When you ask three MSPs for a proposal, you often get three different pricing structures. One quotes per-user. One quotes per-device. One quotes an all-inclusive flat rate. Comparing them without understanding the model is almost meaningless.
Per-User Pricing
Per-user pricing charges a flat monthly rate per employee, regardless of how many devices they use. A user with a laptop, a desktop, and a company phone still counts as one user.
Best for: Office-based businesses with one or two devices per employee, relatively stable headcounts, and standard setups. Law firms, accounting practices, professional services businesses.
Typical range: $100–$200/user/month for all-inclusive managed IT in 2026.
Watch for: Some per-user proposals exclude servers, network equipment, or mobile devices from the per-user rate and charge separately for these. Ask explicitly: "Is everything in my environment covered at this per-user rate, and what is not?"
Per-Device Pricing
Per-device pricing charges a different rate for each type of managed asset: workstations, servers, network switches, firewalls, printers. The rates vary significantly by device type — a server costs more to manage than a workstation.
Best for: Businesses with more devices than employees — manufacturing floors, healthcare practices with shared workstations, dental offices with one computer per chair, retail environments.
Typical range: $40–$80/workstation, $150–$300/server, $30–$60/network device per month.
Watch for: Per-device proposals can look cheap until you count every device. Ask for a total monthly cost estimate based on your actual inventory before comparing to per-user proposals.
All-Inclusive vs. Tiered Pricing
All-inclusive pricing means everything — helpdesk, security tools, backup, monitoring, patch management, compliance tooling — is in the base rate. You know exactly what you're paying, and there are no add-on invoices.
Tiered pricing has a base rate (often helpdesk and basic monitoring only) and then charges extra for security tools: EDR, email filtering, backup, dark web monitoring, SIEM. Tiered proposals almost always look cheaper on paper — until you add back the security tools that should have been in the base.
The test: ask for a line-by-line list of what's in the base rate and what's extra. For each extra-cost item, ask whether it's truly optional or whether you'd be exposed without it. Usually the answer is that you need all of it — which means you need to add it all back to compare fairly.
How to Compare Proposals with Different Structures
Step 1: Standardize to per-user-per-month. Whatever the proposal structure, calculate your all-in monthly cost and divide by your user count. This gives you a comparable number across proposals.
Step 2: Add back any missing security components. If a proposal doesn't include EDR, email filtering, and managed backup, find out what those cost as add-ons and add them to the comparison number.
Step 3: Check what triggers extra invoices. Ask: "What are the most common out-of-scope charges on your invoices?" A good MSP can answer this clearly. Vague answers mean you'll be surprised later.
The full pricing breakdown — including 2026 benchmark rates by company size and compliance requirements — is in the MSP Pricing Guide.