In-house IT vs. an MSP: the real math

Every growing company hits the same fork in the road: hire your first IT person, or bring in a managed service provider. The instinct is to compare a salary to a monthly invoice — but that comparison is misleading, and it usually leads teams to the wrong answer.

The true cost of a hire

A single mid-level IT generalist in a major metro runs $85k–$120k in base salary. But salary is only the start. Once you add the rest, the real number is closer to 1.4× base:

• Payroll taxes, benefits and insurance (~25–30%)
• Tools, licenses and hardware they need to do the job
• Recruiting and onboarding — often 6–10 weeks to full productivity
• The bus-factor risk: when they're sick, on vacation, or quit, coverage goes to zero

And crucially, one person can't be an expert in networking, security, cloud, telephony and web all at once. You're buying a generalist and hoping the hard problems stay inside their wheelhouse.

What a subscription actually buys

An MSP spreads a whole bench of specialists across many clients, so you pay for a fraction of each. For roughly the loaded cost of one hire, you get coverage across every discipline, redundancy when someone's out, and tooling that's already licensed and running.

The question isn't 'person or vendor.' It's 'how do I get senior coverage across five disciplines without hiring five people.'

When each wins

1. 1Under ~50 staff, or highly variable needs: an MSP almost always wins on cost and coverage.
2. 250–200 staff: a hybrid — an internal lead plus a co-managed MSP for depth and after-hours — is often ideal.
3. 3200+ with specialized, always-on needs: build an internal team, and use an MSP for surge capacity and niche projects.

The mistake is treating it as permanent. Start with a subscription, keep everything documented and portable, and bring roles in-house as the math shifts. That's exactly how we structure engagements — no lock-in, clean handover whenever you're ready.