For business owners
Is a managed IT provider worth it for your business?
Most small businesses don't lack IT help — they lack a schedule. Work happens after something breaks, cost is discovered afterwards, and nobody has a current list of what the company owns. Managed service changes the order of those three things.
What changes when IT is managed
Timing
Patching, endpoint health checks and security telemetry run on a schedule instead of after an outage. The work that prevents incidents is the work that reactive support never gets to.
Cost
A published monthly rate replaces variable invoices. You know the number before the month starts, and overage past the included hours is billed at a reduced, documented rate.
Record
Assets, consents, tickets and time entries live in one portal. When an insurer, auditor or acquirer asks what you run and who touched it, the answer already exists.
Run the numbers with your own figures
Nothing here is an industry average. Enter what IT actually costs you today and the calculator compares it with your real quote from our published rate card.
Calling someone when it breaks
$1,055
per month, based on your inputs
- 5 h of reactive labor at $175/h$875
- 4 h of staff time lost at $45/h$180
- Patching, monitoring and security baselines are not included in this number — they simply do not happen unless someone bills you for them.
Managed by BH Consulting
$620
per month, from the published rate card
- MSP Essentials — 3 workstations$495
- 4 support hours included, 1.0 h over at $125/h$125
- Monitoring, patching, security baselines and portal ticketing are inside the monthly price, not billed by the hour.
On your numbers, managed service comes out $435 lower per month — and that is before counting the work that never gets done under break-fix.
Estimate only, calculated from the figures you entered. Final pricing is confirmed during onboarding validation and follows the published rate card and exclusions.
When an MSP is the wrong fit
We would rather tell you now than three months into an agreement.
You need someone physically in the building
Field work, cabling, hardware swaps and equipment installs are hands-on. We coordinate independent local partners on request, but if most of your IT need is physical, a local onsite firm is the better primary provider.
You already run a full in-house IT team
If you have staff dedicated to monitoring, patching and support, a managed plan largely duplicates what you pay for. Co-managed arrangements can still make sense for coverage gaps — worth a conversation rather than an online signup.
You carry heavy regulatory obligations
HIPAA, PCI, CMMC and similar programs need scoped controls, evidence collection and attestations beyond the standard package. Those are custom engagements, not a $495 plan.
You want the cheapest possible hourly rate
Managed service front-loads prevention. If your priority is paying only when something is already broken, break-fix will look cheaper on paper — right up until the month it doesn't.
Questions owners actually ask
What actually happens when something breaks?
You open a ticket in the portal or call us. The ticket is tracked with visible status, and an attended remote session is scheduled during business hours — someone on your team approves each connection. Unattended remote control is not enabled.
How much support is included?
MSP Essentials includes four hours of remote support each month, billed in 15-minute increments once you go past it. Overage is charged at a reduced $125/hour rather than a standard project rate.
What is not included?
Licenses, backup storage, Microsoft 365 subscriptions, projects, after-hours support, compliance programs, hardware, consumables, manufacturer repair and third-party subscriptions are excluded unless separately ordered. Managed switching, advanced firewalls, network configuration projects and structured cabling are also outside the base package.
We already have someone who helps with IT. Does this replace them?
Not necessarily. Many clients keep an internal person or a trusted contractor for the things closest to their business and use managed service for the repeatable operational layer: monitoring, patching, security baselines, documentation and first-line support.
Do you come onsite?
No. BH Consulting delivers managed IT remotely and does not perform onsite work directly. If hands are needed on site, we can — at your request and subject to availability — coordinate a qualified independent local technician. That dispatch requires your approval of an estimate first and is billed separately, including labor, travel, parts, taxes and vendor charges. Onsite dispatch is not available until approved partners are activated.
Can we cancel?
Service is month-to-month unless you choose the 12-month annual commitment to claim the website upgrade promotion, which carries a prorated build fee if terminated early. The full terms are in the managed services agreement you review and sign in the portal before service starts.
See your number in about a minute
Count your workstations and network gear, and the quote tool prices it against the same rate card used in the agreement — no call required.