If you’ve ever compared quotes from Managed Service Providers, you’ve probably encountered something that makes absolutely no sense at first.
One company wants $35 or $40 per user per month.
Another wants $100.
Another is approaching $200 per user — or more.
And somehow, all three describe themselves as an MSP.
So what’s going on?
Is the $200 provider making an obscene amount of money?
Is the $40 provider simply more efficient?
Is somebody ripping you off?
Maybe.
But there’s a much more important question:
Are you actually comparing the same service?
Because “Managed IT” has become an incredibly broad category.
And the difference between two MSPs isn’t necessarily $160 per user.
It may be the difference between providing computer support and taking meaningful responsibility for an organization’s technology environment.
The MSP Label Doesn’t Tell You Very Much
There is no universal service package that every company must provide simply because it calls itself a Managed Service Provider.
One MSP might provide remote support, basic monitoring, patching, and endpoint protection.
Another might provide a much broader technology environment incorporating endpoint management, advanced cybersecurity, identity protection, email security, DNS protection, security awareness, Microsoft 365 management, documentation, backup oversight, vendor management, lifecycle planning, strategic guidance, executive reporting, and ongoing technology leadership.
Both invoices might say:
Managed IT Services
Those are not necessarily the same product.
That’s why comparing MSPs primarily on price per user can be dangerously misleading.
It’s a little like comparing a motel room with a Ritz-Carlton suite because they both provide somewhere to sleep.
The relevant question isn’t:
“Why does this one cost more?”
It’s:
“What am I actually buying?”
What Can $40 Per User Economically Support?
Let’s remove emotion from the conversation and look at basic economics.
Imagine a company with 25 employees paying an MSP $40 per user.
That’s:
$1,000 per month.
$12,000 per year.
From that revenue, the provider has to pay for whatever software and security tools are included, technical labor, salaries and benefits, insurance, training, administrative overhead, sales and marketing, facilities, taxes, and every other expense required to operate the business.
And presumably, the provider needs to make a profit.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that business model.
But it should cause you to ask an important question:
What level of service can reasonably be delivered within those economics?
That’s not an accusation.
It’s math.
If the service is primarily reactive support combined with basic monitoring and endpoint protection, perhaps those economics work perfectly well for that model.
But if you believe you’re also purchasing comprehensive cybersecurity, proactive technology management, strategic planning, governance, documentation, business continuity planning, executive advisory, and ongoing risk management, you should understand exactly how those capabilities are being delivered.
You’re Not Paying $200 to Have Someone Reset a Password
This is where the comparison frequently goes wrong.
A business owner looks at two proposals:
MSP A: $40/user
MSP B: $190/user
And thinks:
“Why would I pay almost five times as much for IT support?”
You shouldn’t.
If the only thing you want is basic IT support, the less expensive provider may be exactly what your organization needs.
But a mature Managed Services relationship can encompass something much larger.
You’re paying someone to take meaningful responsibility for technology your organization depends upon.
That can include keeping systems operational, supporting employees, managing devices, maintaining standards, securing identities, protecting endpoints, monitoring threats, managing Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, maintaining documentation, coordinating vendors, planning technology investments, managing lifecycle and replacement, identifying risk, preparing for incidents, helping leadership understand technology decisions, and continuously improving the environment.
Now we’re no longer talking only about a help desk.
We’re talking about:
Managing technology as a business function.
And that is a fundamentally different responsibility.
Cybersecurity Changes the Economics Dramatically
This is one of the biggest differences businesses need to understand.
Installing antivirus is not the same thing as operating a cybersecurity program.
Modern cybersecurity can involve multiple layers of protection across:
- Identity
- Endpoints
- DNS
- Cloud applications
- Data
- Users
- Devices
- Backups
- Networks
Then there is monitoring.
Detection.
Investigation.
Response.
Security awareness.
Configuration management.
Vulnerability management.
Incident response planning.
Logging.
Documentation.
Risk management.
And increasingly, compliance, contractual, customer, and cyber insurance requirements.
Each additional capability requires some combination of technology, people, processes, expertise, and ongoing management.
A provider can absolutely sell you inexpensive endpoint protection.
That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re managing cybersecurity risk for your organization.
Those are different things.
And leadership should understand which one they’re actually purchasing.
The Most Expensive Difference May Be What Nobody Is Doing
This is where executives should pay particularly close attention.
Ask your MSP:
Who is responsible for our technology strategy?
