Managed IT services
Managed IT services for Arizona businesses.
Your technology looked after as a whole: a help desk your people can actually reach, security running around the clock, and someone thinking a year ahead instead of only fixing what already broke.
Based in Prescott, we provide managed IT services on-site across the Quad Cities and remotely across the rest of Arizona. We publish what it costs, we tell you when we are the wrong choice, and we will not quote a monthly figure before someone has looked at what you have.
What managed IT services actually are.
Managed IT means a fixed monthly fee covering support, security, maintenance, and planning, instead of paying by the hour after something stops working. The distinction that matters is responsibility. An hourly provider is paid to fix what broke. A managed provider is paid to keep it from breaking, which is a different job with a different incentive.
You will also see this sold as IT support, as outsourced IT, or by a company describing itself as a managed service provider or MSP. Those all describe roughly the same arrangement. What separates providers is not the label, it is what is actually included, what runs around the clock, and whether anyone will tell you the price before a sales call.
If you are still deciding between models, our honest comparison of managed, hourly, in-house, and hybrid covers the options we do not sell as well as the one we do.
Included
What managed IT services include here.
Described by what it does for you rather than by the vendor names behind it, because nobody buys a product logo. They buy not lying awake.
Help desk for your people
Unlimited remote and on-site support for everyone in the business, not a ticket allowance that runs out in March. The help desk runs 8am to 5pm Monday to Friday, and urgent problems outside those hours reach someone.
Security monitoring and response
A security operations center watching continuously, with analysts who investigate and contain rather than emailing you an alert. This part genuinely runs 24/7/365, which is a different thing from a 24/7 help desk.
Managed devices and servers
Every computer and server patched, protected, monitored, and inventoried. Machines too old to secure get flagged and scheduled for replacement rather than quietly carried.
Backup and recovery you can prove
Automated backup of servers, endpoints, and cloud data including Microsoft 365, with restores tested on a schedule and recovery times written down rather than assumed.
Identity and access
Multi-factor authentication enforced rather than encouraged, administrator rights removed from day-to-day accounts, and joiners and leavers handled as a process so accounts stop existing when people do.
Planning and vendor management
Someone thinking a year ahead about what the business will need, dealing with your software and hardware vendors on your behalf, and reviewing the whole picture with you quarterly.
The support hours, stated plainly
Security monitoring and response runs 24/7/365. The help desk runs 8am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, and urgent issues outside those hours reach someone. Plenty of providers advertise 24/7 support and mean the monitoring. Ask any of them which one they mean.
Billed separately
- Hardware you buy, which you own outright
- Major projects such as office moves, new locations, and migrations
- Network equipment and business phone service, available as add-ons
- The one-time onboarding project at the start
Cost
What managed IT services cost.
Budget 250 to 400 dollars per device, per month. Count every computer and server you would want looked after, multiply, and you have a figure you can take to a board meeting.
One important caveat, because we would rather say it than let you find out in a proposal. We do not actually bill per device. Every agreement is built around what the business genuinely needs: the backup systems your data calls for, how many applications we take responsibility for supporting, whether your network equipment is included or stays with you, how many servers you run, and what any regulator expects of you.
We publish the per-device number because it is the most honest way to budget before anyone has looked at your systems. Divide three of our real agreements by devices under management and you get 268, 261, and 250 dollars, a seven percent spread across three very different businesses. Divide the same three by headcount and you get 298, 261, and 208. Devices are simply the closest proxy for the work involved.
There is also a one-time onboarding project at the start. The setup work runs roughly one month of the service fee, and any computers too old to secure are replaced on top of that. On two of those three agreements, hardware was the larger half. We would rather you read that here than discover it in a proposal.
The full breakdown, including a calculator and the three real agreements with their actual numbers, is on our pricing page.
Where we work
IT support in Prescott, Prescott Valley, and across Arizona.
We are based in Prescott and have been since 2017. Day-to-day IT support is remote wherever you are, because that is how support actually works now and it is faster than waiting for a van. What geography changes is how easily we get to you in person.
In the Quad Cities, meaning Prescott, Prescott Valley, Chino Valley, and Dewey-Humboldt, we are on site the same day when something warrants it. Further out, on-site visits are scheduled rather than same-day, and we say so plainly rather than implying an office in every town.
How it starts
Nobody signs a managed IT agreement first.
The order is deliberate and it is arranged in your favor. A fifteen-minute conversation to work out whether it is worth either of our time. Then a paid assessment, thirty days examining your people, processes, and technology across nine areas, ending in a written report and a briefing to whoever needs to hear it. The report is yours to keep whether or not you ever work with us.
Only then does a managed agreement make sense, because only then does anyone actually know what you need. Sentry Protect is what that ongoing arrangement is called once it starts.
Common questions
Managed IT services, answered.
- What are managed IT services?
- A fixed monthly fee covering support, security, maintenance, and planning for your technology, instead of paying by the hour when something breaks. The provider is responsible for keeping things working rather than for fixing them after they stop.
- How much do managed IT services cost?
- Budget 250 to 400 dollars per device per month. That is a planning figure rather than a rate, because every agreement is built around what the business actually needs. There is also a one-time onboarding project at the start, which typically runs about one month of the service fee, plus replacement of any computers too old to secure.
- Do you charge per user or per device?
- Neither, strictly. We build each agreement around what your business needs: the backup systems your data requires, how many applications we support, whether network equipment is included, how many servers you run, and what any regulator expects. We publish a per-device figure because it is the most reliable way to budget beforehand. Divide three of our real agreements by devices and you get 250, 261, and 268 dollars, a seven percent spread. Divide the same three by headcount and you get 208, 261, and 298.
- Do you offer 24/7 IT support?
- Security monitoring and response runs 24/7/365. The help desk runs 8am to 5pm Monday to Friday, and urgent issues outside those hours reach someone. We would rather state that plainly than advertise round-the-clock support and let you discover the distinction during an incident.
- Can we get a quote without an assessment?
- No, and that is deliberate. Any monthly number produced before someone has looked at your environment is a guess, and you would have no way to judge whether it was fair. The assessment costs 1,500 dollars flat for 10 users or fewer, or 150 dollars per user above that, and the report is yours to keep whether or not you hire us.
- What size business is this for?
- Most of our clients are between 10 and 250 people. We can absolutely support a smaller business, and we do, but be aware of the arithmetic: a good deal of the cost is fixed regardless of headcount, so the per-person figure climbs as the business gets smaller and the budget often stops making sense before the security does. If you are under about ten people we will tell you honestly whether the spend is justified. Above roughly 250, a firm with a larger bench serves you better, and we will say that too.
The next step
Find out where you actually stand first.
The three-minute self-assessment covers the same nine areas as our paid engagement. You get a score and a breakdown immediately, with no email address and no follow-up unless you ask for one.
No pitch on the first call. If we are not a fit, we will say so and point you somewhere better.