FAQs
Questions We Get Asked a Lot.
We set out to fix what was wrong with one.
THE MODEL
What’s the difference between an MSP and a Managed IT Department?
If you’re with an MSP today, here’s how it compares.
Agreements
- An MSP locks you into a 1 to 3 year contract, often with automatic price increases.
- A Managed IT Department aims for 6 month agreements, reviewed together at the end of each term. The budget never changes unless we both agree, based on demand and labour reporting.
PRICING
- An MSP charges per user or per device, so your bill grows every time you hire someone or buy a laptop.
- A Managed IT Department agrees a budget with you after an assessment, and it doesn’t move with headcount.
RATES
- An MSP charges different rates for different types of techs, so you get punished financially depending on the work that needs doing.
- A Managed IT Department is one team, priced as one team at a single rate, so the type of work never changes what an hour costs.
REPORTING
- An MSP usually sends graphs, and rarely reports on the hours spent or where they went.
- A Managed IT Department sends a monthly report from your IT manager in plain language: tickets, risk mitigation, improvements, projects, and where the hours went.
EFFORT
- An MSP is paid the same whether it does the work or not, so the incentive is to do as little as possible.
- A Managed IT Department consumes a budget of labour hours doing the work, and keeps going when the budget is hit.
SCOPE
- An MSP comes with a sales team, upsells, and long lists of what’s out of scope.
- A Managed IT Department has no sales team and almost everything is in scope. Only complicated projects and after-hours work sit outside it, and we ask before starting either.
ONSITES
- An MSP tries to avoid coming onsite, or charges you extra when it does.
- A Managed IT Department comes onsite when you need us, for as long as you need us. It’s all part of the labour hours you’re paying for.
How does the budget actually work?
Your budget is a set number of labour hours each month, billed at $150 an hour, that we consume delivering work for you. The number is agreed together after an assessment of your environment, not picked from a tier, and it isn’t per user or per device, so it doesn’t climb when you hire someone or buy a laptop. Support sits inside the budget like everything else. We don’t limit requests, we log the hours behind the work, capture the demand, and every six months go through supply and demand together to see whether the budget still fits.
What happens when we hit the budget?
We don’t stop working. If there’s more that needs doing that month, service desk, risk mitigation, improvements, we keep going. If demand is running above or below the budget, we pick that up at the six month review and adjust together.
Are there lock-in contracts?
We aim for 6 month agreements, reviewed together at the end of each term, rather than the 1 to 3 year contracts common with MSPs.
SCOPE
What’s included?
Nearly everything: help desk and support, monitoring and maintenance, cyber security, backup and continuity, risk management, governance, and ongoing improvement work. The Services page has the full breakdown.
What’s out of scope?
Two things: complicated projects, like an office relocation or a large scale system implementation, which get their own budget and timeline, and after-hours work. We aim to get as much done as possible within business hours and always seek your approval before working outside them, the same way an internal IT department with employees would.
ONBOARDING & REPORTING
What happens in the first 6 months?
We start with a full risk assessment of your environment to build your IT risk register, unless you already have one. That gives us a roadmap of improvements and mitigations to work through. From there we run annual risk assessments to update and build on the register.
What’s in the Monthly IT Manager Report?
A plain-language written report from your IT manager covering service desk tickets raised, risk mitigation activity, improvements implemented, and projects. No bar graphs, no pie charts.
SUPPORT & LOCATIONS
Who will we deal with, and how fast do you respond?
Your IT manager owns your account and is your main contact for escalations. Day to day, requests go to our service desk team, and we aim to give a real human response to every ticket within 30 minutes.
Do you only work with Bendigo businesses, and do you come onsite?
We’re Bendigo born, with technicians interstate, so you get local support wherever you are. Onsites are included, there when you need them.
Still have a question?
Get in touch and we’ll pop by for a chat about what a managed IT department could look like for your business.