Every matching site says its providers are vetted. Here are the five things we screen before any IT provider can appear on a shortlist — and the disqualifiers that keep them out no matter what they're willing to pay.
One rule sits above everything else: money can't buy a place in the network, and it can't buy a place on your shortlist. Providers pay a fixed introduction fee when we connect them with a client — but vetting decides who's in, and your requirements decide who gets matched. Fees decide neither.
"We serve all industries" is a red flag, not a qualification. We look for demonstrated client experience in the verticals a provider claims — healthcare providers who actually run EHR environments, legal IT teams who know document management systems and matter-based access controls, government-contractor specialists who live in CMMC.
If you select HIPAA, CMMC, SOC 2, PCI-DSS, or GLBA/FINRA in the questionnaire, you'll only be matched with providers who can support that framework — with specifics, not slogans: signed BAAs, documented security controls, experience preparing clients for the audits you actually face.
"We're usually pretty fast" doesn't count. We look for documented service level agreements with defined response times by severity — and we ask how those SLAs are measured and reported to clients.
Every provider has a client sweet spot. A 10-person business at an MSP built for 500-seat clients gets ignored; a 200-person company at a provider built for 20-seat clients gets outgrown pain. We match you inside a provider's sweet spot so you're neither their biggest account nor their smallest.
Your IT provider holds the keys to your business. We screen for providers that will still be there in five years — real team depth (no one-person shops posing as teams), tenure in business, and the staffing to cover vacations, departures, and 2 a.m. incidents.
Vetting is a screen, not a guarantee. It filters out providers who can't demonstrate the basics, and it's why we'd rather tell you we don't have a strong fit than force a weak match. But no screening process replaces your own judgment: check references, ask the hard questions, and read the contract before you sign.
We built free tools for exactly that — use the MSP Evaluation Guide, the Contract Scanner, and the RFP Generator on any provider, including ours.
SerenIT is building its provider network deliberately, industry by industry and metro by metro. That means two things: providers who join early are held to the same screening as everyone else, and if your match request lands where our coverage is thin, we'll say so and help you run your own search instead of pretending otherwise.
If you're an IT provider who can clear the bar above, see the partner program.