What managed IT services cost: monthly fee or hourly rate?

A low hourly rate looks cheaper, but call-outs, emergencies and out-of-hours work are usually invoiced separately. Added together, they easily exceed a contract that includes everything.

• Workstations and users Usually the most significant factor.
• Infrastructure complexity Number of servers, Active Directory, VPN, dedicated firewall.
• Service level Guaranteed response time and out-of-hours coverage; at DataRoad, 24/7 support only exists in Premium 365.
• Scope Reactive support only, or also monitoring, managed backups, licensing and security.
• On-site presence On-site assistance included or remote only.
• Sector Healthcare, banking and the public sector have regulatory requirements that call for a higher service level.

The final price is adjusted to the number of users and the criticality of the systems. Annual contract with automatic renewal and no lock-in period.

Without continuous monitoring, a failing disk, a corrupted backup or a missing security update is only discovered once it has already caused a problem: almost always more expensive to fix than it would have been to prevent. Add to that the lack of a guaranteed response and an invoice for every incident.

That is why most companies with more than 10 employees end up switching from pay-per-intervention to a managed services contract.

1. Add up the last 12 months: every invoice for paid support from external providers.
2. Add internal time: the hours employees spent away from their own work fixing IT problems.
3. Divide by 12: and compare with the monthly contract fee.

The result almost always shows that reactive support already cost more than it seemed: it was simply spread across several invoices.

• Scope What exactly does the monthly fee include: support, monitoring, backups, security?
• Limits Is there a cap on hours or requests, or is support truly unlimited?
• Response What response time is guaranteed for critical incidents?
• Call-outs Does on-site assistance cost extra?
• Exit Is there a lock-in period, or can you terminate with reasonable notice?

IT Unlimited is DataRoad’s managed services contract: no limit on requests, adapted to each company’s number of users and criticality, with remote and on-site assistance, proactive monitoring, alerting and preventive interventions. Discover our managed IT services at a fixed monthly cost and the user helpdesk.

Beyond support, the same contract can cover networks and structured cabling, Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7 with cloud management, managed firewalls, servers and backups, CCTV video surveillance, project consulting and Windows and Apple estates.

DataRoad - IT Services and Consulting is a premium MSP headquartered in Alfragide, with support across the whole of Portugal. Since 2015 it has managed the infrastructure of hotels, clinics, embassies, universities, multinationals and demanding SMEs: 232 clients, with the Top 5% PME distinction awarded by scoring.pt.

The quickest way to find out what managed IT would cost your company is to request a tailored, no-obligation proposal.

More than 10 workstations · support contract · remote, on-site and telephone support

Call +351 211 459 950 * or write to sales@dataroad.pt.

*Call to a Portuguese landline.