A business gets two quotations. One is thirty five pounds per user and one is twenty two pounds per device. The second looks considerably cheaper.
The business has twenty five staff and sixty two devices once laptops, desktops, tablets, phones and two servers are counted. The per user figure is eight hundred and seventy five and the per device figure is one thousand three hundred and sixty four.
Neither provider was being misleading. The buyer compared two rates without counting what each rate applies to, which is the only thing that matters.
What a managed service price is made of
Four components. The counted units, the rate per unit, what is included at that rate, and everything charged separately such as projects, hardware and out of hours work.
Component 1: what is counted
Users, devices, servers, network equipment and cloud tenancies. Providers count differently and the count is usually a larger driver of the total than the rate is.
Component 2: the rate
The headline figure, and the only thing most buyers compare. Meaningless without knowing what it applies to and what it covers.
Component 3: what is included
Monitoring, patching, support hours, security tooling, backup and licensing. The variation here is enormous and it is where two similar rates diverge.
Component 4: what is excluded
Projects, hardware, migrations, out of hours work and anything beyond routine support. These arrive as invoices later and belong in the comparison now.
A worked example
Twenty five staff. Sixty two devices including laptops, desktops, mobiles and two servers. At thirty five per user the monthly figure is eight hundred and seventy five.
The same business per device
At twenty two per device, excluding servers, sixty devices gives one thousand three hundred and twenty. Adding two servers at a hundred each gives one thousand five hundred and twenty.
What that comparison shows
That the model matters more than the rate. This business is better served by per user pricing, and a business with ten staff and twelve shared machines would be better served by the opposite.
Ask what happens when the count changes
Whether the figure adjusts monthly, at a review, or only upwards. A contract that adds users immediately and removes them annually is a ratchet.
Ask what a support hour actually covers
Response times, hours covered, whether anything is capped and what happens beyond it. A low rate with a tight cap is not a low rate.
Ask about the licensing position
Whether software licences are included, resold or bought directly. This is a substantial monthly cost and it is frequently outside the headline figure.
Ask what the onboarding costs
The audit, documentation and remediation, which is genuine work and is frequently quoted at nothing by providers hoping to win the contract.
Ask about the exit terms
Notice, what transfers, who holds credentials and what documentation you receive. This is agreed at the start or discovered at the worst moment.
Publish the model and a worked example
An assistant that asks how many staff, how many devices, how many servers and what is currently in place can produce a comparable monthly figure in minutes instead of a quotation in a fortnight. The same openness appears in explaining it support plans without a sales call, managed service enquiries from small businesses and ai receptionist it support, and the same basis problem in pricing by room versus by area questions. See pricing, run the numbers on the chatbot ROI calculator, and the sector view sits under it services.