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Us vs a traditional MSP.

Most managed service providers are built around landing 500-seat enterprise contracts. We're built for small businesses with 5–300 staff. Here's exactly what's different — pricing, contracts, response, scope.

 
Traditional MSP
IT for Small Businesses
Contract length
12–36 months typical
Month-to-month, cancel any time
Minimum spend
$2,500–10,000+/mo
$199/mo
Onboarding time
60–90 days
2–5 days
How you reach us
Ticket portal login
Text or call a real number
First response
SLA 4–8 hours
Usually under 1 hour
On-site visits
Quarterly + emergency $$
Same-day in DFW, included
Sales pressure
vCIO upsells, "strategic" reviews
None. We just fix things.
Lock-in software
Proprietary RMM/PSA tools
Standard tools you can take with you
Best for
200+ seat companies
5–300 person businesses

Why traditional MSPs don't fit small businesses.

The MSP model was designed in the early 2000s around mid-market and enterprise customers — companies with 200+ seats, internal IT departments, formal procurement, compliance needs. The pricing, processes, and tools all assume that customer.

Drop a 12-person restaurant or a 30-person law firm into that machine and a few things break:

None of that is the MSP being malicious. It's the model fitting the wrong customer.

What we do differently.

We deploy the same technical stack a good MSP would — Microsoft 365 Business Premium, MFA, password manager, endpoint protection, immutable backup, encrypted devices, monitored networks. The technology bar is the same.

What we cut:

What we keep: actually fixing things, fast, by texting a human. That's what most small businesses wanted from "managed IT" in the first place.

FAQ

What's the actual difference between us and a traditional MSP?

Traditional MSPs are built around landing 500-seat enterprise contracts. Pricing, processes, and ticket portals are designed for that scale. We're built for small businesses with 5–300 staff — no portals, no minimums, month-to-month.

Are MSPs more secure than what you offer?

Not inherently. The technical controls are the same — MFA, encryption, backups, endpoint protection. The difference is delivery — MSPs wrap them in compliance audits and quarterly business reviews you may or may not need. We deploy the same controls without the overhead.

Will we lose anything by not going with a traditional MSP?

For a 5–300 person business: probably not. You'd lose features designed for 1000+ seats — formal SLAs, dedicated account teams, vCIO meetings. Most small businesses pay for them and never use them.

Can we switch back to a traditional MSP later?

Easily. We don't lock you into proprietary tools. You can take our setup to any MSP that's willing to manage Microsoft 365, Bitwarden/1Password, and a backup vendor — which is all of them.

Want IT that fits your size?

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