Transparent pricing
What it costs and what it does not include
Most IT pricing is deliberately hard to compare. Different units, different inclusions, and a number that only appears after two meetings. This chapter is what we sell, how each part is priced, and every variable that moves the number.
What you can buy
Three managed services, and three ways of working that are not managed services. Concierge IT, which you will see across the rest of our site, is not a fourth thing to buy. It is how we deliver whichever of these you are on, and Chapter 8 covers what that means.
Managed Support
The day to day. Service desk, monitoring and alerting, patching, maintenance, device and licence lifecycle, onboarding and offboarding, backup with restore testing, documentation, and your monthly report.
Managed Security
SOC and SIEM, EDR on every device, MDR and identity threat detection, email authentication, access reviews, security awareness training, and incident response.
Managed Intelligence
AI and automation applied to the repeatable parts of your operation. Quoting admin, site reporting, document chasing, approvals. Replace friction, not thinking. The judgement stays with your people.
Project services
Migrations, network and site builds, upgrades, uplift work. Scoped and quoted as a fixed price.
Consulting
Technology strategy, programme of works, compliance and tender support, vendor and contract review.
Training
Staff security awareness, and practical training on the systems your team actually uses.
One line in there is worth pressing us on
A backup is a restore you have actually performed. Everything else is a rumour.
So ask us when your last full restore test was run, and ask to see the result. A green tick in a dashboard is a report that a job completed. It is not evidence that the data comes back. Restore testing is inside Managed Support, and the dated results are in your monthly report whether you ask or not.
Support and Security are sold together
You cannot buy Managed Support from us without Managed Security. That is a deliberate limit on what we will sell, and it is worth explaining rather than burying.
Chapter 4 is a minimum standard we hold you to. It would be strange to publish that, take your money for support, and then leave you sitting below it. Half the checklist is security work, so selling support alone would mean knowingly running a client below code and calling it a service.
Managed Intelligence is optional. It is the only one of the three you can take or leave without changing whether the rest works.
How it is priced
Managed services: per user, per month
Support, Security and Intelligence are priced per user per month. It scales with your team in both directions, and you are not paying a step change because you took on one more estimator.
Then a fixed monthly number, agreed at onboarding
Once we have assessed your environment, the per-user rates resolve into one fixed monthly figure. That number is in your agreement and it does not move without your agreement.
Projects: fixed price on scope
Quoted from a written scope and delivered for that price. If the scope changes, you get a variation before the work happens, not a surprise on the invoice.
What moves the number
We do not publish a rate card, because a per-user figure without these variables attached is a number designed to be compared rather than a number designed to be true. Here is everything that actually moves it.
- How many users, and how many of those are site-based rather than office-based
- Servers and on-premise infrastructure, or none
- How many sites and site offices, and how they connect
- The age and state of the fleet. An environment carrying years of drift costs more to bring up to the minimum, then less to run
- Whether uplift work needs to happen before ongoing service starts, and whether you want that as a project or spread across the term
- Compliance obligations. Essential Eight maturity, SMB1001 tier, head contractor security questionnaires, insurer requirements
- After-hours requirements beyond the critical-issue cover in Chapter 5
- Whether Managed Intelligence is in scope, and how many processes it covers
None of that is a secret and none of it is discovered halfway through. It comes out of the assessment, before you sign anything.
What is not included
The list of exclusions matters more than the list of inclusions, because that is where surprise invoices come from.
- Hardware. Laptops, servers, switches, mobile devices. We procure it and we do not mark it up beyond a stated handling fee.
- Software and cloud licences. Microsoft 365, line of business applications, anything with its own subscription. Passed through at cost, listed on your invoice.
- Major projects. Migrations, site builds, significant upgrades. Quoted separately as above.
- Third-party vendor charges. Your carrier, your ISP, your construction software vendor.
- Work outside the coverage hours in Chapter 5, other than critical issues.
- Anything caused by a change made without us, or a risk we raised in writing that was not actioned.
Contract terms
Shorter terms than the market
One and two year agreements. The industry standard is three. Our limited monthly plans are billed monthly and you can cancel with 90 days notice.
No hidden fees
No setup fee, no termination fee, no charge to leave. Your exit pack is part of the service, not an invoice on the way out.
Your fee is fixed
It does not change without your agreement, and any change needs 30 days notice in writing.
Plain agreements
Clear terms you can read once and understand. If a clause needs explaining, that is our problem to fix, not yours to absorb.
What we will not do on price
- Recommend a product because of the margin on it. If we make anything on a vendor, you can ask and we will tell you.
- Bundle licences you do not need to make a seat count work.
- Bury a price rise in a renewal and hope it goes through unread.
- Auto-renew you into a longer term than the one you agreed.
- Charge you to get your own documentation, credentials or data back.
- Win on being the cheapest. There is always someone cheaper, and you usually meet them again during an incident.
Getting a number
Every quote follows an assessment, because the variables above are the quote. The assessment is free and there is no obligation at the end of it.
You get a written proposal with the fixed monthly figure, any uplift work priced separately, and the assumptions it rests on. If an assumption turns out to be wrong, we tell you before the work starts, not after.
You get the proposal within five business days of the assessment. If we are waiting on information from you, we tell you what we are waiting on and the clock pauses until we have it.