc) is very costly, first to your time, and second potentially to your image, if you are being called for a central support resource for the entire application.

• 4 Hour what?4 hour response is much different from 4 hour resolution. The only thing you can offer is the first, the second is a bonus for 60-80% of cases. If they want the latter, add a zero to everything. You may need to staff an extra person. You will also have to track your own performance (response time, etc.)

• Define Support.Training? Meetings? Answering Questions? Bugs only? Don't become a free department that needs to be on call 24/7.

• Priority.- I set all my cases with priority. Only Priority 1 or 2 cases (out of 7) should be 4 hour response time. That way any fires get attention appropriately and the smaller bugs keep getting fixed.

• Cap the hours/bugs monthly.- Cap the number of requests, or fixes per month if you insist on going on a support contract. So, up to 50 hours a month, or up to 10 priority 1, and 10 priority 2 cases, etc. Anything beyond 15 blazing infernos a month and its x per incident, where each incident is so many hours. It entirely depends on your customer and their habits. The ones who break stuff a lot and need more of your time and attention personally will need more checks and balances for both sides to be happy.

• Be optomistic, but be realistic.With a new project neither of you know what may come. So for you to cover your unknown, what could be the absolute worst amount of time that could be spent? It's often best to work from worst case estimates instead of best case. What you're selling is essentially an insurance policy. The more unknowns and lack of data history there is, the higher your insurance policy would be, right?

• Have an air tight process.- Have a mutually agreed upon way of defining what is support and what is a "change request" for new or modified functionality. Be sure you have the appropriate signoffs for analysis (mutual interpretation), design (how you're going to build it), and signoffs for launching so there can't be any pointing back to mis-interpretations or mis-understandings.

• Subtle abuse- Clients, often, will make you do the leg work after a contract is up. Something looks wrong... but isn't? Send it to you to figure it out. Over time you can spend so much time supporting inquiries of where "it isn't working" when, in fact, someone is simply using you as the path of least resistance to answer their question, or what they are assuming about how it works since they have forgotten. So, to clear your name you have to show that it was how the system was used.. and not something that happened spontaneously like a bug.

• 它涵盖什么？在修复“任何东西”时，您必须小心。即使不是您的问题（硬件或网络问题等），成为支持整个应用程序的万能者也是非常昂贵的，首先是您的时间，其次可能是您的形象，如果您需要中央支持整个应用程序的资源。

• 4小时什么？4 小时响应与 4 小时解决有很大不同。您唯一可以提供的是第一个，第二个是 60-80% 的情况下的奖励。如果他们想要后者，请为所有内容添加零。您可能需要配备额外的人员。您还必须跟踪自己的表现（响应时间等）

• 定义支持。训练？会议？回答问题？只有错误？不要成为需要 24/7 随叫随到的免费部门。

• 优先事项。- 我优先设置所有案例。只有优先级 1 或 2 的案例（共 7 个）应为 4 小时响应时间。这样，任何火灾都会得到适当的关注，并且较小的错误会不断得到修复。

• 每月限制时间/错误。- 如果您坚持签订支持合同，请限制每月的请求或修复数量。因此，每月最多 50 小时，或最多 10 个优先级 1 和 10 个优先级 2 案例，等等。超过每月 15 次炽热地狱和每次事件的 x 次，其中每个事件都需要很多小时。这完全取决于您的客户和他们的习惯。那些经常破坏东西并且需要你个人更多时间和注意力的人将需要更多的制衡才能让双方都开心。

• 要乐观，但要现实。对于一个新项目，你们都不知道会发生什么。因此，对于您来说，为了覆盖您的未知数，可以花费的绝对最糟糕的时间是多少？通常最好从最坏情况估计而不是最好情况开始工作。你卖的东西本质上是一份保险单。未知数和历史数据越少，您的保单就越高，对吗？

• 有一个气密的过程。- 有一个共同商定的方式来定义什么是支持，什么是新的或修改过的功能的“变更请求”。确保你有适当的分析（相互解释）、设计（你将如何构建它）和发布的签名，这样就不会再有任何指向错误解释或误解的迹象。

• 微妙的滥用- 客户通常会在合同到期后让你做腿工作。看起来有些不对劲……但不是吗？发给你看看吧。随着时间的推移，您可以花费大量时间来支持“它不起作用”的地方的查询，而事实上，有人只是将您用作回答他们问题的阻力最小的途径，或者他们对它如何工作的假设他们已经忘记了。因此，要清除您的名字，您必须表明这是系统的使用方式......而不是像错误一样自发发生的事情。

So, after all that.. how to bill?

