Hourly, when something breaks
- You pay for nothing you do not use
- Honest for genuinely occasional problems
- A bad month can be a very expensive month
- Quietly discourages calling about small things
- Nobody is responsible for prevention, only repair
Guide
What IT support costs a small business
Typical market prices from published sources, what pushes a quote up or down, and the ways we keep support affordable for small teams.
Facts checked
Managed IT support for a small business is most often priced per user per month, and in Kaseya's 2024 survey of 984 providers the most common band was $50 to $100 per user per month. About three in four of the providers that price per user charged $150 or less. Hourly break-fix work most often ran $101 to $200 an hour.
Those are market figures, not our prices. Where a quote lands inside or outside those bands depends on how many people and devices you have, the state of your setup, how fast you need answers, and what is in scope. What follows explains each one, so you can read any quote you receive.
Two neighbouring questions have their own pages: how each pricing shape is structured, per user, per hour, blocks or flat fee, is covered in IT support pricing models, and bringing an existing bill down is covered in how to reduce IT support costs.
Typical IT support prices
These are published market figures, each with its source. They describe what providers charge in general, not what any one business will pay.
| How it is priced | Typical market price |
|---|---|
| Per user, per month | $50 to $100 is the most common band; about three in four providers that price per user charge $150 or less |
| Per device, per month | Under $100 per device at 46% of the providers surveyed |
| Hourly, when something breaks | $101 to $200 an hour is the most common band |
| One in-house support person | $61,860 a year median salary, before payroll taxes, benefits and tools |
Sources: the first three rows come from the Kaseya 2024 MSP Benchmark Survey Report, which surveyed 984 managed IT providers, 70% of them in the Americas. The last row is the median wage for computer user support specialists from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025.
Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace licences are usually billed on top of support. To see what your Microsoft licences add up to, use our Microsoft 365 license cost calculator.
How the pricing models actually behave
The difference that matters is not the headline rate. It is what each model does to your behaviour.
Fixed monthly cover
- Predictable, which makes it budgetable
- Removes the hesitation before asking for help
- The provider now has a reason to prevent problems
- Poor value if you truly need help twice a year
- Scope matters enormously: ask what is not included
What actually drives the number
Roughly in order of impact.
- How many people, and how many devices. The most obvious driver and usually the one quoted against. Worth noting it is people and devices, not just people: one person with a laptop, a phone and a desktop is three things that can break.
- The state of what you already have. The single biggest variable and the one nobody warns you about. Support on a tidy, documented setup is straightforward. Support on an estate where nobody knows who owns the domain means the first months are archaeology. That is technical cleanup, and it is worth pricing separately rather than discovering it inside a support fee.
- How fast you need an answer. Response time is a real cost. A business that can wait until tomorrow is cheaper to support than one that cannot trade with the system down, and it should be, so be honest about which you are rather than buying the fastest tier by default.
- What counts as in scope. Email and computers, or also the website, the phones, the card machine, the booking system. Scope is where quotes that look different often turn out to be identical, and where quotes that look identical turn out not to be.
- Whether anyone internal can handle the basics. One person in the building who is comfortable restarting things and following instructions measurably reduces what you need to buy.
- Compliance and industry requirements. If you handle regulated data, requirements are set for you and cost what they cost. Ignore this at quoting stage and it reappears later.
How we keep IT support affordable
Cheap support that cannot fix things is expensive. These are the ways we bring the cost down without cutting what matters.
- Remote by design. We work over secure remote sessions and do not do site visits, so there is no travel time in the bill, and you are not waiting for someone to drive over.
- Fix the setup first, so support stays small. A tidy, documented setup needs far less ongoing help than a tangled one. Where things are messy we price the cleanup separately, once, instead of paying for it every month inside a support fee.
- Cut what you pay Microsoft or Google. Licences for people who left, duplicate seats and add-ons nobody uses are common. A licence review is often the quickest place to find savings.
- Cover for what you actually run. We scope support to your real systems and people, so you are not paying for a bundle of extras you will never use.
- Senior people on every job. Problems get solved by someone who has seen them before, which means fewer hours spent on each one.
- Everything written down and in your name. Your accounts, domains and logins stay yours, with a written record of the setup. You are never locked in, so the price has to stay fair.
Questions worth asking any provider
These matter more than the rate. A cheap arrangement you cannot leave is not cheap.
- What is the response time, in writing? And what happens when it is missed. A target nobody is accountable for is a hope.
- What is explicitly not included? More useful than the inclusions list. This is where surprise invoices come from.
- Who owns our domain and our accounts? The answer should be you. If it is them, ask what leaving looks like before you sign.
