£55.

Depending on how you present it, that can sound like a lot of money.

Tell a business owner:

“Managed IT support starts at £55 + VAT per user per month.”

and the immediate reaction might be:

“£55 for every employee? Every month?”

But that's looking at the wrong number.

The better question is:

What does £55 actually buy the business—and what does it cost when you don't have it?

At Hamilton Group, our Essentials managed IT support currently starts at £55 + VAT per user per month, with a five-user minimum. That isn't £55 for somebody to occasionally reset a password or fix Outlook when it breaks. The package includes unlimited helpdesk support, a 15-minute initial-response SLA during business hours, emergency out-of-hours cover, 24/7 monitoring, EDR endpoint security, backup, patch management, a password manager and other security and support services.

When you look at it that way, £55 starts to look rather different.

£55 Per Month Is About £2.54 Per Working Day

Let's put the number into perspective.

Assume roughly 260 working days per year.

£55 × 12 = £660 per employee per year.

Divide that by 260 working days:

£2.54 per employee per working day.

That's the number worth thinking about.

For around £2.54 per working day, that employee has professional IT support behind them, alongside monitoring and security designed to keep their computer and business systems working.

For a five-person business, the starting cost is £275 + VAT per month.

The question becomes:

Can reliable IT support, security and monitoring create or protect more than £2.54 of value per employee each day?

For most businesses that depend on technology, the answer isn't particularly difficult.

What Does One Hour of Downtime Cost?

Imagine an employee earns £35,000 per year.

Once you consider salary and employer costs, every working hour has a real value.

Now their laptop stops working.

Outlook won't open.

They can't access the customer database.

OneDrive isn't synchronising.

The VPN has stopped connecting.

They spend 20 minutes trying to fix it themselves.

Then they ask the person in the office who is “good with computers.”

That person stops working too.

They both Google the error.

Somebody restarts the router.

Someone watches a seven-minute YouTube video.

Forty-five minutes later, the original problem still exists.

How much did the business just save by not paying for professional IT support?

Probably nothing.

It has simply moved the cost from an IT-support invoice into lost employee productivity, where it's considerably harder to see.

Your Employees Aren't Free IT Technicians

This is one of the most overlooked costs of poor IT support.

Suppose your finance manager earns £45,000.

They're competent with technology, so whenever somebody has an IT problem, the office asks them.

“Can you quickly look at this?”

Quickly becomes twenty minutes.

Then another employee asks.

Then the printer stops working.

Then somebody can't get into Teams.

Your £45,000 finance manager has quietly become your part-time IT technician.

That's an extraordinarily expensive way of resetting passwords.

People should spend their time doing the jobs you employed them to do.

When something breaks, they need somewhere to send it.

£55 Doesn't Just Buy Support When Something Breaks

This is where comparing managed IT with ad-hoc support becomes misleading.

Traditional IT support often worked like this:

Something breaks → call IT → pay somebody to fix it.

A managed service should be doing work when you aren't calling.

Hamilton Group's Essentials package currently includes 24/7 system monitoring, endpoint detection and response, patch management, proactive threat detection, safe-browsing protection and backup alongside the helpdesk service.

That's important.

Good IT support shouldn't simply become very efficient at fixing the same problems repeatedly.

It should try to prevent them.

Think About Your Car

Imagine you had a company vehicle but decided:

“Servicing is expensive. We'll just wait until something breaks.”

You could save money for a while.

No servicing.

No preventative maintenance.

No checks.

Then something significant fails.

The vehicle is unavailable.

An employee can't get where they need to be.

You pay for recovery.

You pay for emergency repairs.

And you lose productivity while the vehicle is off the road.

Technology isn't identical to a car, but the principle is similar.

Preventative maintenance costs money.

Unexpected failure usually costs more.

Cyber Security Alone Changes the Calculation

Now consider what businesses actually store on their computers and Microsoft 365 accounts.

Customer information.

Financial information.

Email.

Contracts.

Employee information.

Invoices.

Passwords.

Commercially sensitive documents.

Perhaps access to banking, CRM systems and cloud applications.

Security is no longer something an IT provider can sensibly bolt on as an afterthought.

Hamilton Group's £55 Essentials service includes EDR, proactive threat detection, a password manager, safe-browsing protection and an IT Security Baseline built around Cyber Essentials principles.

