Number of users and devices
More endpoints to manage means more work. A 5-person office and a 50-person office are not the same engagement — and any quote that ignores your headcount is a red flag.
— Managed IT / Cost guide
What managed IT services actually cost.
Canadian MSPs quote widely. Understanding what drives the price — and what to be suspicious of — puts you in a better position before you talk to anyone.
— Market context
Realistic market ranges.
These are observed Canadian-market rates, not our prices. Every engagement is scoped individually.
Per-user per month
CA $130 – $250 / user / month
The most common model. Covers remote helpdesk, endpoint management, patch management, and monitoring. Varies by security depth and response-time commitment.
Per-device per month
CA $40 – $120 / device / month
Common for device-heavy shops (retail, clinics, production floors). Laptop and desktop rates differ from server rates.
Flat-rate retainer
CA $800 – $5,000+ / month
All-in monthly fee for a defined user/device count and scope. Predictable. Works best when scope is well-understood on both sides.
Project or one-time
CA $500 – $50,000+
Infrastructure migration, security hardening, server build, network overhaul. Fixed price for a defined scope — not an open-ended hourly engagement.
— What moves the price
What drives the cost up or down.
Security depth
Basic managed AV and patch management sits at the low end. Add EDR, SIEM, phishing simulation, and compliance documentation (PIPEDA, SOC 2, ISO 27001) and the price rises — because the work is substantially different.
Response-time commitments
A 4-hour response SLA during business hours costs less than a 1-hour response at any time of day. On-call coverage for nights and weekends is real operational overhead — it should cost more.
On-site vs. fully remote
Most managed IT is remote today. On-site visits for hardware installs or complex troubleshooting are billed separately or folded into a higher retainer — depending on your geography and how often you actually need them.
Complexity of your environment
A flat Microsoft 365 shop with commodity hardware is straightforward. A hybrid on-prem / cloud environment with custom software and legacy systems takes more expertise and more time to operate reliably.
— What to watch for
Red flags in managed IT quotes.
- Per-hour billing with no cap. Managed IT should be predictable. "We bill by the hour" means your monthly cost is unknowable until after the fact.
- Onboarding fees buried in the contract. A setup cost is reasonable — but it should be disclosed upfront, in the proposal, not revealed on the first invoice.
- Vague SLAs. "We’ll get back to you" is not a service level. A real SLA names a response time, a resolution time, and what happens when they miss it.
- Lock-in clauses on your own data and systems. You own your infrastructure. If a provider makes it difficult to leave by locking configurations or withholding credentials, walk away.
- No documentation. A professional provider documents your environment. If they keep the knowledge in their heads, you have a dependency problem — not a managed service.
— How we do it
How SetKernel approaches managed IT.
SetKernel Digital Inc. doesn’t publish a rate card. Every engagement is scoped to what you actually need — managed infrastructure, security, web systems, or the full stack. You write a short brief, we respond with a fixed price in writing before anything starts. No hourly billing, no surprise invoices, no lock-in. We’re a senior team, not a ticketing queue.
— Common questions
What people ask before engaging.
What is the typical managed IT cost for a small business in Halifax?
For a small Halifax or Nova Scotia business with 5–25 users, expect CA $800–$3,500 per month for fully-managed IT depending on security requirements, device count, and response-time needs. Per-user, that is typically CA $130–$250/user/month in the Canadian market. Flat-rate proposals are cleaner than per-hour billing for predictable monthly spend.
What is included in a managed IT services retainer?
A well-scoped retainer typically covers remote monitoring and management (RMM), endpoint patch management, helpdesk for user issues, security tooling (AV, EDR, or SIEM depending on tier), backup verification, and periodic reviews. On-site visits and large projects are usually outside the base retainer and quoted separately.
Is per-hour IT billing better than a monthly retainer?
For most businesses, no. Hourly billing produces unpredictable monthly costs — a bad month of issues can generate an unexpected invoice. A fixed monthly retainer lets you budget reliably. The exception is genuinely sporadic one-off work (a single migration, a hardware install) where a fixed-price project quote is more appropriate than an ongoing retainer.
Does SetKernel publish its managed IT prices?
No. SetKernel Digital Inc. scopes every engagement individually and provides a fixed price in writing before anything starts. There is no rate card because the right scope for a 10-person shop with a simple Microsoft 365 environment is materially different from a 30-person firm running hybrid on-prem and cloud infrastructure with compliance requirements. Send us a brief — we respond within one business day.
What should I include in a managed IT brief?
Two paragraphs is enough: how many users and devices you have, what systems you run (Microsoft 365, on-prem servers, cloud VMs, custom software), what pain you are feeling now (slow response from current IT, a security concern, scaling a system), and what done looks like. We sharpen the rest in the engagement memo.
— Engage
Tell us what you need — we will scope it and give you a fixed price.
Write a short brief: user count, systems in use, what is not working. We respond within one business day.