On-Demand or managed IT: which one fits your business?

The short answer. On-Demand support is $119 an hour with no contract and suits businesses that need help occasionally and can wait for it. A managed plan, from $120 per seat per month, suits businesses where downtime costs money, that have ten or more people, or that need security and compliance kept in order every month. Most companies below ten people start On-Demand with IT Shield; most above ten save money on a plan.

What On-Demand is

You call, an engineer works the issue remotely at $119 an hour or on site at $149, and you pay for the time. No monthly fee, no contract. Your first ticket is free if we cannot fix or diagnose it in the first hour. It is the right choice when problems are rare, when you have an internal person for the daily work, or when you want to try us before committing.

What a managed plan is

A monthly fee per seat that covers the help desk, monitoring, patching, endpoint security, backup management, Microsoft 365 administration, on-site hours in South Florida and a named account executive for the owner and one deputy, with guaranteed response times. Essential ($120) covers business hours; Standard ($180) adds evenings and P1 emergencies 24/7 with a 30-minute response; Premium ($300) covers everything 24/7 with a 15-minute response. The price is locked for 12 months and backed by a 90-day money-back guarantee.

The comparison

The break-even

A 12-person office typically generates 15 to 25 hours of IT work a month once maintenance, security and user changes are counted. At $119 an hour that is $1,800 to $3,000 with no monitoring, no guaranteed response and nothing done proactively. Standard for 12 seats is $2,160 with all of it included. Above ten people, the plan is usually cheaper and always safer.

The hidden cost of On-Demand

Nobody patches, nobody watches, nobody tests the backup, because nobody is paid to. Problems arrive as emergencies, at the worst time, at on-site rates. That is fine for a three-person office with laptops and Microsoft 365. It is not fine for a practice with patient data or a company that bills by the hour.

A sensible path

1. Start with IT Shield on every computer ($10 per device per month, three-device minimum), so security is handled regardless of what you decide.
2. Use On-Demand for anything that breaks; your first hour is on us if we cannot fix or diagnose it.
3. When the On-Demand invoices approach a plan's price, or you pass ten people, move to a plan. The IT Shield fees from your last three months are credited against your first month on a plan.

Questions