What’s the Rate For IT Technical Services In Washington DC?
If you’ve struggled to keep up with your company’s IT needs using just internal resources, chances are, you’ve been thinking about outsourcing to a managed service provider. The option of having your IT needs being managed by an outside company has obvious appeal—you do not need to maintain a full-time IT staff, or at least as many IT employees, which should save your business some money.
If you’re wondering how much outsourcing your IT needs will cost you, read on to discover the going rate for IT technical services in Washington DC.
What’s the Rate for Technical Tech Support?
Unfortunately, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all model when pricing Tech Support. Prices will differ due to several factors, including the complexity of the technology in operation, the size of the business, the number of devices and users, and the actual level of support required.
The average cost to hire an inexperienced in-house IT technician in Washington DC is around $40,000 per year, but if you want to hire someone with more experience, you might pay around $7,000-$10,000 more. A part-time technician might only charge anywhere between $60 to $70 an hour, while a technician with more experience may charge as much as $100 per hour. The downside of having an in-house team is the lack of immediate help in case of downtimes outside the business hours, limited expertise, and the high overhead costs such as benefits and additional training.
This is where outsourcing part or all your IT needs comes in. There are two common models for outsourced technical Tech Support: the hourly break-fix and the managed technical Tech Support models. Most IT companies in Washington DC that offer a break-fix model will contract for between $80 and $200 per hour, often with a two-hour minimum service call. You can often qualify for a discount if you purchase a block of hours in advance, but you’ll be charged the hourly rate if you need more time.
Break and fix is when you call an IT company when you have issues. Although a break-fix model might seem like a cost-saving service plan, it has its drawbacks. You can end up spending way more than you think using the break-fix approach, you won’t be able to budget or predict your IT costs, and you will not have any ongoing monitoring or protection for your systems.
For example, you have a 10-person business and call a break-fix IT company a few times a week to fix ongoing small computer issues and maybe one big problem weekly. Let’s also say that you consumed about 23 hours of support and break and fix services for the week. Using the average hourly rate of $100 per hour, you are looking at an invoice of $2300 for just one week. Remember, this is only to fix systems that break and doesn’t include any other type of technical IT service.
On the other hand, having your IT managed by a Managed Service Provider (MSP) such as Orion Networks gives you access to a team of experts, 24×7 network monitoring, faster resolution times than overworked in-house IT teams, reduced risk due to higher IT staff volume, and support with no sick days or holidays. You also get to enjoy significant cost savings.
An MSP will typically quote you a monthly fee. In general, the price range for IT technical services ranges from $50 to $250 per user per month, $25 to $100 per workstation, and $75 to $400 per server. In this case, per user refers to employees who use technology to do their job – so, if you have 30 employees who use IT devices for work, be it PCs, laptops, or tablets, you’ll pay for 30 users. Using the same example above, an office with ten employees will likely pay $1,500 every month for technical Tech Support.
Pricing Models for Technical Tech Support
Apart from break-fix, per user and per device pricing models, MSPs also use other pricing models, including:
Tiered Pricing Model
One of the most popular pricing models among MSPs is tiered. With this model, there are several bundled packages to choose from. They usually get labeled as “Gold, Silver, and Bronze” or “Basic, Standard, and Premium.” The more service the package provides, the higher the costs will be.
Monitoring-Only Pricing Model
This typically involves basic support and monitoring of your systems and can cost around $70-$150 a month. With basic IT management services, the outsourced IT team monitors your network closely, and if something goes wrong, you’ll be alerted immediately. You can then choose to take remedial action yourself or pay additional fees for the external expert to take over and implement a solution.
For small and medium-sized businesses, services provided may include patch management, antivirus, anti-spam updates, disk optimization, and backup monitoring for a flat monthly fee. If there’s any remediation work to be done, there would be an extra charge. Meanwhile, for large enterprises, all alerts are forwarded to the customer’s in-house IT staff while the service provider addresses and performs all incident resolution.
Full-Service Pricing Model
This service model is considered the best value for most businesses. With a full-service package, you can get full coverage across the entire organization for all IT needs for a fixed monthly fee. The flat fee is great for planning and budgeting.
The services you can get, for a flat fee, may include:
- IT planning
- IT strategy
- IT design
- System backups
- 24/7 IT support (possibly unlimited)
- On-site support
- Remote support
- Disaster recovery
Get an Accurate Quote for IT Technical Services from Orion Networks Today!
At Orion Networks, we provide comprehensive IT technical services and flexible pricing options that fit your budget. We’ll work with your organization’s vision and current IT infrastructure to give you a competitive advantage and provide the best possible service at the best possible price. Our pricing options are transparent, and we provide a detailed monthly breakdown of your account – you’ll know exactly what you’re paying for and be able to plan accordingly for future growth and expansion. Contact us today to schedule a consultation.
Thanks to James and Jon with 4BIS in Cincinnati for their help with this article. Discover more about 4BIS at https://www.4bis.com/cincinnati-it-services/