In brief: IT maintenance has no list price, because what is being sold differs from one company to the next. What you can do is understand the pricing models, the variables that move the price and, above all, what is and is not included. Two offers that look alike can cover very different things.
Why you will not find a price published, ours included
A maintenance contract covers people, a committed response time and responsibility for keeping systems running. A company with twenty laptops and everything in the cloud and a company with twenty users, two servers, an ageing ERP and a production hall do not consume the same effort. A published price would be right for one of them and wrong for the other.
That does not mean you should accept a figure without an explanation. It means the correct offer comes after someone has seen your infrastructure, and that its structure has to be transparent.
The five pricing models
| Model | How it works | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| Per user | A monthly amount for each person using the systems, whatever number of devices they have | Office-based companies where people have a laptop and a phone |
| Per device | A monthly amount for each workstation, server or network device administered | Manufacturing and logistics, with computers shared between people |
| Fixed monthly fee | One amount for the whole infrastructure, set after an assessment | Companies that want a predictable cost, with stable infrastructure |
| Block of hours | A number of hours bought monthly or quarterly, used on demand | Small firms, or those with their own person who need occasional support |
| Hourly, on demand | You pay only for the intervention, when it happens | Occasional needs. Covers no prevention, so it does not reduce downtime |
The last model is the cheapest on paper and the most expensive in practice, because you pay only for repair and never for prevention. If nobody is watching updates, backups and alerts, problems reach you first as stopped work.
What actually moves the price
- The number of users and sites. A second site adds travel, network equipment and a link to administer.
- How many servers you have and what runs on them. A domain, an ERP and a database mean administration, not just supervision.
- The age of the equipment. An old estate generates more interventions, and the provider sees that within the first months.
- Coverage hours. Normal hours, extended hours and around the clock are three different prices, because they mean people on call.
- The committed response time. One guaranteed hour costs something other than “the same working day”.
- Niche applications. Production, design or accounting software the provider has to know and raise cases with the vendor for.
- Compliance requirements. Documentation, logging and reports required by NIS2 or by your larger customers add recurring work.
What a contract usually includes, and what is billed separately
| Usually included | Usually separate |
|---|---|
| User helpdesk, remote | Software licences and cloud subscriptions |
| Monitoring of servers, network and backup | Equipment, from laptops to firewalls |
| Security updates and periodic maintenance | Implementation projects and migrations |
| Administration of accounts and access rights | Structured cabling and installation work |
| Backup administration and restore tests | Work outside the agreed hours |
| A monthly report with recommendations | Consumables and spare parts |
This split is not a rule written down anywhere, it is common practice. What matters is that it is written in your contract, because this is where the surprises appear.
The questions that change an offer the most
- Is the committed time a response time or a resolution time? They are different things and only one of them gets you working again.
- Are site visits included or billed? If billed, within what radius and at what rate.
- Who is responsible for backup, from configuration to the restore test? We wrote separately about why an untested backup is not yet a backup.
- Is monitoring included or an extra service? Without it, maintenance is still repair.
- Do you receive the infrastructure documentation and can you take it with you? If not, changing provider becomes an expensive project.
- What happens when the block of hours runs out? The additional rate has to be known in advance, not at the first large invoice.
How to compare two offers properly
Bring both offers to the same unit of measure before looking at the amount. An offer per user and one per device do not compare directly if you have computers used across shifts. Work both out on the real number of items administered.
Then add to each offer the things it does not cover. A small amount that leaves out monitoring, backup and site visits is not a small amount, it is an incomplete one. Ask for both in writing, against the same list of services, and compare the lines rather than the totals.
Outsourced or an internal person
The honest comparison is not between a contract and a salary. To the cost of an internal person add contributions, holiday, sick days, training, the licences for administration tools and, most often forgotten, what happens during the three weeks they are away. To the cost of outsourcing add your own coordination time.
Below a certain number of users, a full-time internal person is hard to justify and usually works alone. Above a certain threshold, the combination that works is an internal lead who knows the business, supported by a provider for infrastructure, security and cover during absences.
How we work
PRO IT does not quote before seeing the infrastructure. We start with an assessment, inventory the equipment, servers, applications and accounts, check the state of backup and security, then build the offer on what we found. The details of the service are on the IT maintenance and support page, and if you want the full picture before any contract, the IT audit puts it in writing, with the risks and the priorities.
If you already have an offer from another provider and simply want to know whether it covers what it should, send us the list of services in it. We will tell you what is missing, with no obligation to work with us.
