The short answer
- Break/fix means calling a technician when something stops working and paying by the hour. It suits very small, cloud-only offices with little at stake.
- Managed IT means paying a fixed monthly fee for a provider to monitor, patch, back up, secure and support everything, so fewer things break in the first place.
- The biggest difference is incentives. A break/fix provider earns more when your systems fail. A managed provider earns more when they do not.
- For most businesses past ten people, managed IT costs about the same over a year and removes the expensive surprises.
Two ways to pay for IT
Every business pays for IT one way or another. The question is whether you pay in small, planned amounts or in large, unplanned ones. The illustration below shows the pattern we see when offices move from break/fix to managed support.
Break/fix
You call when something is wrong. A technician fixes it and bills the hours. Between calls, nobody is watching your systems, applying updates or checking backups unless you ask and pay for it.
Managed IT
A provider takes responsibility for your IT for a fixed monthly fee, usually per user. They monitor devices and servers, apply security updates, test backups, run the help desk and plan what needs replacing before it fails.
How they compare
| Break/fix | Managed IT | |
|---|---|---|
| How you pay | Hourly, when something breaks | A fixed monthly fee, usually per user |
| Who notices problems | Your staff, once they stop working | Monitoring, often before staff notice |
| Security updates | When someone remembers | On a schedule |
| Backups tested | Rarely | Regularly |
| Documentation | In one technician’s head | Written and kept current |
| Response time | Whenever the technician is free | Agreed in the contract |
| Budgeting | Unpredictable | Predictable |
| The provider earns more when | Things break | Things keep working |
| Best for | 1 to 5 people, all in the cloud, low risk | Most businesses of 10 people or more |
The incentive problem
This is the part most comparisons leave out. Under break/fix, your provider’s income rises with every outage, every slow computer and every virus. Nobody is being dishonest. The model simply rewards repair rather than prevention, so prevention rarely happens. Updates slip, backups go untested, and the same problems return.
Managed IT reverses that. The provider is paid the same whether you call once or fifty times, so every problem they prevent is time they do not have to spend. Patching, monitoring, standard setups and good documentation stop being extras you have to request. They are how the provider protects its own margin.
The cost break/fix leaves off the invoice
A break/fix invoice shows the technician’s hours. It does not show the cost of the people who could not work while they waited. That number is usually far larger, and it is easy to estimate.
A worked example
A 20-person office loses its file server for four hours. If each person costs the business $45 an hour in wages and overhead, the lost time is 20 × $45 × 4 = $3,600, before counting missed deadlines, overtime to catch up or an unhappy client. The technician’s bill for the same incident might be a fraction of that.
Managed IT does not make outages impossible. It makes them rarer and shorter, because failing drives are noticed in advance, backups are known to work and the person who answers the call already knows your setup.
What proactive support actually includes
The word proactive gets used loosely. In a well-run managed service it means specific, recurring work that happens whether or not anyone calls.
- Monitoring of servers, backups, firewalls and laptops, with alerts read by a person.
- Security updates for Windows, Microsoft 365 apps, browsers and common software, on a schedule.
- Endpoint protection on every device, watched for threats rather than just installed.
- Backups tested by restoring them, not just checked for a green tick.
- Onboarding and offboarding, so new staff are ready on day one and leavers lose access immediately.
- Documentation of your network, accounts and systems, kept current.
- Planning: warranty and licence renewals tracked, hardware replaced on a schedule, and a budget for next year.
- Vendor management: one call to your provider instead of separate calls to your internet company, software vendor and copier dealer.
When break/fix still makes sense
Managed IT is not right for everyone, and a provider who says otherwise is selling. Break/fix can be the sensible choice when:
- You are a very small team, perhaps one to five people, with everything in Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace and no servers
- Downtime is an inconvenience rather than a cost, and you hold little sensitive data
- You already have capable in-house IT and only need occasional specialist help, in which case co-managed IT is often a better fit than either model
Even then, a few basics are worth paying for on a schedule: security updates, a tested backup and multi-factor sign-in on every account.
Questions to ask any managed IT provider
- What exactly is included in the monthly fee? Ask for the list in writing, including on-site visits and after-hours help.
- What is billed separately? Projects, hardware and licences usually are. Make sure the line is clear before you sign.
- How fast do you respond, and how is it measured? A contract target and a monthly report are worth more than a promise.
- How do you test backups? The right answer involves restoring data, not checking that a job ran.
- Who owns our accounts and passwords? Your business should, with the provider given access, never the other way round.
- How do we leave? A good provider hands over documentation and access cleanly. Ask before you need to know.
Our own managed IT services publish what is included and what it costs on our pricing page. If you want an outside view of your current setup first, start with an IT assessment.