What to budget for IT when opening a Dallas office

How much should I budget for IT in a new office?

Start with two buckets and never let them blur together. One-time setup is what you spend before anyone sits down. Recurring is what leaves the bank account every month from opening day onwards. A landlord allowance or a build-out loan usually covers the first and nothing of the second, which is exactly why the second one catches people out.

For a straightforward small office in Dallas, the one-time side commonly lands in the low tens of thousands of dollars and the recurring side in the low thousands per month. That is a planning shape, not a quote. The rest of this walks each line so you can build a number that reflects your space rather than someone else's.

What are the one-time costs of setting up a new Dallas office?

In the order they happen, because the sequence is also the order in which mistakes get expensive. Cabling has to go in before ceilings and walls close. Internet has to be ordered weeks before you need it. Computers have lead times. Everything else can be done in the final week.

1. Structured cabling. Cat6 from the IT room to every desk, printer, access point, camera and TV.
2. IT room build. Wall-mounted or floor rack, patch panel, power, and somewhere with ventilation that is not a closet with a water heater in it.
3. Core network. Business firewall, managed switch, Wi-Fi access points mounted on the ceiling rather than a router on a shelf.
4. Internet. Circuit ordered, building access confirmed, install scheduled, and a temporary connection if the timeline slips.
5. Devices. Computers, monitors, docks, a printer, phones or softphones, and whatever the conference room needs.
6. Accounts and cloud. Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, file structure, security settings, phone system configuration.
7. Labour. Someone to design it, order it, configure it, install it, test it and be there on the first morning.

The two lines new offices leave out of the spreadsheet are the IT room and the labour. Equipment gets quoted because a vendor sends a price list; the work of turning boxes into a functioning office does not appear until someone asks who is doing it. Budget for it deliberately. If the whole thing is being done at once, my office move and new office IT setup service is that coordination under one roof, with me as your point of contact.

What drives the cabling number up or down?

Drop count first, then the building. A drop is one cable run from the IT room to one location, terminated at both ends and tested. Count them honestly before pricing anything, because the count is the multiplier on the whole line.

• Two drops per desk as a normal starting point: one for the computer, one spare for a phone, a second monitor arm dock or a future change.
• One per network printer or copier.
• One per Wi-Fi access point, and access points want ceiling positions, not wherever is easiest.
• One or two per conference room for the display and the room system.
• One per camera, door reader or TV if those exist.
• A few spares in sensible places, because adding one later costs many times what it costs now.

Then the building modifies the price. As a typical Dallas market range, not my price, a standard Cat6 drop in an office with an accessible drop ceiling is commonly quoted somewhere around $150 to $350 per drop. The low end is short, easy, repetitive runs in bulk. The high end is long runs, hard ceilings, concrete, plenum-rated cable where the air handling requires it, or work that has to happen after hours because the building will not allow it during the day. Cat6a and fiber cost more again. I break the arithmetic down in what structured cabling costs for a Dallas office, and the physical work is described on the data cabling and IT room setup page.

What network equipment does a new office need, and what drives its cost?

Less than most people expect, and better than most people buy. A small Dallas office does not need enterprise hardware. It does need business-grade equipment that can be managed, updated and monitored, rather than consumer gear from a big-box store that nobody can see inside.

Two decisions swing this line more than any product choice. First, how many access points: guessing low is the most common cause of a new office where the Wi-Fi is bad from week one, and adding one later means pulling another cable through a finished ceiling. Second, whether you need a server at all. Many offices moving into a new Dallas suite discover their one on-premises application now has a hosted version, which removes a server, its battery backup, its cooling and its backup licensing from the budget in one decision.

What should I budget for computers and devices?

Per person, and by role. This is the easiest line to estimate and the easiest to get wrong by treating everyone the same. A receptionist and a designer running rendering software need very different machines, and pretending otherwise either wastes money or produces a person who cannot work.

• Standard office user. As a typical market range, a business-class laptop with a dock and a monitor commonly runs somewhere around $1,000 to $1,800 all in.
• Desk-bound user. A small-form-factor desktop with two monitors is often a little less and lasts longer.
• Design, CAD or heavy data user. Considerably more, driven by graphics and memory requirements from the software maker rather than by preference.
• Printer or copier. Often leased rather than bought, which moves it from the one-time bucket to the recurring one.
• Phones. Desk handsets if people want them, or softphones on the computers and mobiles you already have.
• Conference room. A display, a camera and a speakerphone that work with whatever platform you use, plus the cabling to reach them.

