Compare managed IT services with traditional break/fix support on cost, risk, and business continuity. Find the right IT support model for your company.
What is Break/Fix Support? Break/fix support is the traditional "IT guy" model: you call when something is broken, they fix it, and you pay an hourly rate or small block of time. There is usually no formal monitoring, documented security program, or proactive planning. Break/Fix Characteristics Under this model, there are no ongoing monitoring or patching commitments. Your provider is not watching your systems between calls, which means issues are only addressed once someone notices them. Documentation tends to be limited too, with critical knowledge about your environment often living in one person's head rather than in a shared, accessible system. Security is typically handled on an ad-hoc basis, with improvements deferred until after an incident forces the conversation. And because work is billed reactively, costs are inherently unpredictable - quiet months may feel affordable, but a single major issue can generate bills that dwarf an entire year of proactive service. Break/fix can work for very small environments, but it leaves gaps in governance and resilience as soon as your firm grows or becomes a target for modern attacks. What is Managed IT? Managed IT services provide proactive, ongoing management of your environment for a fixed monthly fee. Instead of waiting for tickets, your provider designs and operates a secure, resilient platform for your staff. Managed IT Includes A managed IT engagement is built around continuous oversight. Your provider monitors and alerts on critical systems around the clock, ensuring that issues are caught and addressed before they escalate into outages. Routine patching, maintenance, and health checks happen on a regular cadence, keeping your devices and servers current and reducing the attack surface that outdated software creates. Security is embedded into the operating model rather than treated as an afterthought. Most managed providers maintain a defined security stack - often aligned