What's the cost to outsource IT support?

How much to outsource Managed IT support?

There are a few elements you need to understand when pricing IT support. Each business is different, and you must find the right package that suits your organisation and needs.

Costs can vary based on the response time you expect on tickets if you need after-hours support, how important security is and, of course, the number of staff members you need to support. But generally speaking, support costs sit between $110 – $155 per user per month.

But first, what is Managed IT Support?

If you’ve come here and are looking for an hourly rate, we might not be the IT Support company for you.

Let’s break this down. There are 2 types of IT support.

Break-fix (ad-hoc hours)

This is where you use an IT company when an issue arises. For example, you may have a problem with a computer not starting. You pick up the phone, call your IT person and they’ll try and fix it for you. Something breaks so you call someone to fix it. You will pay a rate for the technician’s time and that’s it. This is also known as reactive support.

Managed IT support

The main difference between break-fix and managed IT support is that the latter is proactive.

When your support is proactive, your IT environment is constantly being monitored. Alerts are sent to your IT team when an issue has occurred or when it’s about to occur. That means they are aware of the problem before your staff call or, even better, can solve the problem before it becomes an issue.

So why do we focus on Managed Services? Because waiting for problems to occur and then fix them means your staff are fighting fires with technology instead of doing the job you are paying them to do. Happier, productive staff means more efficiency for your business. Go Remotely states that “The average employee is only productive for 2 hours and 53 minutes per day”. So you definitely want your team to spend as little time as possible on the phone with IT support.

More productive staff means a happier client base; something we both have in common.

We’ll go into more detail about more benefits of Managed IT Support, but to summarise, “Prevention is better than Cure”.

Want to know how much it costs to move your IT Support to Intuitive IT?

We’ve built a handy little calculator which will give you an estimate of the monthly cost of your IT Support on one of our Managed Plans. Click the image below to get started!

Breaking down your IT Support factors

Your managed IT support package can be broken up into 4 key areas.

Support, Security, Management and Services.

Support
SLA – This area contains your Service Level Agreement (SLA) which is how quickly your provider will respond to your issues. Depending on the package, this is between 4 hours or 1 hour. Monitoring – All our packages have 24/7 monitoring of your services. This means that once a technician takes a look at an alert, they will have a clear picture of what has occurred to that service no matter what time of day it is. Application Support – All our packages also have full application support for your services. We will help with any application you use. We are well versed in common systems and apps like Windows, Microsoft 365 and productivity software such as the Office suite. For some applications, we recommend that you have a support agreement with the supplier. And we can contact them on your behalf. Microsoft and 3rd Party patching – All our packages will automatically patch your Microsoft and a range of 3rd party applications. This is a proactive measure to make sure any existing issues with this software are resolved and any security issues are patched. Managed Anti-virus – All your computers and servers will have anti-virus deployed to them. Each computer will report back to a central location so your provider can get a birds-eye view of malicious activity that occurs on your network. Unlimited Remote Support – That’s right. Make as many calls to the helpdesk as you need to for one fixed price. This is so important to make sure the cost of assistance doesn’t get in the way of the productivity of your team. Our higher plans also have a fixed onsite and after-hours support built-in as well.

Support

SLA – This area contains your Service Level Agreement (SLA) which is how quickly your provider will respond to your issues. Depending on the package, this is between 4 hours or 1 hour.

Monitoring – All our packages have 24/7 monitoring of your services. This means that once a technician takes a look at an alert, they will have a clear picture of what has occurred to that service no matter what time of day it is.

Application Support – All our packages also have full application support for your services. We will help with any application you use. We are well versed in common systems and apps like Windows, Microsoft 365 and productivity software such as the Office suite. For some applications, we recommend that you have a support agreement with the supplier. And we can contact them on your behalf.

Microsoft and 3rd Party patching – All our packages will automatically patch your Microsoft and a range of 3rd party applications. This is a proactive measure to make sure any existing issues with this software are resolved and any security issues are patched.

Managed Anti-virus – All your computers and servers will have anti-virus deployed to them. Each computer will report back to a central location so your provider can get a birds-eye view of malicious activity that occurs on your network.

Unlimited Remote Support – That’s right. Make as many calls to the helpdesk as you need to for one fixed price. This is so important to make sure the cost of assistance doesn’t get in the way of the productivity of your team. Our higher plans also have a fixed onsite and after-hours support built-in as well.

