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Managed service provider (MSP)

An outside company you pay a recurring monthly fee to look after your technology, instead of calling someone and paying by the hour when something breaks.

Written by NiteshReviewed by BryantUpdated 2026-09-09

A managed service provider takes ongoing responsibility for a company's IT for a predictable monthly fee. Day to day that means unglamorous work: resetting passwords, setting up new starters, removing leavers, applying updates, keeping antivirus current, and answering whatever has stopped somebody working this morning.

The model exists because hourly billing puts you and your provider on opposite sides. Under break-fix, things going wrong is revenue. Under a monthly fee, things going wrong is cost, so preventing them is in everyone's interest.

Larger agreements add monitored servers, managed backup, security tooling and compliance reporting. Smaller ones, like this one, deliberately do not, and say so.

The acronym is unhelpfully overloaded. MSP has over a hundred documented meanings, and the popular ones are a children's game and an airport, which is why searching it returns very little about IT.

What it costs

Full managed IT runs $100 to $125 per user per month at the basic tier in 2026, and $150 to $200 for standard cover including backup and security tooling.

Related questions

What is the difference between an MSP and an IT consultant?

A consultant is usually project work: advise, build, hand over, invoice. An MSP is ongoing responsibility for a recurring fee. Plenty of firms do both, which is why the labels blur.

Do I need an MSP if we only use cloud software?

Often yes, and for a smaller job than you would expect. Cloud means fewer servers, not fewer accounts, and accounts are where most small-office IT trouble now lives.

What does MSP stand for in IT?

Managed service provider. In an IT context it always means a company providing ongoing outsourced technology support.

Related terms