Best of the ISP-Lists

Pricing Your Support

Members of the ISP-Tech list discuss salaries for help desk support techs and system administrators. Specialist outsource tech support centers pay more than ISPs that have about two help desk people.

 

[January 5, 2001]

On the ISP-Tech list in December, RS queried,

"As an ISP with about 500 subscribers, about half an hour's drive from Sacramento, CA, we pay the following rates:

First Year Support Techs: $7.50 - $8.50 an hour
Second Year Support Techs: $10.00 - $12.00 an hour
Systems Administrators: $30,000 - 40,000 a year

Does that seem right to you? How do you compare?"

A number of respondents claimed their rates were similar:

[TM observed] "You are right on compared to myself and other ISPs in my area."

[JYJ agreed] "I would say that you are right in the ballpark. We start techs out here at $8.50. Tier II techs make around the same as yours, and I believe the engineering salary is right there as well."

[JY offered] "We pay trainees $6.00 an hour for the first month. Then Level 1 Techs get $7.00 an hour; Level 2 Techs get $8.00 an hour, and Supervisors get $10.00 an hour."

[JM noted] "We're maybe a bit lower to start, say $6.00 an hour. My lead tech gets about $10.50 an hour, but he gets a lot of perks: insurance, use of company cars, paid vacation, free access for him and his family, and we kick in some bonus money every now and then around the holidays. We do what we can to make them happy, but we have our limits too."

Others, mostly those in urban areas, felt that those numbers seemed low:

[GE asked] "I'm a CTO in a city in Colorado: are you telling me that the people who are responsible for my business data connections are paid about the same as a Burger King employee in New Hampshire? I see why there are more tech-savvy individuals moving to urban areas."

[JT observed] "For first year support techs, you are way low. If they know where the floppy drive is in a PC, then $7.50 - $8.50 would be good as a first-month salary only. $13.00 per hour might get some job applications here. Level 1 help desk in my area is going for $30,000 or more."

[JR noted] "There are two of us here doing support. I've been on board since the beginning, four years ago. The other guy has been here for two years. We both make $14.25 an hour; overtime is time and a half."

[KS added] "We are an outsourced tech support center located in rural Montana; when I say rural I mean rural. Our starting wage for tech support is $12.00 to $15.00 per hour. Our Technical Help Desk Services Managers make $42,000 a year. Our Systems Administrators make $55,000 a year."

—End