Could you buy separate products yourself?

Of course.

But then somebody needs to:

Configure them.

Deploy them.

Monitor them.

Maintain them.

Respond to alerts.

Keep them updated.

Work out what has gone wrong when they conflict.

A licence sitting on a computer is not the same as a managed security service.

“But We Hardly Ever Call IT”

Good.

That isn't necessarily evidence that you don't need managed IT.

It may be evidence that the technology is being managed properly.

This is one of the strange things about IT.

When everything works, it can appear as though nothing is being done.

You don't see:

A security update installed overnight.

A threat blocked.

A disk-space warning noticed before the drive fills.

An endpoint alert investigated.

A backup running successfully.

A vulnerability patched.

A problem prevented.

You notice IT when it fails.

A good managed service should make that happen less often.

The Buff IT Guy Doesn't Wait Until Something Snaps

The Buff IT Guy understands preventative maintenance.

He doesn't walk into the gym, put the maximum possible weight on a bar and say:

“We'll worry about maintenance after my shoulder explodes.”

He prepares.

He checks the equipment.

He builds strength.

He spots problems before they become injuries.

Managed IT works on much the same principle.

The cheapest possible IT strategy is often:

Do nothing until something breaks.

It can also become one of the most expensive.

The Buff IT Guy would rather spend £55 building strength than considerably more recovering from an avoidable disaster.

Compare £55 With Ad-Hoc Support

Hamilton Group's current ad-hoc rates are £100 + VAT per hour for remote/admin work and £125 + VAT per hour for onsite support during office hours.

That makes for an interesting comparison.

One hour of remote ad-hoc support:

£100 + VAT

One month of Essentials managed support for one covered user:

£55 + VAT

Of course, these aren't directly interchangeable products. The managed plan has a five-user minimum, and different work can fall inside or outside the service scope.

But it demonstrates why looking only at the monthly figure can be misleading.

A business that repeatedly calls for ad-hoc support can quickly spend money while receiving none of the wider benefits of proactive management.

Let's Look at a Ten-Person Business

Ten employees at £55 per user:

£550 + VAT per month.

That's:

£6,600 + VAT per year.

For that, you're not employing one junior technician.

You have access to an IT support operation with different technical knowledge and tools behind it.

One day the problem may be Outlook.

The next could be:

Windows.

Apple.

Linux.

Networking.

Cyber security.

Backup.

Microsoft 365.

A failing laptop.

Wi-Fi.

A suspicious email.

No single internal employee is going to be equally knowledgeable across every technology the business uses.

Now Compare It With Hiring Someone

An internal IT employee costs considerably more than their headline salary.

You have:

Salary.

Employer National Insurance.

Pension.

Holiday.

Sick leave.

Recruitment.

Training.

Equipment.

Software.

Management.

And one unavoidable limitation:

They're still one person.

When they're on holiday, who covers?

When they're ill, who responds?

What if they're excellent at Windows but the problem is networking?

What if they're good with Microsoft 365 but not cyber security?

An MSP isn't automatically the right answer for every organisation. Larger businesses often benefit from internal IT, and Hamilton Group can also work alongside an existing team.

But for an SME, £55 per user per month can buy access to capabilities that would be disproportionately expensive to recreate internally.

Cheap IT and Good-Value IT Are Not the Same Thing

Imagine Provider A charges:

£35 per user.

Provider B charges:

£55 per user.

Provider A looks cheaper.

Until you discover that endpoint protection is extra.

Backup is extra.

Monitoring is extra.

Password management is extra.

Onboarding is extra.

Security awareness is extra.

And support is limited.

The headline price doesn't matter nearly as much as what is actually included.

Hamilton Group deliberately publishes its pricing and package contents so businesses can see what they're comparing.

When comparing IT providers, don't ask only:

“How much per user?”

Ask:

“What will my total cost be for the service and protection we actually need?”

The Cost of a Security Incident Is Different Again

Downtime from a broken laptop is inconvenient.

A serious cyber incident can be considerably worse.

You may have:

Employees unable to work.

Compromised Microsoft 365 accounts.

Fraudulent emails sent to customers.

Data exposed.

Systems encrypted.

Passwords stolen.

Professional incident-response costs.

Potential regulatory consequences.

