Managed IT quotes are difficult to compare, and that is not entirely accidental. Two proposals can differ by a factor of two on the headline number and turn out to be within ten percent of each other once you account for what each one actually covers.
Here is how the pricing works and where the differences hide.
The three common models
Per user. A flat monthly fee for each person, covering all the devices that person uses. This is the most common model now and generally the most predictable, because a salesperson with a laptop, a desktop and a mobile counts once.
Per device. A fee per endpoint. This can work out cheaper for businesses where devices are shared, such as shift based operations or warehouses where a dozen staff rotate through four workstations. It gets expensive fast in knowledge work, where one person routinely has three devices.
Blocks of hours. You buy a bundle of support time at a discounted rate and draw against it. This is not really managed services. It is discounted break-fix, and it preserves the incentive problem that managed services exists to remove: the provider earns more when things break.
That incentive point is worth sitting with. Under a flat fee, your provider’s margin improves when your environment is stable, which aligns their interest with yours. Under hourly billing it does the opposite. Neither arrangement makes anyone dishonest, but over years the difference shows up in whether root causes get fixed or worked around.
What a real per user price should include
When you compare quotes, check each of these explicitly. The cheap quote is usually cheap because several are missing.
- Unlimited remote helpdesk, with clearly defined hours and a documented response commitment
- 24/7 monitoring of servers, workstations and network hardware
- Patch management for the operating system and third party applications, on a tested schedule
- Endpoint detection and response, not just signature based antivirus
- Backup monitoring, with restore testing rather than just checking that jobs completed
- Microsoft 365 administration, including user onboarding and offboarding
- Onsite support, with the number of included visits stated
- Vendor management, so they call your ISP rather than you
- Documentation, maintained and available to you
- Quarterly business reviews with a rolling roadmap
Where the exclusions live
These are the line items that most often sit outside a low quote, and each one can be significant.
Onsite visits billed hourly. Fine if it is disclosed and priced. Not fine if the quote implies coverage and the reality is that anything requiring hands generates an invoice.
Security tooling as an add on. Endpoint detection, email filtering, DNS filtering and training are sometimes stacked on top of the base price at 15 to 40 dollars per user per month. A quote at 90 dollars plus 45 dollars of required security is a 135 dollar quote.
Project work. Every provider bills projects separately, and that is reasonable. What varies is the definition. Migrating a server is clearly a project. Is a firewall firmware upgrade? Is setting up a new user’s laptop? Get the boundary in writing.
After hours support. Sometimes included, sometimes at a premium rate, sometimes unavailable. If your business runs outside 9 to 5, this matters enormously.
Onboarding. Most providers charge for the initial transition and they should, because it is genuinely a lot of work: documenting the environment, deploying agents, standardizing backups and fixing whatever they find. Expect it. What you should be wary of is a provider who does not charge for it, because it usually means they are not doing it thoroughly, and you will feel that for the entire relationship.
Hardware and licensing. Almost always separate. Ask whether they mark it up and by how much. Transparency here tells you something about the relationship generally.
Reading a suspiciously low quote
If one proposal comes in dramatically below the others, one of a few things is usually true.
The scope is narrower than it appears. Compare line by line rather than comparing totals.
The response commitment is soft. “We will respond promptly” is not a commitment. “Under 15 minutes for critical issues during business hours” is.
The staffing model relies on volume. Some providers price low and manage the resulting margin by keeping engineer to client ratios high. You will notice this as slow responses and a rotating cast of technicians who do not know your environment.
Or it is a genuine loss leader to win the account, in which case the price corrects at renewal.
None of these make the provider disreputable. They make the quote something different from what you thought you were comparing.
What actually drives the number
For an honest quote, the variables are straightforward:
User count, with volume discounts usually starting somewhere around 25 seats.
Server count. Servers require meaningfully more attention than workstations, and each one adds real cost.
Compliance. HIPAA, PCI DSS, the FTC Safeguards Rule and similar obligations add documentation, controls and audit support.
Complexity. A single office running Microsoft 365 and one line of business application is a very different proposition from five locations with legacy applications, a manufacturing floor and a mixed operating system estate.
Onsite requirements. Regularly scheduled on site presence costs considerably more than remote first support with visits as needed.
The question worth asking
When you are down to two or three providers, ask each of them what they would do in the first 90 days.
A good answer is specific and unglamorous. Document the environment. Test the backups, because nobody has. Get monitoring and endpoint detection deployed. Find out what the previous provider left broken. Standardize onboarding so new hires stop taking three days to become productive.
A weak answer is a list of products they intend to sell you.
The first 90 days tell you most of what you need to know, because that is when a provider either builds an accurate picture of your business or starts guessing. Everything after that is downstream of it.
If you want a comparison point, we are happy to quote against whatever you are already looking at, and to tell you plainly if the other proposal is the better fit. Our managed IT services page covers what our agreements include, and we start every engagement with a free assessment whose findings are yours to keep either way.