- What happens if we leave? A provider confident in their work will answer this easily. Hesitation here is the answer.
- Will we get a written record of our setup? If the only copy of how your business works lives in their heads, you are buying a dependency.
- Who actually does the work? Worth knowing whether you are getting the person you are speaking to.
- Is prevention part of this, or only repair? Decides whether you are buying an ambulance or a maintenance plan.
Who this is for
- Owners comparing support quotes and unsure why they differ so much
- Businesses deciding between calling someone when it breaks and a monthly arrangement
- Anyone who has been quoted and wants to understand what they are buying
- Businesses whose current arrangement is informal and finally outgrowing it
When this is not the right fit
- Businesses needing full-time internal IT. At that size the calculation is different and worth taking seriously.
- Anyone shopping purely on lowest rate. That is a legitimate way to buy, but this page will not help you do it.
What TechTruePoint can help with
We support small businesses on the ordinary things: computers, email, domains, the website, and the systems around them. If that is the shape of what you need, the conversation is short.
- Working out honestly whether you need ongoing support at all
- Reading a quote you have received from someone else
- IT support on an ongoing basis
- Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace administration
- Cleaning up first so support is not archaeology
- Care plans for the website side of the same problem
- A written record of your setup that stays yours
Common questions
How much does IT support cost per user per month?
In Kaseya's 2024 survey of 984 managed IT providers, the most common band for per-user pricing was $50 to $100 per user per month, and about three in four of the providers that price per user charged $150 or less. A smaller group charged more, mostly where heavier security or compliance work was bundled in.
Treat that as the shape of the market, not a quote. What a plan includes matters more than the headline number, which is why the rest of this page is about scope.
What does IT support cost per hour?
For break-fix work, paid when something goes wrong, the most common hourly band in the same Kaseya 2024 survey was $101 to $200 an hour. Hourly suits businesses that rarely need help. It gets expensive quickly in a bad month, and it gives nobody a reason to prevent the next problem.
Is it cheaper to hire someone in house?
For most small businesses, no. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median wage for a computer user support specialist at $61,860 a year (May 2025). That is the salary alone, before payroll taxes, benefits, tools and training, and it buys one person with one set of skills, who also takes holidays and gets sick.
An in-house hire starts to make sense when there is a full day of IT work every day. Below that, outside support usually costs less and covers more ground.
Why is there no TechTruePoint price for ongoing support?
Defined services have published prices. Migrations, complex repairs, and ongoing IT support are quoted based on scope. You approve the price before work begins.
Ongoing support depends on things a web page cannot know: how many people you have, how much of your setup already works, and how quickly you need answers. The market figures on this page come from published sources so you can judge any quote, ours included. Ask us and you get a real number for your actual situation.
Is hourly or monthly better?
It depends on whether your costs come from incidents or from upkeep. Hourly is honest for occasional, unpredictable work and it means you pay for nothing you do not use. It also means a bad month is expensive, and it quietly discourages you from calling about small things, which is how small things become big ones.
Monthly suits businesses that need things kept running rather than fixed. It makes budgeting simple and removes the hesitation before calling. It is poor value if you genuinely need help twice a year.
The honest test: count how many times you needed help in the last twelve months. Few and unpredictable, go hourly. Regular, go monthly.
What should be included that often is not?
Ask specifically about response time, what counts as in-scope, who owns your accounts, and what happens if you leave. That last one matters most and is asked least.
The pattern to avoid is a provider who holds your domain, your tenant and your hosting in their own accounts. It is not always malicious, it is often just how they set things up, but it means leaving is expensive. Ownership should sit with you. See technical cleanup if you suspect this has already happened.
Do we need support at all?
Plenty of small businesses genuinely do not. If your setup is simple, it works, someone in the team is comfortable with it, and the records are written down, then paying a monthly fee for reassurance is not obviously good value.
What changes the answer is dependency. Once losing email for a day would cost you real money, or once nobody in the building can fix the thing everybody relies on, the calculation is different.
Related services and guides
IT support pricing models
Per user, per hour, blocks, flat fee or per project, and how each one behaves.
How to reduce IT support costs
The levers that lower the bill honestly, and the false savings that do not.
Microsoft 365 license cost calculator
Add up what your team costs on each Microsoft 365 plan, monthly and yearly, at Microsoft list prices.
Small business IT consulting
Straight advice on the systems your business runs on.
Microsoft 365 administration
Licences, accounts, security settings and the day to day of running a tenant.
Technical cleanup
Untangle the accounts, domains and logins nobody has a full list of.
What a small business website costs
The factors that actually drive the number, explained honestly.
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