How much should IT support cost your business? Compare managed IT, break-fix, and in-house hiring side by side. Based on real Raleigh-Durham market rates.
IT is one of the most misunderstood line items in a small business budget. Some owners spend too little and pay for it in downtime and security incidents. Others overspend on in-house hires when outsourcing would give them more coverage for less money.
Here's how the three main models compare:
You call someone when something breaks. Typical rates in the Triangle area are $125-$175/hour with a 1-hour minimum. No monitoring, no prevention, no guaranteed response time. Costs are unpredictable — a quiet month might cost nothing, but a server failure could run $5,000+.
A managed service provider (MSP) handles everything for a per-user-per-month fee. This includes 24/7 monitoring, help desk, on-site support, patching, backups, antivirus, and typically some level of cybersecurity. Pricing in the Triangle ranges from $150-$200/user/month. The key benefits: predictable costs, proactive support that prevents problems, and no hourly charges for any support.
Hiring a full-time IT person makes sense at 75+ employees, but even then, one person can't cover 24/7 support, cybersecurity, networking, cloud, and help desk. Average salary for an IT generalist in Raleigh-Durham is $55,000-$85,000 plus ~30% for benefits. Most businesses under 75 employees get better value from managed IT.
Larger SMBs (75-200 employees) often benefit from a hybrid approach: an in-house IT manager for day-to-day oversight, plus a managed IT partner for 24/7 monitoring, security operations, and specialized projects. This gives you local presence and expert backup without the cost of a full internal IT department.