Key takeaways
- As a typical Dallas market range, managed IT for a 20-person office is commonly quoted somewhere around $2,000 to $3,500 a month, which is the $100 to $175 per user range most providers work in.
- Before comparing prices, convert every quote to the same unit, the same headcount and the same list of included services; most price differences are really scope differences.
- The costs outside the monthly fee, such as onboarding, onsite visits, after-hours rates and license markups, often matter more than the headline number.
- Best value is not the cheapest quote; it is the one where the person who answers the phone knows your office and the agreement lets you leave if they stop delivering.
- Ask each provider the same five questions and write the answers in a table. The one who answers plainly is telling you how they will treat you later.
The short answer
To compare IT support quotes fairly, put them on the same unit (per user or per device), the same headcount, and the same written list of included services, then add the costs that sit outside the monthly fee: onboarding, onsite visits, after-hours work, projects and license markups. Only then compare the totals. Most of the time, the "cheaper" quote is cheaper because it includes less, and you find out on the first invoice that is not the monthly fee.
If you want a number to anchor on: for a 20-person company, small-business managed IT in the Dallas market is commonly quoted somewhere around $100 to $175 per user per month, so roughly $2,000 to $3,500 a month as a typical market range. That is the market, not my price. I quote per user or per device after a short conversation, because a 20-person law firm with a server and a 20-person design studio with big files and no server are not the same job. This article is the process I would use if I were the buyer, including the questions I would want the provider to answer without hedging.
Step 1: put every quote on the same unit
IT quotes arrive in different shapes. One provider prices per user, one per device, one gives a flat monthly number, and one offers a "package" with a name and no arithmetic. Before you can compare anything, translate each into a monthly total for your actual office.
Start with an accurate count. Write down the number of people who need support, the number of computers, any servers, network equipment, printers, and phones. A 20-person office might have 20 users but 26 computers once you count the front-desk machine, the conference room PC and a couple of spare laptops. Per-device quotes will count those; per-user quotes will not.
Then compute the monthly total for each quote using your real counts, and note what the number would become if you added three people next year. Per-user pricing grows in clean steps; per-device pricing grows when equipment grows; flat packages sometimes jump to a new tier at an arbitrary headcount. I go into which unit suits which office in per-user versus per-device IT pricing.
One more conversion: if a quote is annual, divide by twelve, and if it includes a discount for a multi-year term, work out what the same service costs month-to-month so you know what the commitment is actually buying you.
Step 2: line up what each quote includes
This is where most price differences come from. Two quotes can be $40 per user apart and the gap is entirely explained by one including onsite visits and backups and the other not. Build a table with one column per quote and one row per service, and put a yes, no, or "extra" in every cell. Here is the row list I would use:
| Service | What to write in each column |
|---|---|
| Monitoring and patching of computers and servers | Included or not; frequency |
| Remote help desk | Unlimited, capped hours, or per incident |
| Onsite visits | Included, a set number per month, or hourly |
| Antivirus and endpoint protection | Included or a per-device add-on |
| Email security and phishing filtering | Included or per mailbox |
| Backup and recovery | Included; storage billed separately or not; test restores |
| Network equipment management | Firewall, switches, Wi-Fi, printers, ISP calls |
| Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace administration | Included or billed as a project |
| After-hours and weekend support | Included, billed at a published rate, or not offered |
| Vendor management | Will they call your software vendor and ISP for you |
| Documentation and reporting | Do you get a written record of your setup |
Ask each provider to fill in their column, in writing. If a provider will not commit to yes or no on a row, treat it as no. My own list is on the managed IT services page; I wrote up what a typical agreement contains in what a managed IT services agreement usually includes.
Step 3: find the costs outside the monthly fee
The monthly fee is the number on the front page. The costs that decide whether a quote is a good deal are usually on page four. Look for every one of these and put a number next to it:
- Onboarding fee. A one-time charge to document your environment and install their tools. Reasonable, but it can equal one or two months of service, so it belongs in the comparison.
- Onsite visits. If they are billed hourly, estimate how many you will need. An office with printers, a server and a conference room needs someone in the building sometimes. My managed plan includes onsite visits at no extra charge when remote cannot fix it, and that single line changes the math for a lot of offices.
