How much does managed IT support cost per user in the UK?
Published UK pricing varies widely, because providers put very different levels of responsibility inside the words “managed IT support”. This guide explains how the pricing models work, what moves the number, and what to check before you compare two quotes.
There is no single UK price, and the spread is wider than most guides admit.
Across twenty UK provider pages checked in September 2026, published per-user figures ran from about £10 to £150 per user per month. That spread is mostly about scope, not value.
Providers publishing an actual rate card rather than an estimate of the market sat between £22.91 and £66.67 per user per month: The HBP Group at £22.91, £41.67 and £66.67 across three tiers, Genmar IT at £45 and £55, and Your IT Department from around £47.
The headline rate is only half of it. Several providers publish a monthly minimum underneath: Your IT Department states £500, Dead Simple Computing £650. For a five-person business those minimums matter far more than the per-user rate above them.
So the useful question is not “what is the per-user price?” but “what will this cost per month, and what is inside it?”
Scope moves the price more than margin does
Helpdesk-only cover and a security-led managed service are different products sold under one phrase.
Minimums reset the maths for small teams
A £500 or £650 monthly floor makes a low per-user rate irrelevant below a certain size.
Per-user rates fall as headcount rises
The same service costs more per person at five users than at fifty — arithmetic, not a discount.
Licences are often outside the number
Microsoft 365 and specialist security tooling are frequently billed separately.
The three ways UK providers usually price managed IT support.
None of these is inherently better. They suit different shapes of business, and the right question is which one reflects how your organisation actually uses technology.
Per user
One recurring amount for each supported person, usually covering the devices they use. The most common model in UK SME support, and the easiest to budget as headcount changes. It suits businesses where most people have a broadly similar setup.
Per device
Pricing attaches to supported endpoints instead of people — laptops, desktops, servers, sometimes firewalls and network equipment. Cloudswitched publishes per-device support at £25 to £60 per device per month alongside per-user at £50 to £120; IT Support Helpdesk publishes £20 to £50 per device against £40 to £75 per user.
The difference matters when one person uses several devices: a team where everyone has a laptop and a desktop can cost more on a per-device model than the headline rate suggests, and less where equipment is shared.
Fixed monthly plan
A defined monthly price covering an agreed scope for a stated band of users, rather than a per-seat tariff that moves with every joiner and leaver. INNOSEC describes flat-rate arrangements starting around £1,500 a month for up to twenty staff.
It is predictable, and it prices the service rather than the seat — which makes the user band and the written scope the things to check. SoftExponent uses a hybrid model. Starter and Growth define the level of managed service, with an included number of managed users and a published rate for additional users. This allows the service level and team size to scale independently.
Starter includes up to 5 managed users, then £60 per additional managed user per month through its standard published range of 10. Growth includes up to 10 managed users, then £65 per additional managed user per month through its standard published range of 20. Larger or unusually complex environments are scoped separately.
What actually moves the number.
Two quotes for the same headcount can differ substantially without either being unreasonable. These are the factors that usually explain the gap.
Users and devices
How many people, and how many devices each one uses. A person with a laptop, a desktop and a phone is not one endpoint.
Servers and infrastructure
Servers and network equipment maintained beyond end-user devices. Genmar IT publishes server management separately at £90 per server per month.
Cloud complexity
One clean Microsoft 365 tenant is a different proposition from several tenants, mixed platforms and legacy connections that still have to work.
Support hours and response
Business hours against extended or 24/7 cover, and the response commitment behind it. Connection Technologies places 24/7 and SOC monitoring in its highest tier.
Security and compliance
How much security sits inside the price rather than beside it. F1 Group prices a security and compliance layer at an explicit £15 to £30 per user per month.
Sites and current condition
Multiple locations, and the state of what exists. A maintained estate costs less to take on than one needing work before it can be supported properly.
What often sits outside the monthly price.
Providers bundle these differently, and there is nothing improper about pricing them separately. The problem is only ever comparing a quote that includes them with one that does not.
