The most common question we get from business owners considering managed IT: "What's it going to cost?" The honest answer is that it depends — but not in a vague, dodge-the-question way. There are real variables, and understanding them helps you evaluate any quote you receive.
The baseline: per-user, per-month pricing
Most managed IT providers (including truit) price on a per-user, per-month model. For small businesses in Washington and Idaho, fully managed IT typically runs $80–$150 per user per month. That range reflects differences in:
- What's included in the base stack (monitoring only vs. full help desk + Microsoft 365 management)
- The size of your team (smaller teams often pay more per seat)
- Your existing infrastructure (inherited technical debt costs more to manage)
- Response time commitments (24/7 rapid response vs. business-hours support)
A 10-person business, fully managed, typically pays $1,000–$1,500/month. That's the number to anchor to.
What should be included — and what shouldn't be extra
The most important thing to look for in a managed IT quote is what's in the base price vs. what gets added as upsells. At a minimum, managed IT should include:
- 24/7 monitoring and alerting
- Help desk support (real people, not a form you submit)
- Patch management and software updates
- Microsoft 365 management
- Network oversight
If cybersecurity controls — MFA, email filtering, endpoint protection — are listed as add-ons rather than included, that's a red flag. Security isn't optional, and a provider that treats it as upsell revenue has the wrong incentives.
Managed IT vs. break-fix: the real cost comparison
Break-fix IT looks cheaper on paper because you only pay when something breaks. The problem is that "when something breaks" is unpredictable, and the costs compound:
- Emergency labor rates — break-fix firms charge more for urgent or after-hours work
- Downtime — the hours your team can't work while waiting for a fix
- Reactive hardware purchases — buying replacement equipment under pressure, at retail
- Lost productivity — slow systems for weeks before the final failure
Add those up across a year and break-fix almost always costs more than a flat-rate managed plan — while delivering a worse experience. The predictability of managed IT is worth something on its own.
Managed IT vs. hiring in-house
A full-time IT employee in Washington costs $65,000–$90,000 in salary alone. Add benefits, payroll taxes, and training and you're north of $85,000–$115,000 per year. That one person also gets sick, goes on vacation, and can only know so much.
A managed IT plan at $1,200/month ($14,400/year) gives you a team with deeper specialization, 24/7 coverage, and no single point of failure — at roughly one-eighth the cost. For most businesses under 50 employees, managed IT wins on value every time.
The question that actually matters
Don't ask "how much does it cost?" Ask: "What does downtime cost my business, and what am I paying today — in time, frustration, and reactive repairs — to not have this solved?" Most businesses find that managed IT pays for itself in the first avoided incident.
If you want a real number for your specific situation, schedule a free 30-minute strategy session. We'll look at your team size, current setup, and real risk profile — and give you a straight answer.
