It is the first question every business owner asks — and the one most IT providers dodge until you have sat through a sales call. So let’s answer it plainly.
The short answer
Across the industry, fully managed IT support in the Greater Toronto Area typically runs somewhere between $100 and $250 per user, per month, depending on what is included. A 20-person office should generally expect a monthly investment in the low-to-mid four figures for everything: help desk, monitoring, security, patching, and strategic guidance.
That range is wide because “managed IT” means very different things from one provider to the next. The number only becomes meaningful when you know what is behind it.
What drives the price up or down
1. How many users and devices you have
Most providers, including us, price per user. More people means more devices, more accounts, and more support requests — pricing scales with headcount so it stays fair as you grow or shrink.
2. What is actually included
This is where quotes stop being comparable. Some providers quote a low monthly fee, then bill hourly the moment something breaks. Others — the model we believe in — include unlimited support in the flat fee. When you compare quotes, ask: “If my server dies on a Saturday, what does the invoice look like?” The answer tells you which model you are buying.
3. Servers, cloud services, and locations
An office running entirely in Microsoft 365 costs less to support than one with on-premises servers, specialized line-of-business applications, and three sites connected by VPN. Complexity drives effort, and effort drives price.
4. Security and compliance requirements
A law office or healthcare clinic handling sensitive records needs stronger controls — advanced endpoint protection, email defense, encryption, awareness training, and documented processes. Good security is not free, but it is dramatically cheaper than one successful ransomware attack.
The pricing models you will encounter
- Flat-rate (all-inclusive): One predictable monthly fee covering everything. The provider profits by keeping your systems healthy, so incentives align with yours. This is the model we use at Wide Area.
- Break-fix (hourly): You pay when things break. Feels cheaper until things break — and the provider’s revenue depends on your problems, not your uptime.
- Hybrid / tiered: A base fee plus hourly charges for anything outside a narrow scope. Read the scope definition very carefully.
Why we do not publish a one-size-fits-all price
Because it would be wrong for most businesses reading it. Two 15-person companies can have wildly different environments. Instead, we start with a free IT assessment: we review your setup, flag risks you may not know about, and give you a fixed monthly quote — which is the price you actually pay, not an estimate that grows later.
The real question: what does bad IT cost?
An afternoon of downtime for a 20-person office costs more in lost productivity than a month of professional IT support. A ransomware incident costs more than a decade of it. Managed IT is not a cost to minimize — it is insurance, productivity, and strategy rolled into one line item you can actually budget for.
Want a real number for your business? Book a free IT assessment and we will give you a fixed quote — plus a plain-English review of your current setup you can keep either way.
