The pricing of managed IT services can vary significantly depending on the specific needs of your business.
Naturally, the costs associated with your small business IT services will be contingent upon the level of service you require. For instance, comprehensive end-to-end management services typically come at a higher cost than helpdesk-only solutions.
However, it’s crucial to recognize that investing in the right IT services can result in substantial savings for your business. According to a study, IT-related losses can amount to as much as $9,000 per minute. Therefore, selecting the appropriate IT solutions for your business can yield significant benefits.
An experienced IT services provider will conduct a thorough assessment of your business and craft a customized package that not only eliminates inefficiencies but also introduces a range of advantages. All of this is offered at a cost that aligns with your budget.
With this in mind, let’s delve deeper into what you can anticipate regarding managed IT pricing.small business
Managed IT Pricing Models – Which One Is Right for Your Business?
As mentioned above, managed IT services pricing models can be customized to meet your business’s precise needs.
One of the keys to IT ROI is in fact to develop an IT services plan that is tailored to your business, removing unnecessary costs and redundancies and creating an overall leaner, more efficient, and more effective IT strategy. (See the sections below for a managed IT services ROI calculator.)
In fact, with vCIO support, for instance, you can effectively build a long-term IT plan that ensures your business is constantly outfitted with the IT support services it needs at every stage of its lifecycle.
But it all starts with determining which managed IT pricing model is the one that works best for your situation.
Let’s break it down into two distinct categories: fixed price and break/fix (also known as pay-as-you-go).
Pay-as-You-Go
With break/fix support, you’ll receive remote support and other types of services that will be available to handle issues as they crop up. Typically you’ll pay per IT issue your managed services provider (MSP) solves, or an hourly rate for your IT support.
If you don’t encounter IT issues very often or already have an in-house team you trust, this can be ideal as supplementary support or as a way to tackle those sporadic IT disturbances. But if your business is planning on performing larger IT projects like digital transformations or server migrations, they won’t be covered (or if they are, they will be very expensive).
Fixed Pricing
With fixed-managed IT pricing, your IT spending will be predictable and reliable. But you may be wondering: how much does managed IT service cost per month?
That depends on a few factors.
Your MSP will provide a managed IT services price list that details the services they offer, as well as how much they’ll cost to include in your monthly service package
They may also include other variables like per-user or per-device pricing. So your managed IT pricing will shift depending on size, with small businesses paying less than larger enterprises. These will be provided for a flat fee month to month, but that fee is subject to change depending on if your business grows and/or if you add additional services.
Per Device vs Per User Pricing
Per-device support often charges per:
- Desktop
- Network printer
- Managed network
- Server
In addition to other devices. Rule of thumb: the more complex the device, the more expensive it will be under this pricing model. Typical pricing for managed IT on a per-device basis ranges from $10-$150 per device per month.
Per user ofter covers users’:
- PCs
- Laptops
- Tablets
- Mobile devices
- Office equipment
And pretty much any other device in your IT environment that your covered users will operate. Typical pricing ranges from $100-$500 per user per month. All this depends on the size, scope, and complexity of your IT stack.
How to Save on Your Managed IT Costs
As mentioned earlier, the best way to ensure that your managed IT services rates are optimal, you’ll want to leverage a package that meets your exact needs.
To that end, you can leverage a variety of service packages. Let’s go over a few of the most common arrangements:
Monitoring Only
One of the cheaper options available, monitoring-only provides just that: monitoring and break/fix solutions as IT issues crop up. You’ll receive monitoring of your key IT assets like your network and infrastructure, and you can also leverage cybersecurity protections.
This won’t include support for larger and more complex IT projects but can serve if your business is uninterested in accessing cloud efficiencies or if you already have a well-functioning cloud infrastructure, for example.
A la Carte
Consider this the buffet of IT service packages. You pay for services you need as you need them.
This is ideal if you want to maintain maximal flexibility.
This is also great if you need supplemental help for a large IT project – like a data migration or recovering after a data breach – but don’t anticipate those services being required long-term.
The main issue with this format is that unexpected IT troubles that crop up can quickly become expensive as you add on services. Additionally, should a project end up requiring more resources and time than initially anticipated, this can also add to your costs.
Fully Managed IT Plan
The right fit for your business if you want to never have to think about IT issues ever again.
With end-to-end management, you can ensure that your IT stack is:
- Monitored
- Updated
- Augmented
- Safe
- Secure
- Resilient
- And more
In fact, end-to-end management is often the only way to get access to the most cost-effective technology. You can leverage your MSP’s vendor partnerships, which are not often included in other packages.
With a fully managed plan, your MSP will assess your IT assets and determine which services can yield the highest return for your business. In other words, your managed IT services calculator will show the highest ROI yield on a fully managed plan – when done right.
The drawback here is that it does require commitment, so working with a proven, experienced, MSP is paramount.
Managed IT Services ROI Calculator
A managed IT services ROI calculator is rather straightforward.
The average data breach costs a business nearly $10 million. While this is certainly skewed by the bigger players (which can cost in the hundreds of millions), the risk remains for smaller businesses.
Network downtime similarly shows that even just a few minutes of a downed network can lead to thousands in lost productivity (this article even provides an equation for determining downtime cost risk, a handy tool in your managed IT services ROI calculator toolkit).
Aside from what you stand to lose to data branches or lost productivity, you also stand to gain with a top MSP.
Efficiencies only possible with cloud computing or a fully operational cloud environment, for instance, can lead to massive ROI. This is especially true in our age of work-from-home and hybrid environments.
You’ll also be able to automate and expedite many processes, making your overall workflow more efficient.
Finally, you’ll be able to save your team from all the IT issues they have been wasting time struggling with.
Determining all those costs (and potential costs), you can then weigh them against the relatively minor monthly cost of working with a top MSP.
Get Elite Managed IT Services for a Price That Works for Your Business
We now know the answer to ‘How much does managed IT service cost’.
The next step is finding an MSP that can help you control your managed IT costs without ever sacrificing quality.
Our services include:
- End-to-end managed IT
- Cloud support
- 24/7 Technical support
- On-site support
- Long-term IT strategy development
- Technology implementation, deployment, and administration
- IT Consulting
- Project management
- Disaster recovery
- Cyber security
- And more
Our team will work tirelessly to ensure that your IT is fully optimized and secure, and will never constrain business growth.
Reach out today for a free consultation.