- After-hours rates. Should be a published number for nights, weekends and holidays. "Premium rates apply" is not a number.
- Projects. Ask what counts as a project and what an hour of project work costs. If setting up a new laptop is a project, the flat fee covers less than it looks.
- License markups. Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, security and backup platforms are often resold. Ask for the per-user price of each and compare it with the price you could pay directly.
- Hardware markup. Some providers add a percentage to laptops and network gear. Some, including me, quote hardware at cost and charge for the setup time.
- Minimums and tiers. A minimum user count or a tier that jumps at 25 people can make a quote much more expensive than its per-user rate suggests.
Add a realistic year of these to twelve months of the fee, and compare that number. It is the only honest total. My published hourly rates for anything outside a managed plan are on the pricing page, so you can do this arithmetic for me without asking.
Step 4: read the term and the exit
A quote is also a contract proposal, and the term is part of the price. A provider offering a lower per-user rate for a three-year commitment is asking you to pay in flexibility. Whether that is worth it depends on how confident you are, and you cannot be confident about a provider you have not worked with yet.
For each quote, write down the term length, whether it auto-renews, the notice window, the early termination cost, and what happens to your documentation and passwords when you leave. Then ask yourself the practical question: if this provider turns out to be slow and unresponsive in month four, what does it cost to go? With a month-to-month agreement, the answer is one month. With a 36-month agreement, the answer can be most of the contract.
My agreement is month-to-month and you can cancel any time. I say that not as a selling point but as the frame for comparison: a provider with a long term should be offering something concrete in return, such as a real onboarding investment, and you should be able to name what it is. The trade-offs are in month-to-month versus annual IT contracts.
Step 5: find out who actually answers the phone
Price and scope can be compared on paper. The thing that decides whether you are happy in a year cannot, so you have to ask. When a person in your office has a problem, who do they talk to, and does that person know your setup?
With a larger provider, the answer is usually a help desk. Your call goes to whoever is free, they open a ticket, they look up your account, and they start by asking what kind of firewall you have. That is not a bad system; it is how you scale to hundreds of clients. But for a 20-person office it means explaining your business from scratch on a regular basis, and it means the person who knows your quirks is not necessarily the person who picks up.
With me, the answer is me. I own Cross River Tech, I am based in Dallas, and I am the one who planned your network, so nobody has to describe it to me. You call, I answer or call back. My team handles the routine monitoring, updates and day-to-day requests behind me; I plan the work, make the decisions with you and come onsite myself. Same-day onsite visits are often possible across the metroplex, by appointment, and remote support is available around the clock with after-hours rates. The trade-off is honest too: onsite visits are scheduled rather than instant, and if I am already on a job when you call, my team keeps the routine work moving while you wait a little for me on anything that needs a decision. I would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise. I compare the two models properly in an owner-led IT company versus a big MSP.
Ask each provider: who will I talk to, will it be the same person next time, and how do I reach them after five o'clock. Write the answers in your table next to the prices.
What does best value actually mean for a small Dallas business?
Owners who ask me for the "best value managed IT provider in Dallas" usually mean the cheapest reputable one. I would gently push back on that. The cheapest quote is the one that excludes the most, and the excluded things, backups, patching, onsite visits, are the ones that cost real money when they are missing. Best value is the quote where the total yearly cost, including the extras, buys the outcomes you actually need: nobody in the office loses a day to a computer problem, the backups restore when tested, the phishing email gets caught, and the person you call knows your name.
Here is a practical way to judge it. For each quote, imagine three ordinary events in a year: a laptop dies and someone needs a replacement set up; the internet goes out on a Tuesday morning; and someone clicks a bad link. Walk through what happens under each agreement, who does what, and what it costs. The quote where all three are handled inside the fee, by someone who already knows your office, is the best value even if it is not the lowest number.
The second test is whether you can leave. A provider who is confident in their work does not need to lock you in. Month-to-month terms put the incentive where it belongs: on delivering every month.
And a third: does the provider know your industry? A law firm or a dental practice has confidentiality and compliance duties that a generic quote may not touch. A provider who asks about them unprompted is thinking about your business, not their sales target.