Software and Microsoft 365 licences
Frequently billed separately at every price point. Your IT Department states plainly that Microsoft 365 licensing sits outside its support price.
Cloud consumption
Azure and similar usage is metered by the platform, not the provider, and normally passes through on top of the support fee.
Specialist security tooling
May be inside the price, a paid tier, or an add-on. Genmar IT moves from £45 to £55 per user purely by adding managed detection and identity threat detection.
Onboarding and setup
Some charge it, some do not. Connection Technologies publishes £1,000 to £5,000 and IT Support Helpdesk £500 to £3,000, while The HBP Group, Genmar IT and Your IT Department publish no setup fee at all.
Projects, migrations and remediation
Moving a mail platform or rebuilding an environment is normally scoped and quoted as project work rather than absorbed into a monthly fee.
Out-of-hours and ad-hoc work
Where not part of the agreement, usually hourly. AMVIA publishes remote work at £75 to £120 an hour and out-of-hours at £150 to £250.
Why £40 support and £100 support may not be the same thing.
The published tiers make the pattern visible. Connection Technologies describes its entry band as business-hours helpdesk, patching and basic antivirus, and its top band as adding 24/7 cover, security operations monitoring, compliance support and on-site presence. Computercentric, explicit that its figures are illustrative rather than a quote, follows a similar shape.
The cheapest rates also carry conditions. The HBP Group’s £22.91 per user requires at least twenty-five users and is built for organisations that already have their own IT team, supporting the infrastructure behind them rather than replacing them. Useful, but not the same purchase as outsourcing support entirely.
So the honest comparison is not price against price. It is responsibility against responsibility.
Reactive or proactive
Whether someone fixes what breaks, or whether patching, monitoring and maintenance are happening so that less breaks.
Who administers Microsoft 365
Mailboxes, licences, identity and access either sit with the provider or quietly stay with you.
Where security lives
Endpoint protection, email security and MFA can be inside the fee, a paid tier, or your problem.
Whether anyone is thinking ahead
Service reviews, supplier coordination and advisory input are the difference between a support line and a technology relationship.
What a per-user rate becomes as a monthly bill.
The figures below are hypothetical illustrations using rates within the published ranges above. They are not quotations, and no provider has quoted them.
A five-person business
At £50 per user per month, the arithmetic gives 5 × £50 = £250 a month. But where a provider publishes a £500 monthly minimum — as Your IT Department does, alongside a rate from around £47 — the bill is £500, or £100 per user in practice.
At Dead Simple Computing’s published £650 minimum, the same business is effectively at £130 per user, whatever the headline rate says.
A fifteen-person business
At £50 per user, 15 × £50 = £750 a month. At £65, 15 × £65 = £975. At this size most published minimums stop binding, so the per-user rate starts to mean what it says.
It is also why the same service costs more per head at five users than at fifty — AIS Technology publishes the effect in its own table, at £37.00 per user for five users and £13.25 for one hundred.
Where SoftExponent sits, with the maths shown.
We publish our prices, so it would be odd to write this guide without putting them through the same test.
includes up to 5 managed users
A practical managed IT foundation for smaller teams.
Additional managed users: £60 per user/month. Standard published range: up to 10 managed users. 12-month minimum.
At 5 managed users, £499 is £99.80 per user/month; at 10 managed users, £799 is £79.90 per user/month; and at 3 managed users, £499 is £166.33 per user/month. These are comparison equivalents, not per-user subscription prices.
Day-to-day remote IT support
Microsoft 365 administration and mailbox support
Device monitoring, patching and maintenance
Endpoint protection for managed laptops and desktops
Email security and phishing protection
Identity, MFA and access management
Joiner and leaver support
IT health oversight and practical recommendations
includes up to 10 managed users
A deeper managed IT, security and technology partnership.
Additional managed users: £65 per user/month. Standard published range: up to 20 managed users. 12-month minimum.
At 10 managed users, £899 is £89.90 per user/month; at 20 managed users, £1,549 is £77.45 per user/month. These are comparison equivalents, not per-user subscription prices.