Security
Simulated Phishing Attacks – According to Scam Watch, $1.6 million of money was lost due directly to phishing. As of June 2021, this has risen to $2.4 million in the first 6 months of the year. This is only the data that has been reported directly to the ACCC which means the real figure will be significantly higher. We can help build those walls to help protect you but if your staff give away the keys to the front door then it doesn’t matter how high the walls are. With our simulated phishing attacks, we’ll send “fake” malicious software to your staff and test them to see if they click links or enter passwords. Blacklist, Website and Dark Web Monitoring – We’ll monitor your email servers to make sure spammers aren’t sending mail through your servers. We’ll monitor your website to make sure hackers haven’t installed malicious software and we’ll also monitor the dark web to make we’re aware if you or your staffs’ credentials are now available for sale. This makes sure your business is protected from a reputational standpoint as well as your systems. Password Management System – In our higher plans we offer a subscription to a password management system as part of your package. Managing your passwords correctly, storing them securely and ensuring they are random and unique is crucial to protecting your business.

Security

Simulated Phishing Attacks – According to Scam Watch, $1.6 million of money was lost due directly to phishing. As of June 2021, this has risen to $2.4 million in the first 6 months of the year. This is only the data that has been reported directly to the ACCC which means the real figure will be significantly higher.

We can help build those walls to help protect you but if your staff give away the keys to the front door then it doesn’t matter how high the walls are. With our simulated phishing attacks, we’ll send “fake” malicious software to your staff and test them to see if they click links or enter passwords.

Blacklist, Website and Dark Web Monitoring – We’ll monitor your email servers to make sure spammers aren’t sending mail through your servers. We’ll monitor your website to make sure hackers haven’t installed malicious software and we’ll also monitor the dark web to make we’re aware if you or your staffs’ credentials are now available for sale.

This makes sure your business is protected from a reputational standpoint as well as your systems.

Password Management System – In our higher plans we offer a subscription to a password management system as part of your package. Managing your passwords correctly, storing them securely and ensuring they are random and unique is crucial to protecting your business.

Management
Monthly IT Support Meetings – For your IT to be managed properly, you need an IT manager. Someone who can sit with you and discuss your current issues, potential problems and make recommendations to make your environment more secure and stable. Each month we’ll have a face to face (or video call meeting) to discuss your IT Report. This report covers 9 keys areas that need to be addressed if we’re serious about your IT. Documentation also falls under Management. Once each ticket is resolved, the resolution is stored in the case for future reference. Common problems will have a Knowledge Base article created as well, so your staff can look to solve their own problems. Giving your team a self-service option will be quicker for some of your staff.

Management

Monthly IT Support Meetings – For your IT to be managed properly, you need an IT manager. Someone who can sit with you and discuss your current issues, potential problems and make recommendations to make your environment more secure and stable. Each month we’ll have a face to face (or video call meeting) to discuss your IT Report. This report covers 9 keys areas that need to be addressed if we’re serious about your IT.

Documentation also falls under Management. Once each ticket is resolved, the resolution is stored in the case for future reference. Common problems will have a Knowledge Base article created as well, so your staff can look to solve their own problems. Giving your team a self-service option will be quicker for some of your staff.

Services
The fourth and final area is our services. Depending on the plan, these services may be included or could be an additional cost. DR testing – Disaster Recovery testing is conducted annually to make sure your business is ready to recover quickly from a disaster. We will take the latest DR plan and implement it. From this test, we’ll understand how quickly your business can return to normal, and iron out any issues discovered during the simulation. If the speed of the recovery isn’t acceptable, we can make further recommendations to decrease the downtime. Microsoft 365 Cloud Backup – One myth of the cloud is that because your data is in the cloud it doesn’t need to be backed up. We offer a service that will back up your data to another place in the cloud so that if anything goes wrong we have in a position to recover. Anti-spam service – This anti-spam service is more powerful than any built-in spam service. Its detection rate of spam and malicious emails are far higher and more accurate. It can also detect when someone sends an email to your organisation where they are attempting to impersonate one of your team. Finally, this service will share information with the anti-virus software installed on your servers and computers to detect coordinated attacks and stop them in their tracks. Managed Compliance – Our software will scan your files and data and check for any information that may conflict with your regularity requirements. For example, if can scan for credit card data that isn’t located in a PCI environment – like your file server and then alert you. Managed Mobile – Manage your mobile fleet the same way you manage your computers. Get reports on your organisation’s mobile device, stop apps from being installed and get logs of activity from the devices. Managed Security Awareness Training – Linked with the Phishing Testing above, we provide a suite of training tools to your staff. So if they fail any tests or simply wish to upskill we’ll provide them with online training so they can do so.

Services

The fourth and final area is our services. Depending on the plan, these services may be included or could be an additional cost.

DR testing – Disaster Recovery testing is conducted annually to make sure your business is ready to recover quickly from a disaster. We will take the latest DR plan and implement it. From this test, we’ll understand how quickly your business can return to normal, and iron out any issues discovered during the simulation. If the speed of the recovery isn’t acceptable, we can make further recommendations to decrease the downtime.

