How much does small-business IT support cost?

Hourly support: what you are paying for

Hourly work suits businesses whose IT mostly behaves. You pay when something breaks and nothing in between. The risk is a bad month: three separate problems in three weeks costs more than a plan would have.

Rates vary with the work, not with the provider’s mood. Straightforward troubleshooting sits at the lower rate, administrative work on accounts and systems higher, and anything needed the same day higher again — because it displaces other scheduled work.

1. 1Our first session is $49 for up to 45 minutes, which is deliberately priced to be a low-risk way to find out whether we are any good.
2. 2Standard remote support is $79/hour. Professional and administrative work is $99/hour.
3. 3Urgent same-day support is $149/hour, subject to availability.
4. 4Work is billed in 15-minute increments, so a ten-minute fix is not billed as an hour.

Monthly plans: what changes

A monthly plan buys two things. The obvious one is a block of hours at a lower effective rate. The less obvious one, and usually the more valuable, is that somebody already knows your setup — so you are not explaining your network from scratch every time.

1. 1Small Business Care is $299/month and includes 4 hours, which suits roughly 5–10 people.
2. 2Business Support is $599/month and includes 8 hours, plus employee setup and Microsoft 365 administration.
3. 3Managed Support is $99/user/month and includes 2 hours per user, for teams that want one IT partner rather than a support queue.
4. 4Extra time beyond the included hours is $79/hour, agreed before the work continues.

Working out which is cheaper for you

Do not guess this. Look at the last three months and count how many times someone in the business lost working time to an IT problem — including the ones that were sorted out by whoever is unofficially the "computer person", because that is real cost too, just hidden in someone else’s salary.

1. 1Under 2 hours a month: hourly is almost certainly cheaper.
2. 2Around 3–4 hours a month: close to the crossover. A plan starts to win on predictability as much as price.
3. 3Over 4 hours a month, or recurring problems: a plan is usually cheaper, and the recurring problems tend to get fixed properly rather than repeatedly patched.
4. 4Growing or hiring regularly: onboarding is the hidden cost. Each new starter is an hour or two, every time.

What should make you suspicious of a quote

A price given before anyone has heard what is wrong is a guess, and guesses get corrected upward once the work starts. Anyone quoting a fixed price for an undefined problem is pricing their risk, and that risk is priced into what you pay.

1. 1Be wary of any provider unwilling to confirm the scope before starting.
2. 2Be wary of long lock-in contracts for a service you have not tried.
3. 3Be wary of "unlimited support", which always has limits written somewhere.
4. 4Ask what is not included. A provider who answers that clearly is telling you they have thought about it.