Hello,
I was wondering if anyone could provide me with some helpful information. I am starting up a new company and need some helpful information when it comes to how to charge and bill for imaging drives. I have worked for a commercial company and we never did any imaging, only examinations. I know what I want to charge when it comes to conducting forensic exams, but not sure how to charge for imaging.
Is it done by time? Drive size?
Thanks
It varies time, drive size, per unit are all possible. I'd suggest seeking feedback from your target market on their preference and then make a call as to whether it makes sense for you to bill in that way.
I would consider a per/unit charge based upon capacity ranges (up to 40GB = X $, 41 through 1/2 TB = Y$).
The exception would be a hurry up imaging job where you have to sit and wait for it to finish. You might charge a time based fee there but you should have fast imaging equipment if you went that route. You wouldn't want to appear like you were gouging the customer by using slow acquisition methods.
Again like pragmatopian said, check you local market..
How do you only do examinations and not imaging?
To me that would mean farming it out or some other scenario which IMHO wouldn't be something to mess with.
Did you find out that getting images from somewhere else was good, bad, ugly, other?
Hello,
I was wondering if anyone could provide me with some helpful information. I am starting up a new company and need some helpful information when it comes to how to charge and bill for imaging drives. I have worked for a commercial company and we never did any imaging, only examinations. I know what I want to charge when it comes to conducting forensic exams, but not sure how to charge for imaging.
Is it done by time? Drive size?
Thanks
Does anyone know what would be a reasonable price to charge for imaging? I know that is a loaded question, but say the Image was 100GB and it took 2 hours.
Part of your charging should be based on the initial requirement for imaging. If is just a case of 'Mr Smith' wanting a back up, then no chain of custody etc etc is required. For an investigation, full tracking, security etc is required.
The next stage is how much user time, and how much machine time.
I would suggest simple bands of pricing, eg upto 100G, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB
Some failing drives can take days to image, and the image may not be considered forensically secure.
For me, imaging is 'cost of sales' per examination because, let's face it, it does not take up a great deal of our actual time. It typically occurs while I'm asleep D
I've done flat fee with size limiters, I've done straight flat fee, and I've done time based. In-house time based tends to work out cheaper because I might only bill 3 increments (1/10ths of an hour) or so of actual time whereas an on-site I have to bill the whole time I'm there.
The one thing I'd never offer flat fee for is a proper file server full image.
Would there not also be regional considerations as well? You might be able to charge more in a larger city than you could in a rural setting? Then again if you were the only game in town? You might just want to get out the yellow pages and call around for quotes to see what the going price is in your area.