By The ACS team · Published
"How much does IT support cost?" is one of the first things a small business owner asks, and one of the hardest to get a straight answer to. Quotes come in per user, per device, per hour or as a bundle, and the small print decides what you actually pay. This guide explains how IT support cost works for a small UK business, what's usually included and what isn't, and then shows our own prices so you have real numbers to compare.
The short answer
- Pay-as-you-go (paying by the hour when something breaks) is the cheapest way to start, and fine if your IT rarely goes wrong.
- Managed support is a fixed monthly fee per machine or per user. It covers the helpdesk plus monitoring and updates in the background.
- The monthly fee is rarely the whole bill. On-site visits, projects, hardware, licences and out-of-hours work are often extra.
- With us: pay-as-you-go is £70 +VAT an hour, and fully managed support is £16.50 +VAT per machine a month.
- Before you compare quotes, ask each provider exactly what is and isn't included. That's where most of the difference hides.
The four ways IT support is priced
| Model | How you pay | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per device (per machine) | A fixed monthly fee for each PC, laptop or server | Offices where several people share machines | Servers and laptops may be priced differently |
| Per user | A fixed monthly fee for each person, whatever they use | Staff with a laptop, a phone and a home PC | Paying for part-timers who barely log in |
| Pay-as-you-go | An hourly rate, usually in short steps | Small teams with simple, reliable IT | No monitoring or updates, and no fixed budget |
| Prepaid block hours | Buying a bundle of hours up front | Firms that want a budget without a contract | Unused hours may expire, so check the terms |
Per device and per user prices look alike on a quote, but they add up differently. If you have eight staff and twelve machines, a per-user price may work out cheaper. If you have twelve staff sharing eight machines, per device usually wins. We charge per machine, with managed antivirus priced per user.
What managed IT support usually includes
The core of most managed plans is the same:
- A helpdesk you can phone or email, with someone connecting to your screen to fix it remotely.
- Monitoring: software on each machine that warns the provider about failing drives, full disks or machines that have dropped offline.
- Patching: installing Windows and software security updates for you. The NCSC lists security update management as one of the five basic controls behind Cyber Essentials, so this part matters.
- Antivirus that's managed centrally rather than left to each PC.
- Starters and leavers: accounts set up on day one and closed on the last.
Check whether the helpdesk is genuinely unlimited or capped at a number of hours or tickets each month. "Unlimited" should mean you never think twice about ringing.
What's usually extra
This is where quotes that look the same turn out to be quite different:
- On-site visits. Some providers include them, many don't. Ask how a call-out is charged and whether travel is on top.
- Projects. Moving to a new server, a new office or Microsoft 365 is normally quoted separately.
- Hardware. New PCs, laptops and network kit are bought on top, plus the time to set them up.
- Licences. Microsoft 365 and other software subscriptions are usually billed separately from support.
- Backup. Often an add-on, priced by the amount of data or the number of machines.
- Out-of-hours work. Evenings, weekends and bank holidays are usually charged on top, even on "unlimited" plans.
- Phones and broadband. Normally separate contracts. Our guide to leased lines and business broadband covers that side.
What drives IT support cost for a small business
The main things that move the price:
- How many machines or users you have. This is the biggest factor.
- Servers. An on-site server needs more looking after than a PC.
- How many sites you have, and how far apart they are.
- Security requirements. If a customer or contract needs Cyber Essentials, there's work to get your setup up to standard, plus the certification itself.
- The state of things now. Old machines and a messy setup cost more to take on than a tidy one.
When pay-as-you-go is the right call
Honestly, a lot of small businesses don't need a contract. If you're a team of two or three, your machines are fairly new, your files live in Microsoft 365 and you call for help a few times a year, pay-as-you-go is usually cheaper and perfectly sensible.
The trade-off is that nobody is watching your machines between calls. Updates can get skipped, and a failing drive or a backup that stopped working is often only found when it's already a problem. Once you're ringing for help most months, or you can't afford a morning of downtime, a fixed monthly fee tends to work out better.
Questions to ask any IT support provider
- Is the price per user or per machine, and how are servers and laptops charged?
- Is the helpdesk unlimited, or capped?
- What are your hours, and what does out-of-hours cost?
- Are on-site visits included? If not, how are they charged?
- How long is the minimum contract, and what's the notice period?
- What's charged on top: projects, setups, backup, licences?
- How quickly do you respond, and where are your engineers based?
- Who do I actually speak to when I ring?
Red flags
- A price with no list of what's included.
- "Unlimited" support with a fair-use cap buried in the terms.
- A long contract that auto-renews for the same term again without a clear notice window.
- No written quote, or a quote that isn't itemised.
Our IT support prices
These are our published starting prices. Every quote is itemised, so you can see what you're paying for.
Pay-as-you-go is exactly that: you have an issue, we fix it, and you pay for the time it took. It doesn't include antivirus, backup or anything running in the background. We also offer prepaid block hours as an option, though most clients now choose the per-machine plan.
| Pay as you go | Fully managed | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | £70 +VAT per hour, in 15-minute steps | £16.50 +VAT per machine per month |
| Contract | None | 18-month minimum, unless agreed otherwise |
| Remote helpdesk | Charged by the hour | Unlimited |
| Monitoring and patching | Not included | 24/7 monitoring, updates applied overnight |
| Antivirus and backup | Not included | Available as add-ons (below) |
| Starters and leavers | Charged by the hour | Included |
| On-site visits | Charged by the hour | Not included as standard: added for a monthly cost, or charged as call-outs |
Common add-ons are managed antivirus from £5 +VAT per user a month, server and PC backup from £25 +VAT a month, and setting up a new machine or Windows 11 upgrade at £70 +VAT each. Microsoft 365 licences start from £7.02 +VAT per user a month, and Cyber Essentials from £900 +VAT in the first year.
As a worked example, a 10-PC office on fully managed support with managed antivirus and backup starts around £240 +VAT a month (10 × £16.50, plus 10 × £5, plus £25).
Out of hours. Our helpdesk is open 8:30am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. Out-of-hours support is only for contract clients whose contract includes it, and we keep it for genuine emergencies and work booked well in advance. It's charged on every plan: £70 +VAT an hour remotely in 15-minute steps, or £100 +VAT an hour on site including travel, with a one-hour minimum.
How we can help
We'll come and look at your setup for free, tell you honestly whether pay-as-you-go or a managed plan makes more sense, and give you an itemised quote. Requests to our helpdesk are acknowledged straight away, and we can reach most of Norfolk in about 45 to 50 minutes from Dereham. See our managed IT support page for the full details, or get in touch to book your free survey.