Reputational damage.

The value of managed security isn't that it makes incidents impossible.

Nobody credible should promise that.

The value is reducing risk, detecting problems sooner and improving your ability to respond when something happens.

Suddenly £2.54 per employee per working day doesn't sound particularly extravagant.

What About the 15-Minute Response?

This is another part of the value equation.

Hamilton Group aims to make first contact on IT support requests within 15 minutes during business hours on the Essentials plan.

That doesn't mean every technical problem can magically be solved in 15 minutes.

A failed server and a forgotten password obviously aren't the same job.

It means the issue is acknowledged quickly so it can be assessed, prioritised and investigated.

That's important when an employee can't work.

Nobody wants to submit a ticket at 9:10am and spend the rest of the morning wondering whether another human being has even seen it.

£55 Also Makes IT Spending Predictable

Ad-hoc IT can produce some interesting invoices.

Nothing happens for two months.

Then:

Server problem.

Three laptop issues.

Microsoft 365 problem.

Wi-Fi fault.

Security incident.

Suddenly you've had an expensive month.

A managed service converts much of everyday IT support into a predictable operating cost.

Hamilton Group's pricing is structured around clear monthly packages, with additional services and higher tiers identified separately.

That makes budgeting easier.

You know what the core service costs.

And the provider has an incentive to prevent problems rather than make money every time something breaks.

That's an important difference.

What £55 Is Really Buying

You're not buying “an IT guy for £55.”

You're buying a service designed to help provide:

Productivity — employees have somewhere to go when technology stops them working.

Security — devices receive managed protection rather than hoping the antivirus icon is still green.

Monitoring — somebody is watching for problems rather than waiting for employees to discover them.

Maintenance — updates and patching help keep systems current.

Continuity — the service doesn't disappear because one technical employee is on holiday.

Predictability — support becomes a budgetable monthly cost.

Expertise — different problems can reach people with the appropriate technical knowledge.

That's why judging managed IT support purely by the monthly number misses most of its value.

When £55 Would Be Expensive

There is one situation where we'd agree that £55 per user is expensive.

When the service is poor.

If your IT provider:

Takes days to respond.

Doesn't monitor anything.

Leaves security products unmanaged.

Keeps fixing the same problems.

Never reviews your environment.

Doesn't explain what you're paying for.

Doesn't help you plan.

Then £55 isn't good value.

Neither is £35.

The objective isn't to find the lowest number.

It's to find the provider that delivers enough value to justify the number.

How Hamilton Group Can Help

Hamilton Group provides managed IT support for businesses that want technology to work without building an entire internal IT department.

Our Essentials service currently starts from £55 + VAT per user per month, with a five-user minimum.

We can help with:

• Unlimited helpdesk support
• Windows, Mac and Linux devices
• Cyber security
• Endpoint Detection and Response
• 24/7 monitoring
• Backup
• Patch management
• Microsoft 365
• Networks and Wi-Fi
• Cyber Essentials
• Cloud services
• User onboarding and offboarding
• IT strategy
• AI and productivity improvements

And if your requirements are more advanced, Hamilton Group also offers Professional packages covering broader security, Microsoft 365 and infrastructure requirements.

The point isn't to squeeze every company into the same package.

It's to understand what your business actually needs and provide an appropriate level of support.

£55 Isn't the Expensive Part. Downtime Is.

For most modern businesses, IT isn't optional infrastructure anymore.

Take away email, Microsoft 365, internet access, files, phones and business applications and see how much work gets done.

That's why the cost of IT support needs to be considered against the value of the business activity it protects.

At £55 per user per month, you're talking about approximately:

£12.69 per employee per working week.

Or:

£2.54 per working day.

If good IT support saves that employee just a few minutes of wasted time, prevents one recurring problem, spots a failing device, blocks a threat or gets them working quickly when something breaks, the economics start making considerably more sense.

The Buff IT Guy understands value.

Cheap isn't the same as strong.

And £55 spent protecting a productive employee isn't expensive when the alternative is paying that employee to stare at an Outlook error message.

Want to see exactly what your business would receive for its IT budget?

Hamilton Group offers a free 30-minute IT and cyber-security review with no obligation or hard sell.

Call Hamilton Group on 0330 043 0069

Email: hello@hgmssp.com