To choose an IT support provider, judge them on four things: how fast they respond when something breaks, how they explain themselves, what the contract locks you into, and who ends up holding the keys to your accounts. Price matters, but it is fourth on that list for a reason - a cheap provider who takes two days to answer costs more than they save. Here are the checks in full.
How to choose an IT support provider: the eight checks
- Response times in writing - not "we aim to respond quickly" but an actual promise. Ask what happens when your email goes down at 9am on a Tuesday, and how fast someone picks it up.
- Contract length - a short rolling contract, monthly or quarterly, is the honest default for small businesses. A three-year lock-in benefits the provider, not you. If the service is good, you will stay anyway.
- The plain-English test - ask them to explain multi-factor authentication or a backup plan on the first call. If the answer is a wall of jargon, every future conversation will be too.
- Who owns your accounts - the big one. Your Microsoft 365 tenant, your domain name and your admin passwords should belong to your business, documented and handed over, not held by the provider. Ask directly.
- Security included, not extra - multi-factor authentication, update management and a working backup should be part of the baseline, not a bolted-on upsell after the first incident.
- Per-user pricing you can check - a clear monthly price per person makes the cost predictable as you grow. Vague "from" pricing that needs a meeting to explain usually hides something.
- Fit for your size and sector - a five-person firm does not need an enterprise helpdesk. Sector matters too: a care home has CQC and resident data to think about, an estate agency lives and dies by email. Ask who else like you they look after.
- Local reality - remote support fixes most things, but some jobs need a person at your desk. If the provider is two hours away, ask what an on-site visit actually costs and how long it takes to happen.
The red flags
Some warning signs are worth walking away from on the spot, whatever the price.
- They keep admin access to themselves - if you cannot name who holds the keys to your own systems, you do not own them. Leaving that provider later becomes a hostage negotiation.
- Everything is extra - a low headline price where backups, security and out-of-hours help all cost more is not a low price.
- No offboarding process - ask how they hand things over if you leave. A provider with a clear answer is confident in the service. A provider without one is planning on the lock-in.
- They cannot say no - if every answer in the sales conversation is yes, including to things that should have caveats, the promises are not real.
Questions to ask before you sign
- What is your response promise, in writing, for a normal problem and for an urgent one?
- Who owns our Microsoft 365 tenant, our domain and our passwords, and where are they documented?
- What does the monthly price include, and what costs extra?
- What happens in the first month - do you audit what we already have?
- How do we leave, and what do you hand over if we do?
What IT support costs
For context on numbers: our own IT support pricing is remote help from £35, on-site visits from £75 and monthly plans from £39 per user on a three-month rolling contract. Providers vary, but any quote should be comparable in that shape: a clear per-user or per-visit price, stated plainly before you commit. If it is not, that is your answer about how the rest of the relationship will go.
The cheapest way to choose well: test small first. Book a single visit before signing anything ongoing, and see how they respond, explain and behave when something actually breaks.