Two pieces of advice that save real money. Do not buy consumer laptops for a business; the warranty, the build and the manageability are different products wearing similar prices, and the reasoning is in buying and supporting Dell and Lenovo business computers. And do not replace everything the week you move if the existing machines are healthy. Stagger replacements over a couple of years so hardware becomes a predictable annual line rather than a cliff every four years.

What are the recurring monthly costs after opening day?

Support, subscriptions, connectivity and backup. These start the month you open and never stop, which is why they belong in the operating budget rather than the build-out budget. They are also the numbers a landlord allowance will not touch.

My own managed IT is quoted per user or per device after a short conversation, month-to-month with no lock-in, so the recurring number is knowable before you sign a lease rather than after. If you would rather not commit to a plan at all, hourly support is $100 per hour remote and $150 per hour onsite during business hours, Monday to Friday 8 AM to 5 PM Central, with a one-hour minimum. The full annual picture, including hardware replacement reserves, is in what a small business should budget for IT each year.

What does the budget look like for a 12-person Dallas office?

Here is a worked shape rather than a quote, for a twelve-person professional office in a Dallas suite with an accessible drop ceiling, no onsite server, and everything bought new. Change the drop count or the headcount and every line moves with it.

Read the spread rather than the midpoint. The low end is a simple space, easy runs, sensible hardware choices and some existing equipment reused. The high end is a difficult ceiling, after-hours building access, high-specification workstations and everything new on the same day. Most offices land somewhere in between, and knowing which end you are near takes one walkthrough of the space.

Where do new offices get surprised, and where can you safely spend less?

The surprises are consistent enough to list. So are the places where spending less costs you nothing, which is the more useful half.

• Surprise: internet lead time. A fiber circuit into a building that does not have it yet can take considerably longer than a build-out. Order early and have a temporary plan.
• Surprise: after-hours building rules. Some buildings only allow cabling work outside business hours, which changes the labour rate on the largest physical line.
• Surprise: the IT room that is not a room. A closet with no power, no ventilation and a water pipe running through it will cost you either money or reliability.
• Surprise: the phone number. Porting an existing number takes coordination and cannot be rushed on move week.
• Surprise: nobody owns move day. Equipment arrives, nobody configured it, and the first morning is spent on the floor with a laptop.
• Safe saving: reuse healthy computers. Move them, do not replace them, and stagger the refresh.
• Safe saving: skip the onsite server when a hosted version of your application exists.
• Safe saving: right-size the license tiers. Not everyone needs the top plan.
• Never save on: drop count, access point count, backup. All three are cheap now and painful later.

The pattern is simple. Spend on the things that are physically hard to change once the office is finished, and be relaxed about the things you can adjust any month.

Who puts the numbers together and does the work in Dallas?

I do. Cross River Tech is a small, owner-led managed IT company in Dallas, and a new office is the kind of project where having one company, with me planning it and staying your point of contact across cabling, network, devices and support, saves you the coordination overhead of three vendors pointing at each other.

• A walkthrough or a look at your floor plan, which produces a real drop count instead of an estimate.
• A written budget in the two buckets above, so you can see what hits the build-out and what hits the monthly.
• Cabling, IT room, firewall, switching and Wi-Fi installed, terminated, tested and labeled.
• Internet ordered and chased, because the ISP will not chase itself.
• Computers, accounts, files and phones ready before the first morning rather than during it.
• Ongoing support afterwards from the people who built it, with me as your point of contact, or no ongoing commitment at all if you would rather handle it yourself.

Hardware is quoted at what it costs, project work is quoted per project after I have seen the space, and I will tell you when a line in your budget is larger than it needs to be. I work onsite by appointment across Dallas and the metroplex, and remotely anywhere in Texas. If you have a lease signed or a floor plan in hand, send me the square footage and the headcount and I will come back with the drop count and a budget you can actually take to a partner meeting. If you are earlier than that and just working out who does what, start with who sets up the computers and network for a new Dallas business.

Questions people ask

Written and reviewed by

Anthony Omini, founder of Cross River Tech

Over 15 years in IT across many industries, now running Cross River Tech, a small owner-led managed IT company in Dallas. Every article is written from his own client work and checked by him before it is published.

Have a lease signed and a floor plan? Send me the square footage and how many people are moving in. I will come back with a drop count and a budget split into one-time and monthly.

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