A worked example: three quotes for a 20-person office
Here is an illustration, with invented numbers inside typical Dallas market ranges, to show how the arithmetic changes the ranking. None of these are my prices.
| Line | Quote A | Quote B | Quote C |
|---|---|---|---|
| Headline rate | $95 per user | $135 per user | $160 per user |
| Monthly fee for 20 users | $1,900 | $2,700 | $3,200 |
| Onboarding | $2,500 one time | $1,000 one time | Included |
| Onsite visits | Hourly, estimate 12 hours a year | Included | Included |
| Backups | Add-on per device | Included | Included |
| After-hours | Not offered | Published hourly rate | Included |
| Term | 36 months | 12 months, auto-renew | Month-to-month |
Quote A looks cheapest by a wide margin. Add the onboarding fee, a year of hourly onsite time, backup add-ons for 26 devices and the fact that you cannot leave for three years, and its first-year total lands close to Quote B while covering less and locking you in longer. Quote C has the highest headline rate and may be the lowest total cost of ownership over two years, depending on how many after-hours calls you make. Quote B is the middle ground and its value depends entirely on that auto-renewal window and how responsive the help desk turns out to be.
The point is not that the expensive quote wins. The point is that the ranking changed once the whole year was on the page, and you should never decide from the headline rate alone.
What I put in a quote, and how to get one
When you ask me for a quote, you get a short conversation first, because I need to know how many people and devices you have, whether there is a server, what software the business runs on, and what has been going wrong. Then you get a written quote with the per-user or per-device rate, the full list of what is included, the published hourly rates for anything outside the plan, and a month-to-month term. There is no tier that jumps at 25 people, no hardware markup, and no clause that turns a laptop setup into a project.
Take it and put it in the same table as the others. I would rather lose a comparison honestly than win one on a front page. If you are looking at quotes right now and want a second opinion on one of them, send it over; I will tell you what I see, including where another provider's offer is better for your situation. If the outcome of the comparison is that you only need a few hours now and then, hourly support with no contract is a fine answer too, and I will say so.
Questions people ask
What is a fair price for outsourced IT support for a 20-person company?
As a typical Dallas market range, managed IT for a 20-person office is commonly quoted around $100 to $175 per user per month, or roughly $2,000 to $3,500 a month, with the higher end usually including onsite visits, backups and after-hours support. Fairness depends on what is inside the fee and what is billed on top, so compare yearly totals with onboarding, onsite time and licenses added, not headline rates. I quote per user or per device after a short conversation.
Why are IT support quotes so different from each other?
Mostly because they cover different things. One quote includes onsite visits, backups and network management; another excludes them and bills each as an extra or a project. Some are priced per user, some per device, some as a flat package with tiers. Convert each to a monthly total for your real headcount and device count, then line up the included services row by row. The price gap usually shrinks or reverses once the scope is the same.
Should I choose the cheapest managed IT quote?
Rarely. The cheapest quote is usually cheapest because it excludes the work that prevents expensive problems: patching, backups, onsite time and after-hours help. Judge value by walking three ordinary events through each agreement, such as a dead laptop, an internet outage and a phishing click, and seeing what is covered and who handles it. The quote that handles all three inside the fee, with a person who knows your office, is the better value.
What questions should I ask every IT provider before comparing quotes?
Ask the same five of everyone: What exactly is included, in writing? What is billed outside the fee, and at what rate? Who will I talk to when I call, and will it be the same person next time? What is the term, the notice period and the cost to leave? And what do I get back, such as passwords and documentation, if I end the agreement? Put the answers in a table next to the prices.
How do I compare a one-person IT company with a larger MSP?
Compare the same things: scope, total yearly cost, term and who answers the phone. A larger provider offers a help desk on a rota and more capacity for simultaneous emergencies. A small owner-led company offers the same point of contact every time, who already knows your setup, with a team behind the owner for the routine work and usually less overhead in the price. For an office under about 50 people, the second often wins on both cost and experience, but ask honestly who covers when the owner is on another job.
Sources and further reading
Market price ranges in this article are my own observation of quotes in the Dallas market, not a published survey. Where I state a rule or a standard, the source is linked above.
