What is managed IT support?
Managed IT support is a monthly service where a provider looks after your IT for a fixed fee, usually per user. It typically includes unlimited helpdesk support, remote monitoring, updates, Microsoft 365 management, anti-virus and backup checks. The provider is paid to keep things running, so they have every reason to stop problems happening in the first place.
What is pay-as-you-go (break-fix) IT support?
Pay-as-you-go - often called break-fix - means you call an IT company when something goes wrong and pay for the time it takes to fix. There’s no monthly fee, but nothing is monitored or maintained in between. UK hourly rates typically range from £75 to £150 an hour.
Managed vs pay-as-you-go at a glance
| Managed IT support | Pay-as-you-go | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Fixed monthly fee per user | Hourly, only when you need help |
| Budgeting | Predictable | Unpredictable |
| Prevention | Monitoring, updates and maintenance included | None - issues fixed after they happen |
| Response | Priority, with agreed response times | When an engineer is available |
| Security & backups | Managed and checked | Usually your responsibility |
| Best for | Businesses that rely on IT every day | Very small teams or one-off jobs |
Which is cheaper?
Pay-as-you-go looks cheaper on paper because there’s no monthly bill. But a single bad week - a failed laptop, an email problem and a printer issue - can easily cost more than a month of managed support. Downtime costs money too: every hour your team can’t work adds up.
As an example, our IT support costs £40 per user per month for teams of up to 10, falling to £19.99 per user for 76–100 users. Our pay-as-you-go rates are £50 an hour remote and £80 an hour on site. For a team of five, two or three hours of pay-as-you-go work a month already costs about the same as a managed plan - without any of the monitoring, maintenance or security.
When does pay-as-you-go make sense?
- You’re a sole trader or a very small team with simple IT.
- You only need help with a one-off project, like setting up a new laptop.
- You already have in-house IT and just need occasional backup.
When is managed IT support the better choice?
- Your team can’t work when IT goes down.
- You handle customer data and need to take security seriously.
- You want predictable costs and one number to call for everything.
- You’re growing and need IT that keeps up.
Not sure which suits you? We offer both, with no contracts - so you can start with pay-as-you-go and move to a managed plan whenever you’re ready. See what IT support costs in the UK →