There are two basic ways to pay for IT support. You can pay someone when something breaks, or you can pay someone to look after everything so that it breaks less. The first is called break-fix. The second is managed IT services.
This guide explains both, compares them honestly, and helps you work out which suits your business.
What are managed IT services?
With managed IT services, an outside provider takes ongoing responsibility for your IT in return for a fixed monthly fee, usually priced per user. In effect you get an IT department without employing one.
A managed service normally includes:
- A help desk your staff can contact when they're stuck, during agreed hours.
- Monitoring of computers, servers and networks, often around the clock, so problems are spotted before anyone notices.
- Patching. Operating system and software updates tested and applied for you.
- Security. Endpoint protection, email filtering, two-factor authentication and someone responding to alerts.
- Backup and recovery, checked regularly by actually restoring from it.
- Starters and leavers, accounts set up and closed properly.
- Planning and advice. Knowing what's due for replacement, what licences you're paying for, and what's coming.
- Supplier management. Chasing the broadband provider, the printer company and the software vendor on your behalf.
What is break-fix?
Break-fix is the traditional model. When something goes wrong, you ring an IT company or a freelancer, they fix it, and you pay for the time. Between calls, nothing is looked after: updates may or may not happen, nobody checks the backups, and nobody is watching for warning signs.
The real difference is incentives
On paper both models fix problems. The difference is what each supplier is paid for.
A break-fix supplier earns money when you have problems. They don't gain anything from preventing them, and the busier your IT keeps them, the better their month.
A managed provider earns the same fee whatever happens. Every problem they prevent is time they don't spend fixing it. Their interests line up with yours: fewer problems, less disruption.
How they compare
| Break-fix | Managed IT | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Unpredictable, nothing in a quiet month, a lot in a bad one | Fixed monthly fee per user |
| Updates and patching | Only if you ask | Done for you, on a schedule |
| Security | Usually nobody's job | Monitored and managed |
| Backups | Rarely tested | Tested regularly |
| Response | When they're free | Agreed response times in writing |
| Knowledge of your setup | Starts from scratch each visit | Documented and kept up to date |
| Planning | None | Hardware and licence planning |
The cost question
Break-fix looks cheaper because a good month costs nothing. But the costs that matter don't appear on the IT invoice:
- Downtime. Staff who can't work while a problem waits to be fixed.
- Emergency rates. Urgent call-outs and out-of-hours work cost more.
- Incidents. A ransomware attack or failed server with no working backup can cost a small business tens of thousands of pounds, and some never recover. The government's Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2026 found that 43% of UK businesses had a breach or attack in the previous year, rising to 46% of small businesses and 65% of medium-sized ones.
- Your time. The owner or office manager who ends up being the IT department.
Managed IT turns all of that into a predictable monthly figure. For most businesses with staff, it costs about the same as a modest break-fix bill, and removes the risk of the big one.
When break-fix can make sense
Being fair, break-fix isn't always wrong. If you're a sole trader with one laptop, keep good backups yourself, hold little customer data and could carry on with a phone if the laptop died, occasional paid help may be enough.
The balance tips quickly once you have staff, customer or child data, a server, or systems the business can't run without. At that point, nobody looking after things is the expensive option.
For one or two people, we offer Solo and Duo packages from £95 a month, which include the Microsoft 365 licences, security and backup. It's designed for exactly the businesses that have historically gone without.
Already have an IT person?
Managed IT doesn't have to mean replacing anyone. Co-managed IT is for businesses with their own IT person or team: the provider adds the tools, specialist knowledge and holiday cover, and the in-house person keeps ownership.
Where we stand
We only offer managed IT. We don't do ad-hoc call-outs, because we can't stand behind IT we're only allowed to look at when it's already broken. Our managed IT support starts at £30 per user per month, prices are published, and the notice period is 30 days.
If you'd like to see your current risk before deciding anything, start with a free exposure check.