What does data recovery cost?

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Background:

Running a data recovery operation is expensive: It needs very specialised tools, highly skilled engineers and is very labour-intensive. Marketing smoke and mirrors don't work: either got the data or not. To coompensate, big data recovery companies must maximise their reach by operating many "points-of-presence". Internationally. These are in fact no more than "collection and shipping" offices.

In order to attract business, they have to appear "low-risk" with a "no-data-no-charge" policy. Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch, so the operating and shipping expenses that result have to be borne by the few clients who have no alternative but to accept the quoted price. The net result is that it often does "cost thousands". Literally.

Xyber Data Recovery:

Our cost structure is somewhat different from the industry standard. Consequently, our prices are overall noticeably lower. We charge on a straight  labour + expenses basis. If the problem isn't obvious, we have a nominal $64 full assessment charge. (So, you are not paying for everyone else's "no-data-no-charge" freebies - that, by the way, end up not free at all with "setup" and other similar charges popping out of nowhere..).

• Labour only includes the "technician time" required for your job (and possibly an "urgency" component - which is another form of labour as we have to reorganise all current tasks in order to accommodate an urgent or immediate job). Please also note that we only charge for the time an engineer needs to actually spend on a procedure even if the procedure itself takes much longer. (Cloning, searches and transfers are typical examples. There are often cases where these take days, even weeks but the labour charge is less than an hour.)
• Expenses include costs of parts, shipping or similar. Normally, we charge those at cost.

Quotations: We do need to examine and run tests on the device itself. Usually, we can give a very good estimate while you wait. When required, a full in-depth analysis/assessment costs $64 (and is credited when you go ahead). As a very rough indication, the mean cost of data recovery jobs over the past 12 months has been just under the $640 mark, starting at $128 and only exceptionally reaching much beyond.

On-Site: Yes, we do have engineers who can come to you (and the costs are modest - $64 call fee).