Guide
Managed IT vs break-fix, honestly compared
This is a genuine decision with a real answer that depends on your size. Here is the arithmetic, and the incentive problem that the arithmetic alone misses.
The short answerBreak-fix is usually cheaper for businesses under about 5 staff with simple systems. Above roughly 10 staff, managed IT almost always costs less in total, because the hourly model pays a provider to fix problems and pays nothing to prevent them. The break-even point in New Jersey typically falls between 8 and 12 employees.
The incentive problem
- Under break-fix, a provider earns more when your systems fail
- Under a flat monthly fee, an outage costs the provider their own time
- Neither model makes anyone dishonest - but they push in opposite directions
When break-fix genuinely wins
- Under about 5 staff, with laptops and cloud email and no server
- Very stable setups where nothing changes month to month
- Businesses that can tolerate being down for a day or two
When managed IT wins clearly
- Roughly 10 staff and up
- Any compliance obligation - HIPAA, PCI DSS, cyber insurance
- Any business where a day of downtime costs more than a month of support
- Anywhere staff already quietly work around broken systems
Common questions
Can we start with break-fix and switch later?
Yes, and many do. The usual trigger is a bad outage or an insurer asking questions the business cannot answer.
Is there a middle option?
Yes - monitoring and patching on a small monthly fee, with support hourly. It removes the worst preventable failures without a full managed contract.
Book a free 30-minute review
Tell us what is not working. We will look at your setup and tell you what we would change, whether or not you hire us.
Book the review ●●● ●●●-●●●●