Break-fix vs managed IT: the real cost comparison
Hourly IT looks cheaper until you count the downtime. A plain comparison of what each model costs a 50-person company.
Break-fix IT is simple. Something breaks, you call someone, they fix it, you pay for the hours. For a very small business with almost no dependence on technology it can be fine.
For everyone else, the math changes once you count what the model does not bill for.
What break-fix costs
- The invoice. Hourly rates for time spent fixing things.
- The downtime. Hours or days of staff unable to work while waiting for the call back. At 50 people and a blended cost of 60 dollars an hour, a half-day outage costs roughly 12,000 dollars in salary alone, before lost sales.
- The incentive problem. The provider earns more when things break. There is no reason to invest in preventing the next one.
- The security gap. Patching, monitoring, and backup testing are not billable emergencies, so they do not happen.
What managed IT costs
- The flat fee. A per-user monthly rate covering support, monitoring, patching, and backup.
- The prevention. Most outages are caught as alerts before users notice.
- The aligned incentive. The provider earns the same whether things break or not, so it is cheaper for them to keep things working.
- The plan. A roadmap means replacements are budgeted, not emergencies.
The honest comparison
For a 50-person company, a managed agreement typically costs more per month than an average break-fix month. It costs less than a bad break-fix month, and it removes the bad months. The predictable number is usually easier to run a business on than the lumpy one.
When break-fix still makes sense
Under about ten users with no regulated data, minimal remote work, and cloud-only applications, break-fix can be reasonable. Once there is a server, a compliance requirement, or a customer who asks about your security, it is time to move.
Our managed IT page explains what a flat agreement includes and how the assessment works.