Managed IT vs. break-fix: which model fits your business?

The two models in one paragraph each

Break-fix (also called time-and-materials or on-demand IT) is the traditional model: when something stops working, you call a technician, they fix it, and you pay for the hours. There's no monthly commitment and nothing happens between calls.

Managed IT is a subscription: a provider takes ongoing responsibility for your technology for a flat monthly fee, usually per user. They monitor, patch, secure and plan continuously, and fixing problems is included rather than billed.

Side by side

	Break-fix	Managed IT
Pricing	Hourly, unpredictable	Flat monthly, per user
Provider earns more when…	Things break	Things don't break
Monitoring & patching	Usually none	Continuous
Response time	Best effort; contract clients first	Committed and measured
Knows your environment	Re-learns it each visit	Documented and maintained
Security	Reactive	Baseline enforced (MFA, EDR, backups)
Budgeting	Hard; spikes after incidents	A predictable line item

The incentive problem with break-fix

Break-fix technicians are often skilled and honest. The problem is structural: their revenue depends on your problems. Nobody is paid to notice that backups silently stopped three weeks ago, that a former employee's account still works, or that the firewall firmware is two years out of date. Those gaps stay invisible until they turn into an incident — which is then billed by the hour, at the worst possible moment.

Managed IT flips that. Because repair work is included, every recurring problem eats into the provider's margin, so they're motivated to fix root causes, automate patching and keep documentation current.

When break-fix is the right call

• You have fewer than about ten staff and very simple technology — a few laptops and a cloud email service.
• Downtime is an inconvenience rather than lost revenue.
• You hold no regulated data and face no client security questionnaires.
• Someone on your team is genuinely comfortable handling day-to-day IT.

If that's you, hourly support is rational. We offer it ourselves at $175/hour for non-contract work, and we'll tell you honestly if a plan would be overkill.

When managed IT pays for itself

• You have 10–100 staff and every hour of downtime means idle payroll.
• You handle client financial, legal or health data — see our pages for accounting firms, law firms and healthcare practices.
• Your cyber insurer or clients ask about MFA, endpoint protection and backups.
• IT currently lands on an office manager or founder as a second job.
• Your hourly IT invoices vary wildly month to month.

A quick cost comparison

A 20-person company using break-fix might average 10 billable hours a month in a quiet period — around $1,750 at typical rates — with no monitoring, patching or security management included. A single ransomware incident or failed server can add tens of thousands in recovery and lost work. The same company on a managed plan pays $1,900–$2,900 a month for continuous coverage, with incidents far less likely and recovery included when they happen.

The honest comparison isn't monthly invoice versus monthly invoice; it's total annual cost including the incident you haven't had yet. Our ransomware recovery case study shows what that incident tends to look like.

A middle path: co-managed IT

If you already employ an IT person, you don't have to choose. Co-managed IT keeps your person on hands-on local work while a managed provider supplies monitoring, security tooling, patching, escalation depth and vacation cover. It's what our Essentials plan is designed for.

The takeaway

Break-fix suits very small, low-risk businesses. Past about ten staff — or as soon as you hold sensitive data — managed IT is usually cheaper over a full year and far less risky. If you're unsure which side of the line you're on, a free assessment will tell you, in writing.