Pricing
Our prices are on our website.
Which should not be remarkable, and in this industry is. You can work out roughly what we cost before you speak to anyone — and compare it against what a full-time hire would.
| Service | Price | What that covers |
|---|---|---|
| Managed IT — per computer | $149/mo | Unlimited helpdesk, monitoring, patching, antivirus, backup monitoring, 365 admin. Minimum 5 computers. |
| Managed IT — per server | $349/mo | Monitoring, patching, backup verification, quarterly test restores. |
| Network evaluation | Free | Site walk, asset inventory, written findings. Yours to keep either way. |
| On-site support (no contract) | $185/hr | Billed in 15-minute blocks after the first hour. No trip charge downtown or in the near suburbs. |
| Remote support (no contract) | $145/hr | Usually same-day. Cheapest route for anything software-shaped. |
| Bench diagnostic | $89 | Credited against the repair if you go ahead. |
| Flat-rate bench repairs | from $149 | Drive replacement, SSD upgrade, clean reinstall, virus removal. |
| Cat6 network drop | $225 each | Terminated both ends, tested, labelled. Typical commercial construction. |
| After-hours (non-contract) | 150% of rate | Managed clients get out-of-hours emergency response at no extra cost. |
| Projects — migrations, rebuilds | Fixed price | Quoted after we have seen it. Fixed rather than hourly, deliberately. |
Prices exclude hardware, software licensing and parts, which are billed at cost. Everything above is quoted before work starts — nothing on an invoice should ever be a surprise.
The comparison that matters
Against hiring, not against another invoice.
The relevant question is rarely whether we are cheaper than the other local provider. It is whether outsourcing the function beats employing it.
| One full-time IT hire | Outsourced to us | Call-a-guy-when-it-breaks | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per year | $121,600$95,000 salary + 28% burden | $35,76020 seats at $149/mo | UnpredictableYou only call when it is already broken |
| Hours actually covered | 40/week, minus holidaysOne person, one calendar | Mon–Fri 8–6, plus after-hoursNobody is ever the only one who knows | Whenever they can fit you in |
| Cover for holiday and sickness | None — you are down | Built in | n/a |
| Depth of skill | One generalistGreat at some of it, guessing at the rest | Server, network and security specialistsWhoever the job needs | Varies by who is on the van |
| Monitoring and patching | If they get to it | Automated and reported monthly | Not included |
| Recruiting, reviews, turnover | Yours to handleAnd to repeat in 18 months | Not your problem | Not your problem |
| Tools, licensing, training | You buy it allOften several thousand a year | Included in the seat price | Billed back to you |
| Scaling down when it is quiet | Redundancy process | Change the seat count | Just stop calling |
| Notice to leave | — | 30 daysNo three-year lock-in | — |
Salary figure reflects published Chicago-area averages for a systems administrator — $91,608 on ZipRecruiter, $103,214 on Salary.com — which is the going rate downtown for one person who can cover both helpdesk and infrastructure. A pure support specialist is cheaper ($59,244 statewide on Indeed) but cannot run your servers. The 28% burden covers payroll tax, health insurance, workers’ comp, paid time off, and the laptop and tooling they need. Your own numbers will differ; the calculator above uses whatever you type in.
Why we publish these at all
The standard practice in managed IT is to withhold pricing until a discovery call, on the theory that value should be established before price. In practice it wastes an hour of your time to learn a number that was never going to be a secret, and it selects for providers who are good at the meeting rather than the work.
You are trying to answer a budget question. If our seat price is wrong for your business, you should be able to find that out in thirty seconds on a website rather than a fortnight into a sales process.
Where these numbers move
Seat pricing is per computer, not per person — someone with a laptop and a desktop counts as two, because both need patching and both can break. Multiple sites, unusual compliance requirements, or an estate that has been neglected long enough to need remediation first will change the quote, and we will say so before you sign anything rather than after.
Hardware, licences and parts are billed at cost. We do not mark up hardware, which means we have no reason to recommend replacing something that could be repaired.
What is not included
Project work — server replacements, office moves, full network rebuilds, migrations — is quoted separately and fixed-price. That is capital work rather than support, and folding it into a monthly fee would either inflate everyone's price or quietly discourage us from recommending it when it is needed.
FAQ
Pricing questions
Is the per-computer price really all-inclusive?
For support, yes — unlimited remote helpdesk, on-site visits, monitoring, patching, antivirus, backup monitoring and 365 administration, with no per-ticket charges. Hardware, licences and parts are billed at cost, and projects are quoted separately.
How does this compare to other Chicago providers?
Fully managed IT downtown generally runs $125 to $250 per user per month, and on-site work $125 to $250 an hour. We sit at the lower-middle of that band deliberately — $149 per computer and $185 an hour — because we would rather win on published pricing and response than on being the cheapest.
Do you charge per person or per computer?
Per computer. Someone with a laptop and a desktop counts as two, because both need patching and both can break. It is the honest unit — per-person pricing just moves the same cost around.
Is there a setup or onboarding fee?
No, for a typical environment. If an estate has been neglected long enough to need remediation before it can be supported properly, that is quoted as a project up front rather than absorbed quietly.
What if we only need help occasionally?
Then use us hourly and skip the agreement. $185 on-site, $145 remote, no minimum, no contract. Once you are spending more than a couple of hours a month reactively, we will point out that the monthly fee has become cheaper.
Do you mark up hardware?
No. Equipment and licences are billed at cost. It removes any incentive for us to recommend replacing something repairable, which is the point.
Will the price go up?
Not without thirty days’ notice, which is the same notice you have to leave. The seat count changes as your business does, and that is a straightforward adjustment rather than a renegotiation.
Get a number for your actual business.
Tell us your seat count and we will give you the monthly figure on the phone, without a discovery meeting.