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Access to Specialists
An MSP employs network engineers, security analysts, compliance specialists, and cloud architects. You get all of them for less than the cost of one full-time generalist IT hire.
Outsourcing IT replaces the overhead of a full-time IT team with predictable monthly costs — and access to specialists you couldn't afford to hire on your own.
An MSP employs network engineers, security analysts, compliance specialists, and cloud architects. You get all of them for less than the cost of one full-time generalist IT hire.
Outsourced IT replaces unpredictable break-fix bills and unplanned security incidents with a flat monthly cost. Better for budgeting, better for planning, better for your finance team.
Every hour your team spends managing IT problems is an hour not spent on your actual business. Outsourced IT removes that distraction entirely.
Both models have legitimate use cases. The right answer depends on your headcount, how specialized your technology environment is, and whether IT is a core function of your business or infrastructure that supports it.
In-house IT starts to make financial and operational sense at 100–150+ employees, where the volume of IT work justifies dedicated headcount. It also makes sense when your technology environment is highly specialized — custom-built software, unusual infrastructure, or a stack that's genuinely difficult to transfer context on. And for technology companies where IT is a core business function (not just support infrastructure), keeping it in-house is often the right call.
For businesses under 100 employees, outsourcing almost always wins on cost and coverage. You get a team instead of one person, 24/7 monitoring instead of business-hours availability, and depth in security that a single hire rarely brings. If you're in a regulated industry — healthcare, finance, government contracting — the compliance expertise an MSP provides would cost significantly more to hire directly. And when IT is support infrastructure, not your core product, it's usually not worth the overhead of full-time headcount.
A fully-loaded in-house IT hire costs $80,000–$130,000/year in salary plus benefits. That's one generalist, with no backup when they're sick, on vacation, or when they quit. An MSP for a 20-person business typically costs $30,000–$50,000/year and gives you a team with redundancy. The math is straightforward for most businesses under 75 employees.
For businesses that have some internal IT staff but need supplemental support — particularly security expertise or 24/7 monitoring — co-managed IT is a viable middle ground. Your internal team handles day-to-day work and institutional knowledge; the MSP provides the security stack, after-hours coverage, and specialized expertise your internal team doesn't have. It's increasingly common and worth considering if you already have one or two IT people on staff.
We're a matching platform — not an IT provider. We do the work of finding the right fit so you don't have to evaluate a dozen proposals.
Full IT management? Security only? A specific project? Fill out the form above and give us the context.
We identify vetted MSPs who specialize in your type of outsourcing requirement, in your area, at your company size.
You hear from one vetted provider who knows your size, location, and what you need before the first conversation.
The quality gap between outsourced IT providers is significant. Price is rarely the most important variable. These are the questions that actually matter.
Ask specifically what they deploy on endpoints. You want EDR (endpoint detection and response), not just monitoring. If the answer is "we use antivirus and a firewall," that's an inadequate stack for the current threat environment. Ask for the product names, not just the category.
Response time commitments mean nothing without financial remedies for missing them. Read the SLA carefully. A provider that commits to 1-hour response but has no penalty for missing it has made a promise without a consequence. Good SLAs have teeth.
Ask directly: how many clients does each technician manage? A responsible MSP running full managed services should be at no more than 50–75 clients per technician. Higher than that and your tickets are waiting in a queue, not being actively worked.
Ask how often they test backup restores — and ask to see documentation. "We monitor backups" is not the same as "we test restores on a schedule." Backups that have never been restored are not backups; they're untested assumptions.
Before you sign, understand what happens when you leave. Can you take your admin credentials, your documentation, and your data with you? Some MSPs create dependency by holding admin access and documentation — a good provider has no reason to do that. Get the exit terms in writing.
They're essentially the same thing. "Outsourced IT" describes the model — an external team managing your IT environment. "MSP" (managed service provider) is the industry term for the company doing it. When you outsource your IT, you're working with an MSP.
Outsourcing IT typically makes sense when: you have 5–150 employees, you don't have in-house IT expertise, your business depends on IT reliability but IT isn't your core product, or you're in a regulated industry (healthcare, finance, government contracting) where compliance requires security expertise you don't have.
A full outsourced IT engagement includes: helpdesk support, remote monitoring and management (RMM), endpoint security (EDR/MDR), patch management, backup monitoring and testing, and vendor management. Compliance support (HIPAA, PCI, SOC 2), strategic advisory (vCISO), and project work are common add-ons.
A fully-loaded in-house IT hire costs $80,000–$130,000/year in salary plus benefits — and you get one generalist with no backup when they're sick or leave. An MSP for a 20-person business typically costs $30,000–$50,000/year and gives you a team of specialists. See our IT support cost guide for detailed ranges.
Key criteria: What security stack do they deploy on endpoints? What are the SLA response time commitments and what are the financial remedies for missing them? What's their staff-to-client ratio? How often do they test backup restores? What are the exit terms — can you take your own admin credentials and documentation if you leave? Use our free RFP Generator to send structured proposals to multiple providers.