Managed IT vs. break-fix

Pay only when something breaks, or pay to keep it from breaking. Here's the real difference.

Most small businesses default to break-fix IT support without ever really comparing it to managed IT - it's just what they've always done. Here's an honest look at both, so you can decide which one actually fits your business.

See Managed IT Plans

Side by side

How the two models actually compare.

Break-Fix

Pay only when you call for help

No proactive monitoring - issues are found when they cause a problem

Response time isn't guaranteed

Costs are unpredictable - a bad month can mean a big bill

No long-term relationship or documentation of your systems

Managed IT

Flat monthly cost, predictable budgeting

Continuous monitoring catches problems before they cause downtime

Defined response times based on severity

A team that knows your environment, not a stranger each time

Security and backups are maintained as a baseline, not an afterthought

To be fair

When break-fix actually makes sense.

Break-fix isn't always the wrong call. A very small operation - one to three people, a handful of laptops, no servers, no shared systems that the whole business depends on - can reasonably stick with break-fix, especially if the owner has a low tolerance for any ongoing IT spend and is comfortable absorbing some risk and downtime if something goes wrong. For that kind of business, paying for occasional help when something breaks can be the more economical choice, at least for a while.

The tradeoff is straightforward: break-fix means accepting unpredictable costs and downtime risk in exchange for lower spend most months. For most businesses with any real operational dependence on technology - email that has to work, a network that customers or staff rely on, data that can't just disappear - that tradeoff stops making sense pretty quickly. It only takes one bad outage, one ransomware incident, or one week of a critical system being down to cost more than a full year of managed IT would have. At that point, the "savings" from break-fix were never really savings - they were just risk that hadn't come due yet.

Common questions

Questions we hear about managed IT vs. break-fix.

Is managed IT more expensive than break-fix?›

Month-to-month, often yes - a flat managed IT fee is a recurring cost, while break-fix only bills you when something breaks. But that comparison misses the bigger picture. Break-fix costs are unpredictable and tend to show up exactly when you can least afford the disruption, and they don't include the cost of downtime itself - lost productivity, missed business, and the time spent scrambling to find help. When you factor in downtime risk and the unpredictability of break-fix bills, managed IT is usually the more economical choice over a year or more.

Can we switch from break-fix to managed IT later?›

Yes, and it's a common transition. We typically start with an assessment of your current environment, clean up and document what's there, and then move you onto a managed plan with monitoring and support in place. See our guide to switching IT providers for what that process looks like.

What size business is managed IT right for?›

Generally, any business with daily dependence on computers, network, or email is a good fit - that covers most businesses with more than a couple of employees, or any business where an IT outage would directly stop work or cost you customers. The smaller and simpler your setup, the more reasonable it is to question whether you need it. But once technology is central to how you operate day to day, managed IT tends to pay for itself.

Do you offer any break-fix or ad-hoc support?›

We occasionally take on ad-hoc projects and one-off support, but our core business is managed IT - we're built around proactive monitoring and ongoing relationships, not one-time fixes. If you're not ready for a managed plan, we're happy to talk through your situation honestly and tell you what we think makes sense.