IT Budgeting Tips & Signs You’re Paying Too Much

How much value does outsourcing your IT services add to your business? And equally important, how much will it set you back? IT budgeting can be tricky. It involves predicting costs, defining business goals, and securing contingencies for unforeseen expenses. While reviewing and adjusting your budget regularly is important, it is also essential to know when you’re overpaying for IT services. Let’s explore the costs of managed IT services and effective IT budgeting.

How Much Do Managed IT Services Cost?

The cost of managed IT services varies widely depending on the size and needs of an organization. Some key factors that influence cost include the number of users and devices, the types of services included, service levels and response times, and the level of security and compliance needed.

Typical services offered by managed service providers (MSPs) include help desk support, monitoring and management of networks and devices, data backups, software updates, security, and more. MSPs usually price services on a per user per month basis, with rates ranging from $100–300 per user per month.

Additional costs for project work, hardware and licensing, and enhanced security or compliance may apply. Large organizations can often negotiate custom contracts and discounted rates based on their scale and commitment.

Assess Your IT Environment

The first step in IT budgeting is taking a detailed inventory of your current infrastructure and services. Document things like:

Number of users and devices
Core hardware like servers, routers, and switches
Software licenses and SaaS apps used
Current IT services and service levels
Recent IT costs and projects

This inventory helps you understand what you have today and where money is being spent. It also informs budget planning.

Define Your Objectives

Next, define the key IT goals you want to achieve in the coming year. These should align with your overall business goals. Examples may include:

Improving security and reducing risk
Increasing mobility and flexibility
Enhancing the customer experience
Upgrading infrastructure for performance and reliability

The initiatives defined here will influence how much of the budget is required and where it should be invested.

Set Budget Timelines

Factor in timing considerations that may impact budget planning, such as:

Hardware/software renewal dates
Planned projects and rollout schedules
Seasonal or periodic costs
Multi-year investments and roadmaps

Mapping out these timelines will help match costs to expected timing and cash flow.

Create Contingency Budgets

It’s wise to have contingency budgets set aside for potential emergencies like:

Unplanned downtime from failures
Security breaches or cyberattacks
New regulatory/compliance requirements

Contingency budgets prevent crisis scenarios from breaking the bank.

Review & Adjust

Budgeting is an ongoing process that should be reviewed and adjusted periodically. As business needs evolve or economic factors change, you may need to revisit budgets and priorities.

Set quarterly or bi-annual budget reviews to make any necessary course corrections.

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Support Ticket Response Time Has Increased

Longer support ticket response times from your IT services provider could mean you’re paying for a higher service level than you’re receiving. Many managed service providers outline response time service level agreements (SLAs) based on priority levels. If you contract for a one-hour response SLA for high-priority tickets but are seeing response times slip to two or three hours consistently, you are overpaying.

Potential reasons for slowed response times include your provider taking on too many clients or decreased staffing. However, the root cause does not matter; slower responses mean you aren’t receiving the service level you’re paying for. Monitoring response times and communicating with your provider when they approach or exceed SLA thresholds is key to ensuring consistent delivery of contracted services.

Everything Is Break-Fix

Effective managed IT services should rely primarily on proactive maintenance, monitoring, and strategic initiatives that enhance your IT environment’s security, efficiency, and ability to support business objectives. Reactive break-fix work will always be needed to some extent when unexpected issues emerge. However, if your provider consistently relies on appliance failures, user complaints regarding network slowness, server crashes, or other break-fix scenarios to drive their efforts, your service model is likely more expensive and less efficient than it should be.

Your Provider Lacks a Strategic Approach

Outsourced IT management partners should function as an extension of your internal team. External managed services staff should document your environment thoroughly, maintain continual awareness of new and emerging technologies, understand your business objectives, and work in a consultative fashion to evolve an IT strategy aligned with those needs.

Providers lacking strategic vision will view your environment narrowly, often focused primarily on the contract’s prescriptive requirements related to server availability, patch installations, response times, quarterly reporting documents, and other easily quantified deliverables. They will work reactively to maintain compliance with those specified items without considering the bigger picture of how technology choices impact business productivity and revenue now and in the coming years.

Optimize Your IT Budgeting With SBT’s Single Utility Bill

Businesses often struggle with their IT budgetingbecause their managed service needs evolve over time. SBT Partners simplifies this by offering comprehensive IT solutions under a single utility bill. Working with us means you’re receiving expert solutions at a predictable price, allowing you to budget better for your future.

IT Budgeting Tips & Signs You’re Paying Too Much

How Much Do Managed IT Services Cost?

Assess Your IT Environment

Define Your Objectives

Set Budget Timelines

Create Contingency Budgets

Review & Adjust

Support Ticket Response Time Has Increased

Everything Is Break-Fix

Your Provider Lacks a Strategic Approach

Optimize Your IT Budgeting With SBT’s Single Utility Bill

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