Summary 

• Most UK MSPs charge somewhere between £30 and £150 per user per month. Where you land depends on what is included. 
• An MSP’s monthly fee often does not cover everything. Projects, out-of-hours work and security can be extra. 
• Two quotes can look the same on paper and still cost very different amounts by the end of the year. The difference is usually found in what the base fee leaves out. 
• At ThreatSpike, you pay one fixed price of $135 per user per month, with 24/7 IT support, cybersecurity and unlimited penetration testing included.  

When you are comparing managed service providers (MSPs), a monthly price per user is a useful starting point, but it rarely tells the whole story. If you take for example, a standard SME business with 25 employees, they could be charged anywhere between £9000-45,000 per year for outsourced IT support, before a single extra is added. That’s the varied range most MSPs will quote for per-user fees and on its own, tells you less than it seems to. It will still leave you questioning, ‘What does that fee really cover?’

The monthly fee is only the base price. You might need to move your IT to a new office, fix a laptop outside normal working hours, or arrange a penetration test to meet a client’s requirements. Depending on your MSP contract, that work could likely be invoiced on top of your base fee. Two quotes that look almost identical can end up costing very different amounts over a year. 

Working out your real outsourced IT support costs means pricing two things together: the per-user fee and everything the contract leaves out. This guide explains how MSP pricing works, which costs to check, and how to compare quotes based on what your business actually needs. 

How Much Do Managed IT Services Cost Per User?

Many UK MSPs charge between £30 and £150 per user, per month, depending on what is included. Most providers price per user, so your monthly bill grows with your team. What really changes between tiers is what each one covers. At the lower end, you are usually paying for day-to-day support and basic protection. As you move up, you get stronger security, more hands-on support and help with long-term IT planning. Compare the Cloud published these indicative ranges for the UK in February 2026.

For our 25-person SME, that means anywhere from £9,000 to £45,000 a year before any extras are added. These ranges are a useful guide, but they are not set prices, use these ranges as a starting point for budgeting. Compare the Cloud itself points out that the figures “masks enormous variation”. Providers package their services differently, so check the support hours, security coverage and project work included in each quote. 

What Can Push Your IT Support Costs Up?

The per-user fee is only part of what you pay. The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) advises that an MSP contract “should clearly specify what is and what is not included”, because anything outside that scope “may incur additional charges”. 

In practice, the things worth checking are support outside office hours, on-site visits, new starters and leavers, and one-off projects such as office moves or hardware rollouts. Hardware and software licences are often billed separately too. 

Security varies the most. One provider might include endpoint protection and monitoring as standard, while another charges for each tool on top. Penetration testing is another one to ask about, as it is not always included. According to SecuritySenses, UK day rates for thorough testing typically fall between £1,000 and £1,500, and a full test can cost anywhere from a few thousand pounds to well over £20,000, depending on scope. For a 25-person business, a single test could add a noticeable amount to the annual IT bill. 

How Much Does IT Support Cost Per Hour?

Hourly IT support typically costs £50 to £100 per hour for ad-hoc help, according to Compare the Cloud, with out-of-hours and on-site work often charged at a higher rate of £120 to £180 plus VAT per hour.

What Are the Different IT Support Pricing Models?

The billing model matters as well. Some MSPs charge per user, some per device, and others work on a pay-as-you-go basis, billed by the hour. If you are comparing an hourly rate with a fixed monthly fee, look at how much IT help your team needed last year. That gives you a realistic estimate, so you can compare the two properly. 

Hourly billing means that your provider earns more when something breaks, so there’s little commercial reason or incentive for them to fix the root cause of the problem. Therefore, every repeat ticket is another invoice and you’re trapped in this cycle. A fixed fee reverses that incentive, because the provider protects its margin by keeping your system stable.

How To Compare MSP Costs

The easiest way to compare quotes properly is to send every provider the same list of questions and compare their answers side by side. 

Make sure you are comparing like for like. Give each provider the same number of users and devices and the same list of requirements, otherwise the cheapest quote may just be the one that covers the least. 

It is also good to get the service levels in writing. The NCSC recommends agreeing service level agreements (SLAs) and timelines for when your provider must tell you about a security incident. Ask how quickly they respond to an urgent issue, not just how quickly they log a ticket. 

Finally, read the small print on how the contract ends. The NCSC suggests contracts should set out “how renewals, renegotiations, or terminations work”. A good price in year one is less appealing if it is hard to leave or the cost changes at renewal. The right provider is the one whose answers match your business needs, and that won’t always be the cheapest quote.

Is An MSP Worth The Cost?

For most small-mid size businesses, yes, but only if the price reflects what you need. For many businesses, outsourcing makes more sense than building an in-house team because hiring, training and keeping skilled IT and security staff is expensive and takes time. The median salary for an IT manager in the UK is £56,438 a year, according to the Office for National Statistics, and that is just one person, before you add security specialists, holiday cover or training. For the 25-person SME in our example above, even the top tier in the table above (£45,000 a year) costs less than a single IT manager’s salary.

The catch is that a low monthly fee does not always mean good value. If the contract covers day-to-day support but security, testing and projects are all charged separately, you can end up paying for several services and still find your team always on the back foot, fixing problems rather than preventing them. Our CEO, Adam Blake, explains why adding another vendor rarely closes the gap in our recent webinar.

So the better question is not just whether to outsource, but how to outsource. An MSP is worth it when the price covers what your business needs, without leaving gaps you have to pay to fill later. A model where IT and security are managed together, for one predictable price, is often easier to budget for than a base fee with extras added along the way. 

The Cost Of IT Support For Small Businesses

There is no single average cost of IT support for a small business in the UK, because it depends on how many people and devices you have and how much help you need. Using the same Compare the Cloud ranges in the table above, a 10 person business can expect to pay roughly £3600-18,000 a year for outsourced IT support, and a 50 person business between £18,000-90,000. For smaller teams, an unexpected IT bill can hit harder, simply because there is less room in the budget to absorb it.

Security is just as important at a smaller scale. In the UK Government’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey, 46% of small businesses reported a breach or attack in the previous 12 months. Security gaps can also come from suppliers you rely on, as we explored in our piece on third-party security risk. If your IT support does not include security, it is worth budgeting for it separately or choosing a provider that covers both. 

How ThreatSpike Prices Differently 

ThreatSpike is an AI-managed IT and security platform that combines fully managed IT and cybersecurity in one subscription. Instead of a base fee plus extras, you pay one fixed price of $135 per user per month.

This rate includes 24/7 IT support, user and device administration, hardware setup and office moves, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace management, continuous security monitoring via a 24/7/365 SOC, and unlimited penetration testing. There are no extra charges for installation, incident response, staff training or support and no limits on how much you use it.

ThreatSpike is rated 4.9 out of 5 on G2, and ranks the #1 MSSP for 6 quarters running. One customer wrote: “Having ThreatSpike operate 24/7 for IT support is a huge help… It simplifies onboarding new starters, handles IT queries, and significantly reduces internal workload.” 

See what fixed-price IT and security would cost your business. View our managed IT services pricing.