Buyer's guide
Black Lab vs. Break/Fix
Paying only when things break sounds thrifty. For a company that runs on its computers, it is usually the most expensive option on the menu — you just pay in downtime instead of invoices.
- Break/fix bills you to repair problems; managed service is paid to prevent them. The incentives point in opposite directions.
- The invoice is the smallest cost of break/fix — waiting your turn, compound neglect, and unwatched security are the real bill.
- With a handful of low-stakes computers, break/fix is honestly fine. Once a failure stops people working, it's a standing bet that nothing important fails.
- The assessment puts real numbers on the comparison for your environment — yours to keep either way.
The incentive problem
An hourly IT provider earns money when you have problems. A managed provider earns the same flat fee whether you have problems or not — which makes prevention the entire business model. Neither party is evil; they are just paid to care about different things.
Under break/fix, nobody is patching your servers on a quiet Tuesday night, because nobody is paid to. Under a flat fee, that Tuesday night patch run is exactly what keeps the provider profitable —your uptime and their margin point the same direction.
Where the money actually goes
The hourly invoice is the visible cost, and it is usually the small one. The rest of the bill shows up in places accounting never labels "IT":
- Waiting your turn. Break/fix means you're in the queue behind whoever called first. Every hour in that queue is your staff not working.
- Compound neglect. Unpatched systems and aging hardware don't announce themselves. They accumulate quietly, then fail expensively — and the failure is billable too.
- Unwatched security. Between visits, nobody reviews logs, catches the compromised account, or notices the backup that stopped running. You learn about a breach when the damage surfaces.
- Budget chaos. Some months cost nothing, some cost more than a year of management. Try planning around that.
Break/fix isn't cheaper. It's the same money, paid later, with interest — and the interest is downtime.
When break/fix is enough
Honesty matters more than winning the argument: if you run fewer than about ten computers, have no server, no compliance obligations, and a down machine is an annoyance rather than lost revenue, break/fix may genuinely be all you need. We'll tell you so if you ask.
Once IT failures start costing real money, the math flips. The businesses we onboard from break/fix arrangements consistently share the same discovery: years of deferred patches, backups nobody ever tested, and accounts of long-departed employees still active. The cleanup costs more than management would have.
Side-by-side comparison
| Decision criteria | Black Lab (managed) | Break/fix (hourly) |
|---|---|---|
| Who profits when you have problems | YesNobody. Flat fee means prevention is the business model. | NoThe vendor. Every incident is billable work. |
| Response commitment | YesWritten into the agreement and reported on. | NoFirst come, first served — you wait behind whoever called first. |
| Monthly cost predictability | YesOne flat rate, agreed in writing. | NoQuiet months are cheap; bad months are not. Budgeting is a guess. |
| Patching and maintenance | YesScheduled and reported — it happens whether or not anything is broken. | NoNobody is paid to maintain anything between visits. |
| Security monitoring | YesContinuous and automated across every covered device. | NoNone. A compromise is found when the damage surfaces. |
| Documentation of your environment | YesMaintained as a deliverable you can inspect — and keep. | It dependsUsually lives in one technician’s head. Ask to see it. |
| Strategic planning and budgeting | YesQuarterly reviews: hardware lifecycles, licensing, roadmap. | NoThe relationship is transactional; nobody owns next year. |
| Cost at very small scale | It dependsBelow roughly ten computers with low stakes, managed can be more than you need. | YesGenuinely cheaper for a handful of machines where downtime is an annoyance. |
What switching actually looks like
The fear of switching is a coverage-gap fear. The transition runs alongside your current arrangement, so there isn't one.
Assessment and inventory
We document your environment — every device, account, license, and credential — while your current arrangement keeps running.
Monitoring and cutover
Agents deploy, monitoring goes live, and documentation moves into a system you can inspect. No downtime required.
Your team meets ours
Everyone learns the one number to call. First tickets get handled while the safety net is still doubled.
First review
We walk leadership through what we found, what we fixed, and the roadmap for the next quarter.
Common objections, straight answers
We already have a person we call. Why change what works?
Keep them — the question is what happens between calls. Nobody is patching, watching logs, or testing backups while nothing feels broken. If your current person does all of that on an hourly arrangement, you already have managed service; ask them to show you the reports. If they can’t, the work isn’t happening.
Break/fix has been fine so far. Isn’t managed IT just paying for problems we don’t have?
Break/fix looks fine right up until the incident that defines the year — ransomware, a dead server, a compliance finding. You’re not paying to fix more things; you’re paying to make the expensive thing not happen. The assessment puts real numbers on that for your environment — the real difference is the incidents that never occur.
What does switching actually cost?
Onboarding is scoped and priced in writing before anything starts, and the transition runs alongside your current arrangement so there’s no coverage gap. You’ll know the full first-year number before you sign.
Are we locked in once we sign?
No. Our agreement includes a written offboarding process: your passwords, documentation, and data are returned on departure. A provider confident in its service makes leaving easy — read any MSP’s exit clause before you sign, including ours.
See what your IT actually costs.
A confidential assessment covering your environment, your risk, and the honest math for a business your size — including whether break/fix is still the right call for you.