Demo sample. Written for a fictional company to show the exact deliverable format — no real client is implied. All samples

DEMO SAMPLE — written for a fictional company

Harborline IT Ltd is not a real company. This article is a demonstration of WrittenRank's standard deliverable, written to show format and quality. Market price ranges below are stated as rules of thumb, not statistics.

1. Client brief (as submitted — 10 minutes, no call)

2. Meta

3. Article (~1,400 words)

How much does managed IT support cost in the UK in 2026?

Most UK managed service providers (MSPs) charge per user per month, and most quotes for a typical office-based business land between roughly £40 and £120 per user. Where you fall in that range depends on three things: how much security is included, whether hardware and out-of-hours cover are bundled, and how much of your stack (Microsoft 365, phones, servers) the provider actually manages. A 20-person firm should therefore expect a monthly bill somewhere between £800 and £2,400 — and a quote far outside that range deserves questions, in either direction.

That is the short answer. The rest of this page breaks down what sits inside those numbers, so you can compare quotes like-for-like instead of comparing totals.

What pricing models do UK MSPs use?

Almost every quote you receive will be one of three shapes:

A rule of thumb worth keeping: pay-as-you-go rewards your provider when things break; per-user contracts reward them when things don't.

What does each price tier actually include?

Ranges below are typical of the UK market in 2026; treat them as a sanity check, not a price list.

Basic remote support (roughly £25–£50 per user/month). Helpdesk during business hours, remote fixes, patching, antivirus, Microsoft 365 administration. Usually excludes on-site visits and meaningful security tooling. Suits micro businesses with low risk tolerance for cost, not for downtime.

Standard managed service (roughly £50–£85 per user/month). The tier most 10–60 seat firms should be comparing. Adds proactive monitoring, backup management, on-site cover when remote fails, endpoint detection and response (EDR) rather than plain antivirus, and quarterly reviews.

Fully managed with security stack (roughly £85–£150+ per user/month). Adds 24/7 monitoring, managed detection and response, security-awareness training, compliance support (Cyber Essentials, ISO 27001 evidence), and virtual IT director input. This is the tier insurers and larger customers increasingly push mid-sized firms toward.

Why do two quotes for "the same thing" differ by 50%?

Because the cheap quote is usually missing one of these:

  1. Security depth. "Antivirus included" and "EDR with 24/7 response included" can differ by £20+ per user on their own.
  2. On-site cover. Some quotes include engineer visits; others bill each one.
  3. Out-of-hours. 8am–6pm weekday support is not the same product as 24/7.
  4. Third-party licences. Some MSPs bundle Microsoft 365, backup licences and phone systems; others pass them through separately. Always ask for the all-in monthly number.
  5. Onboarding. A thorough MSP audits and documents your network in the first month — some charge a one-off setup fee (commonly two weeks' to one month's fees) for it, some amortise it into the monthly rate.

None of these differences is dishonest. Comparing totals without itemising them, however, will reliably steer you to the worst-value quote.

What questions expose a weak MSP quote?

Put these in writing and keep the answers:

A provider who answers those five clearly is usually safe to shortlist, whatever the price.

Is cheap managed IT support a false economy?

Often, yes — for one specific reason: the cost of IT support is trivial next to the cost of downtime it's supposed to prevent. If 20 staff on an average £18/hour are idle for one working day, that's roughly £2,900 of paid time producing nothing — more than a month's fees at most tiers above — before counting lost sales or missed deadlines. Skimping on the tier that includes monitoring and security to save £15 per user is the classic version of this mistake, because breaches and preventable outages cluster exactly where those tools are absent.

The honest flip side: a 5-person firm with no servers, no sensitive data and cloud-only apps genuinely may not need more than basic cover. Good MSPs will say so.

What about Cyber Essentials — is it extra?

Usually. Cyber Essentials certification itself is charged by the certification bodies from £320 + VAT, scaled by organisation size, and most MSPs charge separately for getting you audit-ready. If a customer or tender requires certification, ask your MSP for a fixed-price package covering both the preparation and the assessment — and get the renewal (it's annual) in the contract too.

The bottom line

For a typical UK office business in 2026: budget £50–£85 per user per month for a properly managed service, more if you need a serious security stack or 24/7 cover, less only if you're genuinely tiny and cloud-only. Compare itemised inclusions, not totals; ask the five questions above in writing; and treat any quote dramatically below market as the start of a conversation about what's been left out.

Harborline IT publishes its inclusions list for every tier — no quote required. (Demo CTA — fictional company.)

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