Is your business considering partnering with an MSP (Managed Services Provider)? After all, you’re a team that’s accustomed to wearing any hat the situation calls for—why would you want to pay for outsiders coming into your space and touching your technology? On paper, it sounds intimidating.
But, as it turns out, there are many reasons why you should. By entrusting your technology needs to an MSP, you receive benefits such as:
- A sense of relief. Instead of having to rely on your one IT guy to figure out why your server went down, you now have a team of highly trained experts with different areas of focus and applications.
- Thoroughly documented processes for different systems—The amount of potential downtime you and your clients experience is exponentially reduced by having a process in place.
- Nightly patching and updating—Your daily operations aren’t interrupted, and everything is set for smooth sailing by morning.
- Smarter spending—By hiring an MSP, you don’t have to pay out the salaries, benefits, training, and sick days that come with hiring in-house. No more panicking over your one-person IT team taking a vacation.
- Your business is going to grow—If you rely on in-house IT, you’ll have to hire more employees to support all your technology. With an MSP, all they would do is adjust your user count according to your contract.
Restructuring how your company approaches IT might sound like too much, and not just because of how different everything will be. Let’s address the elephant in the room– budget constraints. It’s hard to search “how much does an MSP cost” and find any set number to go by, so it’s easy to get cold feet.
To clear the air, we’ll be covering a few key factors that go into how an MSP calculates your monthly bill.
How MSP Services are priced
1— The number of endpoints, computers, or servers
We placed this at number one for a reason: this will impact your MSP services the most. Think about it; the bigger your business, the more devices your MSP will have to strategize around, support, and protect.
2— Number of locations
If your business is operating out of multiple locations, your infrastructure is affected, which MSPs will need to strategize for.
3— The amount backed up data
Data backup is crucial for any business—If disaster strikes, it can be used to recover everything you would have otherwise lost. MSPs can handle backing up your data to a more secure location like the cloud, complete with verification safeguards, but the amount of data you have will determine how much time the process will take.
4— Projects
If your company has any big projects they’ve been putting off, such as cloud migration, your MSP can handle it for a one-time charge.
5— The level of cybersecurity you need to be compliant
The more regulated your industry, the more federal and state compliance standards you’re held accountable for. MSPs are there to help you operate safely and stay compliant—the more regulations there are, the more work it will take to meet them. The price tag on the fines you’ll get if you fall out of compliance, however, is higher than any MSP charge will be.
Don’t worry—none of this is upfront. Your business’s MSP bill is determined every month, just like any other service bill. Compare that to paying thousands of dollars biweekly to an in-house IT team, and you’ll see the difference. However, for highly regulated industries, consider doing business with an MSP who specializes and is certified in security. A great certification to look out for is CISSP.
Managed IT services are worth every penny
Partner with a dependable provider, save money and grow your business. What’s not to love?
Businesses looking to succeed and grow organically, but not overspend in the IT department, need an MSP. If you have at least 15 employees, it’s a no-brainer for the proper technical expertise and support quality alone. It may be more expensive for highly regulated industries, such as healthcare and legal, but having a team to secure your business infrastructure is handy when avoiding non-compliance fees. No more wondering if you’re up-to-date and safe from online threats—spend your time on what matters and let the MSPs handle the tech work.
Ready to get your MSP journey started? Contact the expert team at Centriworks. We’ll run a deep-dive network assessment on your current IT environment, so we can better understand your goals and how to meet them.