Guide · Costs
If you search for the cost of IT services, you will find figures between 30 and 220 euros per workstation per month. That is a factor of more than six – and none of these figures is wrong. They just do not describe the same thing.
No managing director can plan with a range of 30 to 220 euros. But the reason for the spread is not price gouging; it is a mix-up: quotes contain three different things under the same name.
We deliberately do not state a price of our own on this page. A price given without knowing your environment would be a guess, and guessed prices are either corrected afterwards or padded with a safety margin from the start. Neither helps you. What we do instead: explain what the price is made up of – so that you can assess any quote, including a competitor's.
That explains most of the spread. The rest comes down to six factors that determine the actual effort.
The real core
This is the order in which they make themselves felt in practice – the first point regularly accounts for more than all the others put together.
Twelve workstations and one server are manageable. Twelve workstations, three virtualised servers, an ERP system with a database, two sites connected via VPN and a line-of-business application from 2014 whose vendor no longer exists: the same number of workstations, many times the effort.
Just the workstations – or also servers, network, firewall, backup, phone system and liaising with the vendors of your line-of-business applications? Each component can be booked individually, and each one changes the price.
Four hours during business hours is different from one hour, and both are different from availability at weekends. Short response times mean standby – and standby costs money whether it is used or not.
Around four out of five faults can be resolved via remote support, faster than anyone could drive over. The rest cannot: faulty hardware, network problems, a server that no longer starts, new workstations.
Setting up monitoring, documenting, designing a backup concept, checking the firewall regularly: this effort arises largely regardless of whether ten or fifty people work in the business.
A tax firm, a medical practice or a supplier that falls indirectly under NIS2 through its customers needs more than a trades business with eight workstations: separate permissions, traceable access, documented restore tests.
Three models
Alongside the question of how much something costs is the question of what it is billed by. Three models are common among SMEs, and they can be combined. Which one is cheaper does not depend on the provider but on how often something comes up in your business.
Four items you should ask about explicitly in every quote – they account for a large part of the price difference between two seemingly identical quotes.
Tool
Go through the list once for each quote you have. The answers tell you more about a quote than the final total. Fill it in on screen or print it out.
Your entries stay in this browser window. Nothing is stored, nothing is transmitted and no third-party server is contacted.
1 Is billing per workstation, per user or per device?
<p>With shift work or shared computers, this decides the total price.</p>
2 Are servers charged separately – and how?
<p>Server effort does not depend on the number of employees. Almost all providers bill it separately.</p>
3 Are licences included or extra?
<p>The most common reason two quotes seem impossible to compare.</p>
4 Is storage for backups included?
<p>Especially for the second copy at another location.</p>
5 Are on-site visits included or billed by the hour?
<p>Either is reasonable. What is not reasonable is finding out only from the first invoice.</p>
6 What response time is guaranteed – and when does it start?
<p>From when you report it, from when it is acknowledged, or from the start of business hours? These are very different commitments.</p>
7 Does the response time also apply outside business hours?
<p>If not: what happens if a server fails on a Friday evening?</p>
8 Who is liable if a backup does not work when it is needed?
<p>The most uncomfortable question – and the one where quotes differ most clearly.</p>
9 Is restoring tested regularly, and do I get proof?
<p>A backup that has never been restored is an assumption, not a backup.</p>
10 What does a project that goes beyond day-to-day operations cost?
<p>Hourly rate, fixed project price or at the provider's discretion?</p>
11 How long am I tied to the contract, and what is the notice period?
<p>Long minimum terms tell you how a provider intends to keep its clients.</p>
12 What happens to documentation, login credentials and licences if I terminate?
<p>The most important question on the list. Passwords, licences and documentation belong to you, not to your service provider. If the answer here is evasive, that tells you everything.</p>
No question rated yet.
The honest comparison is not "managed services versus nothing". It is: managed services versus the alternative – and that has a price too.
An in-house IT position costs the gross salary plus roughly a fifth on top for the employer's social security contributions, as well as a workplace, training, tools and licences for monitoring and remote support. Then there is what no salary table shows: holidays, sickness, resignation – and the knowledge that leaves with the person. And one person cannot master firewall, database, phone system and Microsoft 365 all at once.
From around fifty to sixty workstations, an in-house position pays off in many cases. Below that, rarely. We say so even when it counts against us – the detailed comparison of in-house IT staff, freelancers and an IT service provider is on our home page.
Frequently asked questions
Because without knowing your environment it would be a guess. We do not send a quote until we know what we are talking about. The assessment is free and without obligation; afterwards you receive a fixed monthly price with a clearly defined scope of services.
No. It is usually a different one. Use the comparison sheet above to check what is missing from it. If nothing is missing and the price is still lower, take it.
It is billed by time, at an hourly rate you are told before work starts. Factor in the time needed to get to know an unfamiliar environment: without documentation, every incident means working out afresh what is already known for a client under contract.
How IT support works with and without a contract is explained in detail on our IT support page.
Yes. Many clients start with backup monitoring or server management. Experience shows that the scope grows over time – but that is your decision, not ours.
Nothing. We record hardware, software, licences, network, backups and security status and give you an honest assessment – even if much of it is already working well and you then decide against us.
A published figure is an advertising claim that a provider is bound by. Anyone who writes "from €35" has to offer that to a business for which that scope is not enough, too – or explain at the first meeting why the stated price does not apply this time. We think the second route is more awkward than the honest answer that it depends on the environment.
Dipl.-Ing. Mohamed Khater
Dipl.-Ing. Mohamed Khater founded INFONET Computer GmbH in Cologne in 1992 and still runs it as its owner. He continues to work on the technology himself rather than just managing it – the assessments in this article come from 34 years of quotes, takeovers of existing IT environments and assessments at small and medium-sized businesses in the Rhineland.
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