Comparison
Managed plan or pay per callout?
We sell one of these, so read this expecting bias and check the reasoning rather than the conclusion. There is a real answer, and for some businesses it is not the plan.
The short answer
Pay per callout if losing a day costs you very little and you have fewer than about three people. Move to a plan once downtime has a real price, once there is a server or compliance obligation involved, or once you notice you are calling more than four times a year. The break-even is lower than most people assume, because the cost people forget is the standing around, not the invoice.
Side by side
| Pay per callout | Monthly plan | |
|---|---|---|
| When you pay | After something has broken | The same amount every month |
| Who carries the risk of a bad month | You | Us |
| Monitoring | None — you find out when a user does | Continuous, on every machine |
| Patching | Whenever someone remembers | Scheduled and verified |
| Backup | Whatever was set up once | Monitored and periodically test-restored |
| Response | Queued behind plan clients | Prioritised, within published times |
| Cost visibility | Unpredictable, sometimes large | Known and budgetable |
| Incentive on the provider | More faults, more revenue | Fewer faults, less work |
| Best for | 1–3 people, nothing business-critical | Offices of about 4–30, or anything with a server |
The maths, with real numbers
Take a six-person office. A callout with travel and a couple of hours on site is a few hundred dollars. Four of those in a year is perhaps a thousand-odd dollars of invoices — genuinely cheaper than twelve months of a plan, if invoices were the whole cost.
They are not. One day where the office cannot work costs roughly $3,400 in productive or billable time for six people. One such day makes the year's plan fee look small. Two makes the comparison uncomfortable. And the incidents that cause those days — a failing drive nobody was watching, a backup that stopped in March, a patch that never applied — are precisely the ones monitoring catches and callout work does not.
When break-fix is genuinely the better answer
- One or two people, cloud-only, no server, no shared files that matter
- A business where a lost day is an inconvenience rather than a cost
- An office with a genuinely capable person already in the building — in which case co-managed support, not a full plan, is the right shape
- A business about to be sold, wound down or restructured, where a twelve-month view does not apply
If you are in one of those situations we will say so at the audit rather than quoting a plan you do not need.
When the plan stops being optional
- There is a server, physical or hosted, that people depend on daily
- You hold health records, matter files or financial records with retention obligations
- An insurer or a client contract asks what controls you have in place
- Staff numbers passed about six and nobody can name who checks the backup
What we would suggest
Start with the audit either way. It costs a half-day, it produces a written list of what is actually wrong, and it does not commit you to anything. If the honest recommendation afterwards is a callout arrangement rather than a plan, that is what you will get. The plans are published here and what IT support costs in Brisbane covers the wider market.
Questions about the two models
Is a managed plan always cheaper than paying per callout?
No, and anyone who says otherwise is selling. For a two-person business with no server, no compliance obligations and a high tolerance for a bad day, callout work is usually cheaper over a year. The plan wins once downtime has a real cost, which for most offices happens somewhere around four to six staff.
What is the break-even point?
Roughly four to five callouts a year, before you count downtime at all. Once downtime is included — staff standing around, deadlines missed, work redone — the break-even drops to about two or three incidents.
Can we start on callouts and move to a plan later?
Yes, and plenty do. The usual path is a callout, then an audit, then a plan once the audit shows what has been quietly accumulating. There is no penalty for taking that route.
Does a plan mean we stop getting invoices for everything?
For support, yes — that is the point. Hardware, third-party licences and major projects are still quoted separately, which we think is the honest way to do it rather than burying a markup in the monthly fee.
What if we already have an internal IT person?
Then a plan is usually the wrong shape and co-managed support is the right one: we cover monitoring, backup, patching and after-hours, and your person keeps the things only someone in the building can do. Say so at the audit and we will quote it that way.
Start with the audit and decide afterwards.
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