How much should IT support cost me for my business?

P

Physx

New Member
Ok, so I only have about 20 computers currently, but eventually planning to expand up to about 100 (fairly new company that is quickly rising up). Since I have never run a business that needed IT support in the past, I'm trying to find out what a reasonable cost should be for me?

Like I said, it's 20 computers we have, two different types of fairly basic software, and just need someone to handle if our computers run into bugs here and there or if our software needs technical troubleshooting here or there. We have been doing it on our own with the software's customer support, but without someone who really knows computers, it has been real rough.

So, a few questions here:

1. How does IT support typically price their costs?

2. Tying into the pricing, how much of an approximate increase should I expect as I expand down the road to the anticipated 100 computers as far as a fair price?

3. How long of a contract is typical?

4. What types of things should I look for in trying to find a quality IT support company to work with?

I really appreciate your feedback, as this is new to me and I want to make sure to do it right.
 
DMGrier

DMGrier

VIP Member
So I use to do freelance IT some time ago. For general support on weekdays I charged $75/hr and if you scheduled the time for me to come out you wouldn't have additional charges but if you needed same day I did charge $50 up front. If I had to provide support on weekends you always had the $50 fee upfront and an emergency rate of $150 an hour. My consultations were always free. If it was project stuff then I usually flat rated that. Example being maybe your applications and data are on premise and you want to move your data and applications to the cloud to something like Gsuite then, in those cases I would charge one flat rate based on what I thought the job would cost. Same idea with any web dev stuff for the website work I would do, all flat rate.

I have heard of places charging up to $95/hr, it is just based on the level of support you are going to be asking for. You can contract which is usually an annual commitment and you would do this to hopefully offset some of your hourly support cost.

For number of employees reaching 100 you might want to consider going to 101 and hiring a help desk IT person. Depending on where you are at you could expect to pay $15-$20 an hour for that person and depending on how you much your staff use technology to get their job done you will be money ahead. Actually depending on your business model needs of technology to be successful you may find you need more then that. I work in Integrated Healthcare and I am in a company of 135 people. We have seven people in our IT department. I am the IT System Administrator Manager and we have a network administrator, help desk, Database Administrator, report writer, junior report writer and EHR help desk. Because of the number of counties we occupy and the state/federal funding we receive we are not an uncommonly large IT department for the task we have to complete daily. So evaluate your business as you grow it. You might find once you hit 100 people that you just need a help desk person to keep the workstations up to snuff for your other staff to get there job done. You may find at 100 people you need a help desk person and a data analyst to help you better understand the business data to make better business decisions. You may find they don't need that much support and even at 100 people it would be better to just keep a support contract. Basically, keep your finger on the pulse with your tech needs and always be evaluating.

words of advice
IT are kind of like mechanics, we either are good and honest or just damn near criminal and will take you to the hills and back. Look for someone who will provide you support both hourly and contracted. Before you enter a contract you should take their service for a test drive to make sure you feel good about what they offer. Measure the response time and what kind of solutions they purpose when you need tech to solve a problem. If you feel good about the service then look at entering a support contract. Make sure the IT person you are working with understands your business needs and is well versed. Most IT people like to sell you on local servers and other on premise solutions but, make sure they also offer support on cloud solutions as well with Google, Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS. Generally when I would build a solution with a customer I would offer both on premise solutions and cloud as I never knew if the customer would prefer a lower recurring monthly cost or a one time high cost, I was just happy to get their business.

Let me know if you have any other questions.
 
Darren

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
DMGrier said:
So I use to do freelance IT some time ago. For general support on weekdays I charged $75/hr and if you scheduled the time for me to come out you wouldn't have additional charges but if you needed same day I did charge $50 up front. If I had to provide support on weekends you always had the $50 fee upfront and an emergency rate of $150 an hour. My consultations were always free. If it was project stuff then I usually flat rated that. Example being maybe your applications and data are on premise and you want to move your data and applications to the cloud to something like Gsuite then, in those cases I would charge one flat rate based on what I thought the job would cost. Same idea with any web dev stuff for the website work I would do, all flat rate.

I have heard of places charging up to $95/hr, it is just based on the level of support you are going to be asking for. You can contract which is usually an annual commitment and you would do this to hopefully offset some of your hourly support cost.

For number of employees reaching 100 you might want to consider going to 101 and hiring a help desk IT person. Depending on where you are at you could expect to pay $15-$20 an hour for that person and depending on how you much your staff use technology to get their job done you will be money ahead. Actually depending on your business model needs of technology to be successful you may find you need more then that. I work in Integrated Healthcare and I am in a company of 135 people. We have seven people in our IT department. I am the IT System Administrator Manager and we have a network administrator, help desk, Database Administrator, report writer, junior report writer and EHR help desk. Because of the number of counties we occupy and the state/federal funding we receive we are not an uncommonly large IT department for the task we have to complete daily. So evaluate your business as you grow it. You might find once you hit 100 people that you just need a help desk person to keep the workstations up to snuff for your other staff to get there job done. You may find at 100 people you need a help desk person and a data analyst to help you better understand the business data to make better business decisions. You may find they don't need that much support and even at 100 people it would be better to just keep a support contract. Basically, keep your finger on the pulse with your tech needs and always be evaluating.

words of advice
IT are kind of like mechanics, we either are good and honest or just damn near criminal and will take you to the hills and back. Look for someone who will provide you support both hourly and contracted. Before you enter a contract you should take their service for a test drive to make sure you feel good about what they offer. Measure the response time and what kind of solutions they purpose when you need tech to solve a problem. If you feel good about the service then look at entering a support contract. Make sure the IT person you are working with understands your business needs and is well versed. Most IT people like to sell you on local servers and other on premise solutions but, make sure they also offer support on cloud solutions as well with Google, Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS. Generally when I would build a solution with a customer I would offer both on premise solutions and cloud as I never knew if the customer would prefer a lower recurring monthly cost or a one time high cost, I was just happy to get their business.

Let me know if you have any other questions.
Click to expand...

Interesting to hear your staffing. I work in a private cardiology practice and for our 5 offices (within a semi-large metro area) and probably 140 employees they only have 3 of us, and I'm not even full time. Doctors won't even let me be full time because they think 2.5 guys is enough.
 
DMGrier

DMGrier

VIP Member
Darren said:
Interesting to hear your staffing. I work in a private cardiology practice and for our 5 offices (within a semi-large metro area) and probably 140 employees they only have 3 of us, and I'm not even full time. Doctors won't even let me be full time because they think 2.5 guys is enough.
Click to expand...
3 people for 140 employees? Damn....

I don't know how you do it. I work about 60 hours a week now and I don't think i have anyone on the team who work less then 45 hours a week. My data guys stay pretty busy thanks to all the state reporting requirements due to our contracts. From the support side of things we have our 135 employees in seven (soon eight) locations across four different counties. I think our support side is bigger due to the fact 80% of our staff is relatively mobile in the field. Also our people primarily work in mental health and substance abuse services which may be the most computer illiterate group of people I have ever worked with, Not that it is bad but does require more support.

I bet cardiology has to be interesting, those MD's you work with I am sure are much like the Psychiatrist I work with....
 
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