Everything in Starter, plus:
Priority support and escalation handling
Enhanced endpoint detection and response management
Backup monitoring and recovery-readiness oversight
Advanced Microsoft 365, Entra ID and Intune guidance
Cloud and workplace optimisation
Quarterly security and technology improvement review
Supplier, licence and procurement coordination
Senior technology advisory for ongoing technology decisions
Questions worth asking any provider, including us.
Most quotes become comparable once these are answered in writing. If a provider is happy to answer them plainly, that itself tells you something.
What exactly is included, written down, and what is explicitly outside it?
Is there a monthly minimum underneath the per-user rate?
Is onboarding charged separately, and how much?
Are Microsoft 365 or other software licences inside the price?
Is security tooling included, a paid tier, or separate?
Are projects, migrations and remediation covered, or quoted as they arise?
What support hours are covered, and what happens outside them?
What response commitments apply, and what happens if they are missed?
What is the minimum contract term?
What happens when the user count changes, up or down?
What happens at renewal, and how is a price change notified?
What happens at exit, and how long does notice run?
Who holds and administers credentials, documentation and data, and how are they handed back?
Questions buyers ask about IT support pricing.
Answers based on what UK providers actually publish, checked in September 2026, rather than on what the market is assumed to charge.
There is no single right figure. Published per-user rates across the providers checked ran from about £10 to £150 a month, with those publishing a real rate card mostly between £22.91 and £66.67. For a very small team the monthly minimum matters more: minimums of £500 and £650 are both published openly, and either sets your floor regardless of headcount.
Neither, universally. Per-user pricing scales cleanly with headcount. Fixed monthly plans price the service rather than the seat, which suits a stable user count and a defined scope. Per-device pricing favours organisations where equipment is shared and penalises those where everyone has several devices.
Because the phrase covers very different amounts of responsibility. Entry bands are typically business-hours helpdesk, patching and basic antivirus; the highest add round-the-clock cover, security monitoring, compliance support and on-site presence. Some of the lowest rates also assume you already employ IT staff.
Often not, and this is one of the most common reasons two quotes are not comparable. Your IT Department states directly that Microsoft 365 licensing sits outside its per-user support price. Our own plans work the same way: administration of Microsoft 365 is included, the licences themselves are billed separately.
It varies genuinely, so it is worth asking rather than assuming. Among the providers checked, Connection Technologies publishes £1,000 to £5,000 and IT Support Helpdesk £500 to £3,000, while The HBP Group, Genmar IT and Your IT Department publish no separate setup fee at all.
Terms differ by provider and it is a fair question to ask early. SoftExponent’s Starter and Growth plans both carry a twelve-month minimum term, which is stated on the plans page before checkout.
Growth in headcount does not automatically mean changing service level. Starter includes up to five managed users, with additional users at £60 per month each through its standard published range of ten. Growth includes up to ten managed users, with additional users at £65 per month each through its standard published range of twenty. Growth is designed for organisations that need a deeper level of managed IT, security and technology oversight, rather than simply for larger teams. Beyond the published ranges, or where the environment is unusually complex, we agree an appropriate scope directly.
Compare scope first, then compare price.
If you have a quote in front of you, the checklist above will tell you more than the monthly figure will. If you want to see how our own plans are put together, they are set out in full — service levels, included-user allowances, additional-user rates and terms.
i Sources and method. External figures in this guide were taken from publicly available UK provider websites and pricing guides checked in September 2026, and are attributed to the provider that published them. They are observed published figures and provider guidance, not a statistically derived UK average — no independent national survey of UK managed IT support pricing was used, and none is claimed. Providers cited: The HBP Group, Your IT Department, Genmar IT, AIS Technology, Pebble IT, IT Support Helpdesk, Connection Technologies, Computercentric, AMVIA, Novem, IT Outcomes, Techzura, F1 Group, Cache4 IT Solutions, Ratcliff IT, Dead Simple Computing, Cloudswitched and INNOSEC. Published pricing changes; check the source before relying on any figure.