The cheapest IT support quote is rarely the cheapest IT support.
This is not a sales pitch. It is arithmetic. And it is the kind of arithmetic that becomes obvious very quickly to businesses that have experienced both models.
The break-fix model and how it feels versus how it works
Break-fix IT support means you call someone when something goes wrong and pay them to fix it. There is no ongoing contract, no monthly fee, no relationship until something breaks.
It feels like the economical option. You won't be charged until you need it.
In practice, break-fix is the most expensive form of IT support for most businesses. When issues arise, support is reactive. The engineer does not know your systems. They have no monitoring data to tell them what happened before the failure. They start from scratch at the moment of crisis, at the moment when every minute of downtime is costing the business money.
That investigation, done cold, takes significantly longer than it would for an engineer who monitors the environment daily and has weeks of performance data to draw on. You pay for that additional time at an emergency call-out rate.
What downtime actually costs
The UK Government's own research estimates average downtime costs for small businesses at over £3,000 per hour. That figure varies by sector and by the nature of the failure, but it illustrates the scale of what is at stake.
A business with ten staff, each billing at £50 per hour, loses £500 per hour in direct productivity before any revenue impact is counted.
A break-fix call-out at £150 per hour, arriving two hours after the call, taking four hours to resolve a problem that proactive monitoring would have detected and prevented, costs the business roughly £800 in support fees and a minimum of several thousand in downtime. The managed service that would have prevented the incident costs a fraction of that per month.
The IT bloke fallacy
Many small businesses rely on someone they know who 'does IT.' This person is typically available, good value, and capable of solving most problems when they arise.
The problem is not competence. The problem is structure.
A single individual cannot provide 24-hour monitoring. They cannot cover their own holidays, illness, or periods when they are fully occupied with another client. They have no succession if they move on. They typically do not carry the insurance, accreditations, or documented processes that cyber insurance requirements now demand.
The businesses that rely on an individual discover the limits of that arrangement at the most inconvenient possible time.
What the return on investment actually looks like
A managed service contract for a business of ten people typically runs between £500 and £1,500 per month depending on the scope. For that, the business receives proactive monitoring, regular patching and maintenance, help desk access for all staff, security monitoring, and a known engineer who understands the environment.
One avoided outage per quarter, at the average downtime cost, pays for the annual managed service contract. Most well-managed environments avoid multiple outages per year that would otherwise have occurred.
IT-Works provides managed IT services for businesses across the UK, with pricing and scope designed to reflect the actual needs of the business rather than a fixed package. If you have been on break-fix and have had more than one significant IT incident in the past twelve months, it is worth a conversation.
IT Works managed IT services: enquiries@it-works.co.uk | 0121 270 0808 | it-works.co.uk/managed-services