那么，毕竟......如何计费？

• Sliding scales for billing?Set your rate at $125 hr for priority 3 and 4 fixes, and $150/hr for Priority 2 and Priority 1 fixes. This will also encourage them to truly prioritize with their wallets and give you some breathing room to fix stuff before it becomes a raging fire. I always present it like, don't fix things that don't add value to the bottom line. Priority 1 cases are minimum 1 hour. You could be booked on other work and have to be interrupted to do it, because like everyone, you have your development time scheduled.

• Billing hourly and working up to a contract may build trust.Building this relationship further that you're always going to act in their best interest and spend their money at least as good as your own, if not better is a great way to win more business. If they want a support contract and you say "lets just see first how much it needs to be instead of picking a high number and it not being good for you", they will respect you that much more because you are not gouging them. This, again, is best with clients that you have a good relationship with, who will likely refer you other work. If on the other hand there is a lot of devils in the details, it may be best to stick to hourly, period so they can control their decisions on what they want to address, or not.

• 用于计费的滑动秤？将优先级 3 和 4 修复的费率设置为每小时 125 美元，将优先级 2 和优先级 1 修复的费率设置为 150 美元/小时。这也将鼓励他们真正优先考虑他们的钱包，并给你一些喘息的空间，在它变成熊熊大火之前解决问题。我总是这样表达，不要修复那些不会为底线增加价值的东西。优先级 1 的案例最少需要 1 小时。您可能会被安排从事其他工作，并且必须被打断才能完成，因为与每个人一样，您的开发时间也已安排好。

• 按小时计费并履行合同可能会建立信任。进一步建立这种关系，您将始终按照他们的最佳利益行事，并且至少将他们的钱花得与您自己的一样好，如果不是更好的话，这是赢得更多业务的好方法。如果他们想要一份支持合同，而你说“让我们先看看它需要多少钱，而不是选择一个很高的数字，这对你不利”，他们会更加尊重你，因为你没有欺骗他们。同样，这最适合与您关系良好的客户，他们可能会向您推荐其他工作。另一方面，如果细节中有很多问题，最好坚持每小时一次，这样他们就可以控制他们想要解决或不解决的决定。

Wild Guess:

胡乱猜测：

Chances are if your client wants a support contract (maybe even approached you), they are likely very happy with you, your process, the quality of your product, and the value you have generated for their business with their $35k investment in you. They want to make sure your attention is kept for them because it is of value to them.

如果您的客户想要一份支持合同（甚至可能与您联系），他们很可能对您、您的流程、您的产品质量以及您通过对您的 35,000 美元投资为他们的业务创造的价值感到非常满意。他们想确保你的注意力一直在他们身上，因为这对他们很有价值。

回答by Michael La Voie

Hourly is the safest bet, especially if your company doesn't yet have a comfort level with predicting errors.

每小时是最安全的选择，特别是如果您的公司还没有对预测错误感到满意。

Nevertheless, service contracts are almost alway better for the developer for two reasons.

尽管如此，出于两个原因，服务合同对开发人员来说几乎总是更好。

1. You should have an information advantage for predicting the number of bugs based on previous software you've developed and bugs found so far.
2. It is expected that you'll pad the fee for safety's sake and company's are often happy with this arrangement, because many businesses prise predictable expenses over getting the best deal.

1. 您应该具有信息优势，可以根据您之前开发的软件和迄今为止发现的错误来预测错误的数量。
2. 为了安全起见，预计您会支付费用，并且公司通常对这种安排感到满意，因为许多企业重视可预测的费用而不是获得最佳交易。

Seeing as they are offering a service contract, I'd lean strongly in that directly and would only choose hourly if I was very worried that I couldn't predict the number of tickets.