Who evaluates whether our technology investments support our business goals?
Who identifies aging systems before they become emergencies?
Who reviews cybersecurity risk with leadership?
Who evaluates whether our identity and access controls are appropriate?
Who maintains our technology documentation?
Who coordinates our technology vendors?
Who helps us prepare for a cyber incident?
Who evaluates our readiness for AI?
Who considers regulatory, contractual, customer, or cyber insurance requirements?
Who looks at where technology is creating unnecessary friction inside the company?
Who develops the roadmap for where we’re going next?
If the answer to most of those questions is:
“Nobody.”
Then you haven’t necessarily found an inexpensive way of receiving those services.
You may simply not be buying them.
That’s an enormous distinction.
Cheap Doesn’t Automatically Mean Bad
This deserves to be said clearly.
A $40-per-user MSP isn’t automatically bad.
And a $200-per-user MSP isn’t automatically good.
Price alone tells you very little about quality.
A lower-cost provider may offer an excellent service for organizations that need straightforward technical support, have relatively simple environments, and are comfortable owning more responsibility internally.
Likewise, an expensive provider can still deliver terrible service.
The question is whether the provider’s capabilities, responsibilities, service model, technology stack, security practices, and business philosophy match what your organization actually needs.
That’s the comparison worth making.
There is another question leadership should consider:
Who owns the responsibilities that aren’t included?
If your MSP doesn’t provide technology strategy, perhaps someone internally does.
If it doesn’t manage cybersecurity risk, perhaps you have a separate security provider.
If it doesn’t handle compliance, perhaps you have an internal GRC team.
That’s perfectly reasonable.
Problems arise when leadership assumes someone is taking responsibility for something when, in reality, nobody is.
Ask What Happens Before Something Breaks
Traditional IT has historically revolved around a simple transaction:
Something breaks. Someone fixes it.
Good Managed IT should operate differently.
The objective should increasingly be to prevent problems, identify risks, standardize environments, plan ahead, and continuously improve the organization’s technology.
That’s why one of the best questions you can ask a current or prospective MSP isn’t:
“How fast do you respond to tickets?”
Ask:
“What are you doing for my business every month when we’re NOT submitting tickets?”
That’s where the differences become interesting.
What are they reviewing?
What are they monitoring?
What are they improving?
What risks are they identifying?
What conversations are they having with leadership?
What evidence are they providing?
What are they planning for?
And ultimately:
What exactly are you paying them to own?
Your MSP Should Understand the Business
Technology doesn’t exist in isolation.
A technology decision can affect productivity.
A cybersecurity decision can affect operational risk.
An identity problem can become a compliance problem.
Poor information governance can become an AI problem.
A poorly designed process can become a labor problem.
Technical debt can become a growth problem.
A security weakness can become a customer due-diligence problem.
That’s why the best technology conversations shouldn’t begin with:
“What product can we sell you?”
They should begin with:
“What is the business trying to accomplish?”
At Kraken Technology Solutions, we believe requirements should drive architecture.
Products should not drive requirements.
And that philosophy becomes particularly important when an organization is considering changing technology providers.
Before You Choose an MSP, Understand What You’re Starting With
There’s another problem with comparing Managed IT providers that doesn’t get discussed enough:
You can’t intelligently evaluate a proposed solution if you don’t fully understand the environment it’s supposed to solve.
Before signing a Managed Services agreement, leadership should understand what it actually has today.
What technology is in place?
What condition is it in?
Where are the cybersecurity gaps?
How are identities and access managed?
What does the organization depend on to operate?
What happens if a critical system fails?
What documentation exists?
Where is sensitive information stored?
How are backups managed and tested?
What contractual, regulatory, insurance, or customer requirements apply?
What technology debt has accumulated?
Where are employees losing time because of poor systems or processes?
And what does the business expect to accomplish over the next several years?
Perhaps most importantly:
What risks and problems are you unknowingly carrying into the next agreement?
Without answering those questions first, selecting an MSP can become less of a strategic business decision and more of a comparison between proposals.
And proposals are generally written by companies trying to sell you something.
Requirements Should Come Before Solutions
If you invite three MSPs to propose services without first establishing what your organization actually needs, you’re likely to receive three different interpretations of the problem.
One provider may emphasize help desk and endpoint management.
Another may emphasize cybersecurity.
Another may bundle dozens of products together.
Each may be perfectly capable of delivering what they’re proposing.
