Most small businesses don't decide to get IT support. It happens to them: the person who was "good with computers" leaves, a laptop dies the week of a deadline, or an email arrives from a customer asking why they've just been sent a suspicious invoice from your address. Then it's a search for "IT support near me" and a quick decision.
This guide is about making that decision well. It covers what IT support for a small business should include, what it costs, the questions to ask, and the warning signs.
Break-fix or managed support?
There are two ways to buy IT support.
Break-fix means you ring someone when something goes wrong and pay by the hour or by the job. It looks cheap because you only pay when there's a problem.
Managed IT support means a provider looks after your IT all the time for a fixed monthly fee. They keep everything updated, watch for problems, manage your security and backups, and fix things when they break.
The difference is incentives. A break-fix supplier earns more when you have more problems. A managed provider earns the same either way, so they're paid to stop problems happening. We explain this properly in managed IT vs break-fix, but for most businesses with staff, managed support is the better deal.
What good support should include
Whoever you choose, the monthly fee should cover:
- Unlimited help during the hours you agree, by phone, email or remote session.
- On-site visits when a problem needs someone there, without a separate call-out charge.
- Monitoring and updates. Computers and servers watched around the clock, with Windows, macOS and software updates applied for you.
- Security. Endpoint protection, email filtering, two-factor authentication and someone actually reading the alerts.
- Backups that are tested. A backup nobody has tried restoring from is a hope, not a plan.
- Starters and leavers. Accounts set up and, more importantly, shut down when someone goes. Our leavers checklist shows why.
- Dealing with your other suppliers. Broadband, phones, printers and software vendors, so you're not stuck in the middle.
If a quote leaves any of these out, ask what it costs to add them.
What it should cost
Most UK providers price per user per month. For a small business, expect somewhere between £30 and £100 per user, depending on the hours covered, how quickly they promise to respond, and what's bundled in.
Be careful comparing headline prices. A low per-user price can hide extra charges for on-site visits, security tools, or work outside a narrow definition of "support". Ask for a full monthly figure for your business, with every licence and tool included.
We publish our prices, from £30 per user per month for teams and from £95 a month for sole traders and two-person businesses. You can work out your monthly cost in a few seconds.
Why local still matters
Most problems are fixed remotely, often in minutes. So why does it matter where your provider is?
- Same-day visits. When hardware fails or a network goes down, someone within an hour's drive can be with you that day.
- Local knowledge. Which broadband is actually available on your street, which landlords are slow to let engineers in, which buildings have thick walls that kill Wi-Fi.
- Relationships. You'll meet the people looking after your business, not a different voice on a call centre line each time.
- Language. In Wales, being able to speak to someone in Welsh matters to many businesses and their staff.
Local doesn't have to mean tiny, and national doesn't have to mean impersonal. But a provider who has never set foot in your office will always be guessing about parts of it.
Questions to ask before you sign
- What are your response and fix times? Get them in writing, for each priority level.
- Who will I actually speak to? A named team, or whoever picks up?
- What's not included? Projects, hardware and licences are usually extra. Anything else?
- How do on-site visits work? Included, or charged per visit?
- Who owns our accounts? Your Microsoft 365, domain name and other accounts should be in your business's name, with you holding admin access. If the provider owns them, leaving becomes very hard.
- How long is the contract and how do we leave? Look for a clear notice period and a written handover process.
- Can we talk to a customer? Any good provider will put you in touch with one.
- Do you hold Cyber Essentials? It's the UK government-backed baseline for cyber security. A provider looking after your security should hold it themselves.
Warning signs
- Prices only available "on application", with no rough figure.
- Long minimum terms with automatic renewal.
- Your domain or Microsoft 365 tenant registered in the provider's name.
- Vague answers about backups, or no offer to show a test restore.
- Pressure to replace all your hardware before they've looked at it properly.
- Claims of certifications they can't show you a certificate for.
Where we fit
Octopus 365 has looked after businesses' IT from Mumbles, Swansea, since 2011. We're on site across South Wales, from Carmarthen to Bridgend, and you can speak to us in Welsh or English. Our prices are published, every customer gets the same engineers, and we only work on a managed basis.
If you want to see where your business stands first, our free exposure check shows what an attacker can already see about you: leaked staff passwords, gaps in your email security, and what your business shows to the internet. No sales pitch attached.