Managed IT services pricing
The pricing models providers use, what typically sits inside and outside a monthly fee, and how to compare quotes that are not comparing the same thing.
Managed IT quotes are unusually hard to compare, and it is not because providers are being evasive. It is because the same phrase ("fully managed") describes wildly different scopes, and the price follows the scope rather than the label.
This page explains what actually drives the number, so you can normalise two quotes onto the same basis before deciding.
The four variables that move the price
Almost every difference between two quotes reduces to one of these.
Coverage hours
Business hours versus 24/7 is the single largest multiplier. Genuine round-the-clock cover requires either a rota or a partner, and both cost real money. A provider offering 24/7 at a business-hours price is usually offering an answerphone.
Response commitment
A fifteen-minute acknowledgement target for critical incidents costs more to staff than a next-business-day one. Check whether the target is contractual with a remedy attached, or aspirational.
Security scope
MFA enforcement, endpoint protection, email filtering, access reviews and awareness training may be included or may be a separate line. This is the most common source of a large gap between two otherwise similar quotes.
Proactive versus reactive
Whether the fee covers only fixing things that break, or also the work that stops them breaking. Patching cadence, capacity review, documentation upkeep, quarterly strategy. Reactive-only contracts look cheap and get more expensive over time.
What usually sits outside the monthly fee
These are normal exclusions rather than sharp practice, but they should be visible before you sign.
Onboarding and discovery, because the first weeks are when a provider finds out what you actually have. Project work such as migrations, office moves, or a security remediation programme. Hardware and software licences, usually passed through. On-site visits where the contract is remote-first. And out-of-hours work where the base contract covers business hours.
How to normalise two quotes
Write both quotes onto the same sheet with the same rows, then fill in the gaps by asking. The exercise usually takes half an hour and routinely changes which quote looks cheaper.
| Row | What to ask for |
|---|---|
| Coverage hours | Exact hours, and what happens outside them |
| Response target | Acknowledge or resolve, by severity, and whether contractual |
| Users vs devices | What is counted, and how shared accounts are treated |
| Security inclusions | Named tools and whether licences are included or passed through |
| Backup | Frequency, retention, and date of last tested restore |
| Onboarding cost | One-off fee and what it covers |
| Project rate | Hourly or day rate for work outside the contract |
| Exit terms | Notice period, and what documentation and credentials you receive |
Why we do not publish a rate card
Ours would mislead. A five-person design studio on Microsoft 365 with laptops and no servers, and a thirty-person firm with on-premise infrastructure and a compliance obligation, are not the same engagement, and a single headline number would be wrong for both.
What we will do is give you a scoped figure in writing after a short call, along with the exclusions stated explicitly. If the honest answer is that your requirements are better served by hiring someone internally or by a break-fix arrangement, the scope will say that too.
Common questions
Is per-user or per-device pricing better?
It depends almost entirely on your device-to-person ratio, and the answer is usually obvious once you count. Per-user pricing suits organisations where most staff have one laptop and a phone, because it is predictable and does not penalise you for issuing a second device. Per-device pricing suits organisations with fewer devices than people (shift workers sharing terminals, or field staff using shared tablets) and becomes expensive where you have kiosks, spare machines, test hardware, or servers, since each one is billable. The practical advice is to count your actual endpoints including the forgotten ones, then model both. Whichever model you choose, get the definition written down: disputes about whether a virtual machine, a spare laptop, or a service account counts as billable are common and entirely avoidable.
Why are some quotes so much cheaper than others?
Usually because they cover less, and occasionally because the provider has not understood your environment yet. The most common sources of a large gap, in rough order: business hours presented as though equivalent to 24/7 cover; security tooling excluded and billed separately; a reactive-only scope with no proactive patching or review; and onboarding priced as a loss-leader with the cost recovered through project work later. A genuinely cheaper provider does exist (smaller overheads, remote-first, no sales team) but the saving shows up as a modest difference, not a halving. If one quote is dramatically below the others, the productive response is not to distrust it but to ask precisely what it excludes, and to compare on the normalised sheet rather than the headline.
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