Microsoft 365 Cloud Backup – One myth of the cloud is that because your data is in the cloud it doesn’t need to be backed up. We offer a service that will back up your data to another place in the cloud so that if anything goes wrong we have in a position to recover.

Anti-spam service – This anti-spam service is more powerful than any built-in spam service. Its detection rate of spam and malicious emails are far higher and more accurate. It can also detect when someone sends an email to your organisation where they are attempting to impersonate one of your team. Finally, this service will share information with the anti-virus software installed on your servers and computers to detect coordinated attacks and stop them in their tracks.

Managed Compliance – Our software will scan your files and data and check for any information that may conflict with your regularity requirements. For example, if can scan for credit card data that isn’t located in a PCI environment – like your file server and then alert you.

Managed Mobile – Manage your mobile fleet the same way you manage your computers. Get reports on your organisation’s mobile device, stop apps from being installed and get logs of activity from the devices.

Managed Security Awareness Training – Linked with the Phishing Testing above, we provide a suite of training tools to your staff. So if they fail any tests or simply wish to upskill we’ll provide them with online training so they can do so.

How plans are priced

As you would have seen, plan pricing is based on the number of users in your environment.

This is for 2 reasons.

Most of your licensing subscriptions are now charged per user so it makes sense to keep this consistent
Today with working from home occurring approximately 50% of the time, some organisations have multiple computers for their staff. Charging per device, would become too expensive and make outsourced IT less palatable.

In addition to the per-user cost, there is also a baseline infrastructure cost. Factors that affect this price are:

The number of physical sites of your business,
The number of servers in the environment
The age of your infrastructure

This price is difficult to determine without looking at your environment, but take a look at the scenarios below to give you an idea of the expected cost.

The length of the contract can also determine the cost of your plan. Plans are priced on a standard contract length of 12 months, but the cost is reduced for longer contracts.

Finally, the level of support you choose (Good, Better and Best) will also affect the cost. One example of this is an onboarding cost. Taking on a new client is a project in itself as we gather information from yourself and your existing provider and start the onboarding process.

On our Best plan, we waive this onboarding cost for you.

See the next section for more information on the differences between the plans.

Which IT Support plan to choose?

Which plan you choose will depend on how your business prefers to work.

Good

The Good plan provides what we would define as a “minimum required baseline” for your business. You receive unlimited support for each of your staff, your computers and infrastructure are monitored and patched. We include DR testing and some of the security options and where they are not available, they can be added as al-a-carte.

Better

The Better plan has everything the Good plan has but includes Password Management and Dark Web Monitoring for added security protections. You’ll also have a monthly IT strategy meeting with our IT manager to help layout the short, medium and long term goals for your business. Again, further security and compliance options are available as al-a-carte.

Best

Everything that’s in the Better plan and all options is included as standard. The other major difference is the SLA is reduced to 1 hour. So if super responsive support is required for your business, then the Best plan is the one for you.

Want help deciding which plan is best for you?

We’ve built a handy little calculator which will give you an estimate of the monthly cost of your IT Support on one of our Managed Plans. Click the image below to get started!

How Intuitive IT Outsourced IT is priced

Example scenarios:

An accounting firm with 20 users that has a single site based in Melbourne. They use a combination of cloud and local servers. Their staff works 3 days of the office and 2 days from home and require support no matter where their staff are based. They choose the Better plan on a 12-month contract. Their costs were:
- 20 users per month: $2,500 ex GST
- Baseline infrastructure per month: $990 ex GST
- Onboarding cost: $2,000 ex GST
A manufacturing company with 84 users with their headquarters based in Melbourne and with satellite offices located in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide. They have a hybrid infrastructure and it will remain this way for the next 5 years. They choose the Good plan. Their costs were:
- 84 users per month: $9,240 ex GST
- Baseline infrastructure per month: $1,950 ex GST
- Onboarding cost: $2,000 ex GST
A company in the energy industry with 10 staff based in Sydney and Brisbane. They are a full cloud organisation, who are very serious about their security and require low SLAs and additional support by using our Development team to build advanced reporting systems. Their costs, excluding those extra hours for development are:
- 10 users per month: $1,550 ex GST
- Baseline infrastructure per month: $100 ex GST
- Onboarding cost: FREE

What are the next steps?

There’s a lot to take in here and each business has its own nuances when it comes to its IT Support. The best thing to do is get in touch. Because we offer Development services as well as Website services, we can also roll in those services to your monthly plan.

Give us a call or fill in the form, or chat with us for a FREE consultation.

What’s the cost to outsource IT support?