看到他们提供服务合同，我会直接强烈倾向于这样做，如果我非常担心我无法预测门票数量，我只会选择每小时。

If you go this route, look into competitive or somewhat similar services that other companies offer and look at their pricing scheme. This is the probably the best data you'll have on reasonable prices.

如果你走这条路，看看其他公司提供的有竞争力的或有些类似的服务，看看他们的定价方案。这可能是您以合理价格获得的最佳数据。

Best of luck!

祝你好运！

回答by RSolberg

In today's economy, take the service contractwith some protection for yourself.

在当今的经济环境中，为您自己提供一些保护的服务合同。

1. A contract should provide stable cash flow. For example, a 24 month contract with a $500 to $1000 retainer is a guaranteed $500 to $1000 each month for 24 months. If you are just hourly, you may never get any of that. You should also guarantee the contract for the full length and if they cancel, require a payout of 4 months.

2. It should create an opportunity to be placed on a retainer as well as set some kind of hourly rate up. Maybe its 10 hours per month of support and $150 per hour for each additional hour after 10?

1. 合同应提供稳定的现金流。例如，一份为期 24 个月的合同与 $500 至 $1000 的固定费用，保证每月 500 至 $1000 美元，为期 24 个月。如果你只是每小时，你可能永远不会得到任何。您还应该保证合同的完整期限，如果他们取消，则需要支付 4 个月的款项。

2. 它应该创造一个被安置在保留者上的机会，并设置某种形式的每小时费率。也许它每月支持 10 小时，10 小时后每增加一小时每小时 150 美元？

I just threw the $ values out there. Does this company seem like they want to spend a good amount of money for good support, or are they looking to save some pennies here and there cutting quality?

我只是把 $ 值扔在那里。这家公司看起来是想花很多钱来获得良好的支持，还是希望在这里和那里节省一些切割质量？

回答by Cody C

I always reccomend the service contract. I've been doing that for 8 years and it is a win/win. Here is a few of the many reasons why I feel it is better.

我总是推荐服务合同。我已经这样做了 8 年，这是双赢的。以下是我觉得它更好的众多原因中的一些。

1. Clients prefer this arrangement b/c it's is a predictable, budgetable cost.
2. Allows client/developer freedom to continue to improve the product. Having to generate estimates/approvals for each small change and bug fixes can be prohibitive
3. The developer can become more part of the long term business strategy for the organization.
4. Developer can better allocate time and resources, especially if they need extra help.
5. Reduces conflicts on "what is a bug" vs "what was left out of scope". Attention is strictly focused on creating a better product

1. 客户更喜欢这种安排 b/c 这是一个可预测的、可预算的成本。
2. 允许客户/开发人员自由地继续改进产品。必须为每个小的更改和错误修复生成估计/批准可能令人望而却步
3. 开发人员可以更多地参与组织的长期业务战略。
4. 开发人员可以更好地分配时间和资源，尤其是在他们需要额外帮助时。
5. 减少“什么是错误”与“超出范围的内容”的冲突。专注于创造更好的产品

回答by ilya n.

I think you're certainly better with service contract, since it serves as a warranty on your software and if you're trying to build a reputation it's in yourinterest to have a bug-free installation too.

我认为你当然更喜欢服务合同，因为它可以作为你软件的保证，如果你想建立声誉，那么安装无错误也符合你的利益。

How to estimate? I would assign it to one person, one of the lead developers of that particular project. Let him estimate the error rate, and see if it's likely to be, for example, 1/3 of full-time. He might need to spend some time refreshing memory, and for that reason it better be one person.

怎么估计？我会将它分配给一个人，即该特定项目的主要开发人员之一。让他估计错误率，看看它是否可能是，例如，全职的 1/3。他可能需要花一些时间来刷新记忆，因此最好是一个人。

So, for example, you bill them 1/3 of fulltime position, but I think your programmer still should get paid for the work done (and in the worst case you'll have to allocate more people). So your company as a whole either eats losses or gains a fee.

因此，例如，您向他们收取全职职位的 1/3，但我认为您的程序员仍然应该为完成的工作获得报酬（在最坏的情况下，您将不得不分配更多的人）。因此，您的公司作为一个整体要么承担损失，要么获得费用。