The Complete Guide to Managed IT Pricing and Costs

by ComputersMadeEasy | Feb 09, 2023

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The benefits of managed IT services are clear; but that’s only feasible if you can find a provider that will work within your budget. In this piece, we’ll be looking at managed IT services pricing and the factors that influence said pricing.

As a general rule of thumb, you can expect your managed IT cost to rise in proportion to your business’s size – users, number of devices, etc. It also fluctuates depending on the scope of the work. The fewer services you need, the lower the monthly price will be. 

But it’s important that, while this piece is concerned with managed IT pricing, the benefit of working with a proven provider can significantly outweigh the cost; IT losses can rise as high as $9,000 per minute, one study found. 

What Are the Managed IT Services Pricing Models 

Managed IT services pricing models are very intuitive, allowing for customization so that they fit your business’s exact needs without forcing you to spend on superfluous services. Or at least, that’s how it is when working with a competent and experienced provider. That way, your IT budget can be maximally lean, without sacrificing effectiveness. 

To that end, your managed IT services ROI calculator needs to take into account everything that managed IT service providers (MSPs) can provide your business. This included both direct productivity enhancements (automation, redundancy elimination, workflow acceleration, etc.) as well as relief from productivity obstacles (costly network downtime, data breaches that costs businesses nearly $10 million on average, the nearly 850,000 reported cybercrimes that take place a year in the US, etc.).

You’ll also be able to leverage long-term benefits like working with a vCIO. This allows you to plan your IT infrastructure’s development so that you can effortlessly scale. Without this support, many businesses run into technology constraints that hinder growth. 

With all that out of the way, we can now better determine the managed IT pricing model that works best for your business.

We’ll start by looking at two broad categories: pay-as-you go and fixed price.

Pay-as-You-Go Model

Most often a break/fix support model, you can expect to pay an hourly rate for remote support that can manage your most common IT issues. While you can opt for additional service levels at additional cost, this is the most basic and common configuration: the business owner – you, in this case – has an IT problem, you call your managed service provider (MSP), they fix it, you get charged. Simple

This is a strong option for small and medium-sized businesses that don’t often face major IT issues or a high frequency of them. Alternatively, if you already have a strong in-house IT team in place and simply want to supplement them with additional on-call resources, this is a great fit. For most businesses, however, this is extremely inefficient as fully managed IT services of fixed pricing models often pay far less than a single in-house employee’s yearly and get far more services.

It’s hard to determine exact costs for a pay-as-you-go model as there are so many variables.

Generally, costs will be lower than fixed models ($150 a month per user, roughly) at lower levels, but can quickly rise well above that when you add on additional services.

Fixed Pricing Model

With fixed managed IT pricing, you won’t ever be left wondering: how much does managed IT service cost per month? That’s because the price will always remain the same flat fee every billing period no matter how many IT support tickets you submit.

So what will the overall monthly fee be?

As mentioned earlier, this will depend on:

• Number of users per month
• Number of devices (including mobile devices)
• Scope of the work

Your MSP will provide a managed IT services price list so you’ll be able to select the services you need/believe will be most valuable while eschewing the ones you don’t.

Generally, you can expect to pay between $140 to $200 per user per month, depending on the scope of the work.

Keeping Your Managed IT Costs Down

Pricing ranges according to the services you opt to include in your customized package. Let’s go over some of the typical services package configurations.

Monitoring

Think of this as the classical break/fix model. You’ll benefit from monthly, routine monitoring of your key IT assets like your network and infrastructure. You’ll also be able to access cybersecurity solutions when necessary.

The downside is that many of the benefits of working with an experienced MSP – cloud support, backup and disaster recovery, automation services, workflow acceleration, long-term planning and vCIO services, etc. – won’t be accessible in this model.

A la Carte

Get the exact services you need – no more, no less.

If you’re certain that you need only a handful of managed IT services (for instance, you only require cloud support, data backup, and network help, but have a pretty solid cybersecurity array in place and don’t want to have long-term technology plans in place) then this is a perfect arrangement.

That said, many IT providers are only able to reach their full value when they can provide synergistic, business-spanning solutions, enhancing your IT stack so that every part works in perfect concert with the other, ensuring maximal ROI.

End-to-End IT Management

Total relief to your technology burden. No more network slowdowns, downtime, data loss, cybersecurity fears, technology constraints as you scale, issues working on the cloud . . . none of it.

End-to-end management includes:

• Network support and monitoring
• Network updating and patching
• Technology procurement
• vCIO planning and IT roadmapping
• Cybersecurity protections
• Cloud computing support
• Cloud service
• Data backup and disaster recovery

And more.

When done right, your managed IT services calculator will show the highest yield with full, comprehensive management.

The one issue is that you need to be sure that you’re working with a capable, experienced, and robust MSP – otherwise, you’ll end up sinking time and money into a provider that will not be able to help your business leverage its technology to reach optimal performance.

Reducing Managed IT Costs With Computers Made Easy 

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You don’t want to leave any potential value on the table when looking for an MSP to support your business. At Computers Made Easy, we understand that, and we will strive to ensure that every single dollar in your IT budget is put to productive, profitability-yielding use.

Computers Made Easy is a leading provider of proven technology solutions. With almost 30 years in business and 18 expert IT technicians on staff, we guarantee 99.9% network uptime, 15-minute average response time, 24/7/365 monitoring and support, long-term IT strategy development, and more.

With over 300 companies supported across the US, we’ll leverage our proven IT methodologies to ensure your business is secure, resilient, and more productive than ever.

Get in touch with us today for a free consultation.