You're staring at two or three MSP quotes, and none of them line up. One vendor prices by user, another by device. A third hands you a flat monthly number with an “included services” list that doesn’t map to either of the other two. You're trying to judge your options, and you're wary of choosing based on the lowest bottom-line number alone, because you've heard the stories about bills that quietly climb after the contract is signed.
We should say this plainly before going further: Bit by Bit sells managed IT services, so we have a stake in this conversation. That means we owe you the real mechanics of how pricing gets built — including the parts that make comparing quotes genuinely harder, like minimum fees and the fact that pricing isn’t a single fixed formula every provider uses the same way.
Underneath the quotes in front of you is a simpler question: how much do managed IT services cost? But that question doesn’t have one answer, because managed IT services pricing isn’t assembled from a single formula. It’s built from a specific set of factors that shift depending on your business and your provider. That’s what this article breaks down:
- the real factors that go into your number
- why users usually drive the price more than devices do
- and what a minimum fee is actually protecting.
"When we factor in all the variables that make up your business, it's users that usually emerges as the big one."
— Ivan Shore, VP of Sales & Marketing, Bit by Bit
The Factors That Actually Go Into Your Price
When you ask an MSP how they landed on your number, you’re really asking about an IT support pricing structure with several moving parts, some weighted more heavily than others. Managed IT services pricing typically comes down to a checklist like this one:
- Number of users
- Number of devices
- The applications your business runs, and how complex they are to support
- Your network setup (cloud vs. on-prem servers, and how much data you're moving)
- Number of business locations
- Whether your team works hybrid or fully in-office
- Whether you want scheduled, on-site desk-side support
Why Users (Not Devices) Usually Drive the Number
Most businesses have far more devices than employees. A team of 50 people might easily have more than 100 supported devices once you account for laptops, desktops, phones, tablets, shared workstations and other connected equipment.
If pricing were based on every individual device, your monthly bill would become more variable and complicated.
"We try to go by user because we want to be competitively priced. And there will typically be more devices than users, right?”
— Ivan Shore
A per-user pricing model keeps things simple. Instead of tracking and billing for every laptop, mobile phone, and other connected device separately, you pay based on the number of people who rely on your technology each day.
That doesn’t mean your devices receive any less attention. Every supported device, shared workstation, network component, and system is still documented, monitored and maintained. User-based pricing simply creates a clearer, more predictable billing model that’s easier to understand and more transparent.
What a Minimum Fee Is Actually Protecting
Even the smallest managed IT services pricing conversation runs into a baseline number, and it's worth understanding why. Regardless of headcount, there's a floor cost to properly support any customer — endpoint protection, monitoring, and responding to alerts don't scale down to zero just because your team is small.
"For Bit by Bit we have a two thousand dollar a month minimum fee. Even though we talk about users a lot, there's a lot of endpoint protection that goes into place on systems, there's a lot of security. There's a minimum cost just to support any customer in our system."
— Ivan Shore
Flexibility: Co-Managed and Custom Situations
None of this means pricing is one rigid formula applied the same way to every business. MSP pricing models flex for unique situations, whether it’s co-managed arrangements where you're still handling some IT in-house, or licensing-only support for users who don't need a full help desk. Either way, it still lands on a predictable monthly number you can plan around.
"We try to be flexible, whether that means co-managed models that lend flexibility because you're going to be handling some of the IT services in house, or whether you have a unique set of circumstances. But at the end of the day it still typically comes up to some sort of monthly number, so you have an understanding of the fixed investment you're making into IT."
— Ivan Shore
Quick Answers to Common Pricing Questions
Will an MSP negotiate on price?
There's room to flex the model — co-managed arrangements and licensing-only support are proof of that — but a responsible MSP won't negotiate below the minimum that reflects their real baseline costs. If a quote drops well under what similar providers charge for similar scope, that's worth asking about directly.
What if my business doesn't fit the standard pricing model?
It's more common than you'd think. Co-managed IT and licensing-only support both exist because standard per-user pricing doesn't fit every business, and a good provider will tell you upfront how they'd adapt their structure to your situation rather than forcing you into a model that doesn't match how your team actually works.
Why do two MSP quotes for the same business size come out so differently?
Because user count is only one factor among several that affect managed IT services pricing. Two businesses with the same headcount can land on very different numbers once you account for network complexity, application support needs, number of locations, and whether on-site support is part of the deal. Matching headcount doesn't mean matching environments.
Why does managed IT cost what it does?
Part of the answer is the minimum baseline: endpoint protection, monitoring, and alert response exist under the hood for every customer regardless of size. That cost doesn't disappear for a smaller business. The rest comes down to the factors above: your users, devices, applications, network, and support preferences all add up to the number you see on a proposal.
Ready to See Your Own Number Broken Down?
No two businesses' IT environments are identical, which is exactly why no two quotes should look identical either. Book a free assessment and we'll walk you through exactly what's driving your price, with nothing held back.