But leadership is still left trying to determine which proposal actually addresses the needs of the business.
That’s difficult when the organization hasn’t independently established those needs first.
This is one of the reasons we created the Kraken Strategic Technology Assessment.
The Kraken Strategic Technology Assessment: Know Before You Buy
The Kraken Strategic Technology Assessment isn’t simply designed to tell you which computers need replacing.
It’s designed to give leadership a broader understanding of the organization’s current technology position before major decisions are made.
We look at technology through the lens of the business — identifying risks, gaps, dependencies, opportunities, and areas where technology may be holding the organization back.
The objective is to establish a clear picture of:
Where you are today.
Where the business is trying to go.
What stands between those two points.
What should happen next.
That creates something incredibly valuable before entering a Managed Services agreement:
An informed buyer.
Instead of asking an MSP:
“What do you think we need?”
leadership can have a much more sophisticated conversation:
“Here are our business requirements, risks, priorities, and objectives. Show us how your service model addresses them.”
That’s an entirely different procurement process.
And it makes comparing $40, $100, $150, and $200-per-user proposals far more meaningful.
Because now you’re not simply comparing prices.
You’re comparing each provider’s ability to meet defined requirements and assume the responsibilities your organization actually needs.
Learn more about the Kraken Strategic Technology Assessment
An MSP Agreement Should Be the Result of the Strategy
This is important:
The objective of an assessment should not be to justify changing IT companies.
Sometimes an assessment may confirm that an organization’s existing provider is perfectly appropriate.
Sometimes it may reveal that the business has outgrown its current support model.
Sometimes the problem isn’t the MSP at all.
The organization may need to address cybersecurity, governance, Microsoft 365, business continuity, documentation, compliance, processes, information management, or another issue before changing providers.
And sometimes an organization doesn’t need one provider to do everything.
It may have internal IT.
It may use one company for support and another for cybersecurity.
It may need outside technology leadership while keeping an existing operational provider.
The objective isn’t to force every organization into the same model.
It’s to understand the requirements first.
Then design the model around them.
You May Not Need the $200 MSP
And that’s okay.
Not every organization needs the same level of technology management.
A five-person business with straightforward technology requirements is very different from a 75-person organization handling sensitive information, serving enterprise customers, pursuing compliance requirements, operating across multiple locations, or depending heavily on technology for daily operations.
The goal shouldn’t be to buy the most expensive IT provider you can find.
Nor should it automatically be to find the cheapest.
The goal should be to understand:
What does our organization actually require?
What risks are we willing to accept?
What responsibilities do we expect our provider to own?
What responsibilities will remain internal or with other partners?
And are we actually buying the capabilities we think we’re buying?
That’s the conversation executives should be having.
The $40 vs. $200 Question Is the Wrong Question
So if you’re comparing MSPs and one costs $40 per user while another costs $200, don’t immediately ask:
“Why is this company five times more expensive?”
Ask:
What does each company actually take responsibility for?
What technology is included?
What cybersecurity capabilities are included?
Who monitors them?
Who responds when something happens?
What standards are maintained?
What documentation exists?
How is our environment reviewed?
How does leadership receive visibility?
What strategic planning occurs?
What happens during an incident?
What happens when we grow?
What happens when our compliance requirements change?
And perhaps most importantly:
Who is thinking about what our business will need from technology next — not merely fixing what broke today?
Those answers tell you far more than the price per user ever will.
Don’t Compare Prices Until You Compare Responsibilities
At Kraken Technology Solutions, Managed IT is the foundation of what we do.
Cybersecurity is one of its most critical components.
But our responsibility doesn’t end when the computers are working.
We help leadership understand how technology, cybersecurity, risk, governance, information, compliance, and emerging capabilities like AI fit into the larger business.
That doesn’t mean every organization needs every capability Kraken offers.
It means the organization should understand what it needs before signing an agreement that may define its technology environment for years.
So before you sign your next Managed Services agreement:
Know what you’re starting with.
Understand your technology.
Understand your cybersecurity risk.
Understand your business requirements.
Understand what’s missing.
Understand what you’re already doing well.
Then determine what kind of provider — or combination of providers — your organization actually needs.
That’s the purpose of the Kraken Strategic Technology Assessment.
Explore the Kraken Strategic Technology Assessment
Because the difference between a $40 MSP and a $200 MSP isn’t really about price.
It’s about what your business needs someone to take responsibility for.
Technology is not the destination.
A better business is.
