Most people who call us about managed IT support open with the same five questions. We have heard them so many times we could write the answers in our sleep – so here they are, in writing, with nothing held back.
If you are thinking about switching IT providers, or hiring one for the first time, these are the questions that actually matter. The answers are the ones we would give you on a phone call.
In short: nearly everyone who calls us asks the same five things, about cost, out-of-hours cover, how we are different, what is not included, and switching without downtime. Here are honest answers to all five.
Key takeaways
- Managed IT pricing is fixed per person, per month. Three Initial IT tiers (Foundations, Elevate, Fortify) plus a flat £100/company/month for Microsoft 365 tenant management.
- Out-of-hours cover is genuine for security incidents, tier-dependent for routine breakages.
- Switching is a 30-day process and your team should notice nothing on day one.
- Anything not in your support plan is quoted up-front. No project ever starts without you knowing the price.
1. “How much does it actually cost?”
Honestly, this is the question we wish more people would lead with – because the answer is simple.
We charge a fixed price per person, per month, for ongoing managed IT support. There are three tiers:
- Foundations – £47/person/month. For small businesses and startups (10–20 staff). The essentials done right.
- Elevate – £67/person/month. Our most popular tier, for growing businesses pursuing Cyber Essentials (10+ staff).
- Fortify – £107/person/month. For businesses where technology is critical to revenue. Everything in Elevate plus enhanced security monitoring and quarterly strategy.
On top of those, there is a flat £100/company/month for Microsoft 365 tenant management, audit logging and security baseline configuration. That fee is per company, not per user, so it does not scale up as your team grows.
One-off projects – like migrating a server, moving office, or rolling out Microsoft Copilot – are scoped and quoted separately so you can see exactly what you are paying for. We do not bury project costs in your monthly fee.
What you will not see on our invoice: surprise call-out fees, “emergency hours” surcharges, or hourly time-and-materials billing when something breaks. You pay the monthly fee, problems get fixed, end of story.
If you would like to see what your specific business would pay, our pricing page has a calculator that takes 30 seconds.
2. “What happens at 2am when something breaks?”
The honest answer is: it depends what is breaking.
Working hours (Monday–Friday, 9:00–17:30): You speak to our UK helpdesk in Lichfield. Average response time is under 15 minutes. We are not a call centre and we are not offshore – you talk to a named engineer who knows your environment.
Out of hours: Our security team monitors every client tenant 24/7. If anything genuinely suspicious happens – a sign-in from a country your team is not in, a compromised account, a ransomware indicator – they alert us immediately and we respond.
For everything else (the printer is broken, someone is locked out, can’t get into email), out-of-hours support depends on which tier you are on. Fortify includes after-hours response for genuine business-impacting issues. Elevate and Foundations don’t, by design – we keep them affordable for businesses that do not need a 24/7 SLA.
Here is the honest bit: most outages we see are during business hours, because that is when people are using their systems. We have found that paying for round-the-clock human cover that 99% of clients never use just pushes up the monthly bill.
3. “How are you different from the IT person we already use?”
The most common starting point we see is a freelance IT contact who set things up two or three years ago and is now hard to reach. We replace those a lot – see our switching playbook for the full process.
The honest differences:
- Coverage does not depend on one person. When our engineer is on holiday or sick, you do not have a problem.
- Security is built in, not bolted on. A solo freelancer cannot realistically stay current on every Microsoft 365 control, every cyber insurance requirement, every NCSC update.
- Documentation exists. When you leave us, you get full handover docs – admin accounts, passwords, network diagrams, the lot.
- It is a business, not a favour. We do not go silent when your friend-of-a-friend gets busy. SLAs are written down. You can hold us to them.
The flip side: freelancers are often cheaper per hour, more flexible, and can be brilliant if you find the right one. We are not pretending otherwise. We are just suited to growing businesses where IT cannot be one person’s side project anymore – particularly regulated sectors like law firms and accountancy practices.
4. “What’s the catch? What’s NOT included?”
This is the right question to ask any IT support company. We would rather you ask us before you sign than feel taken-for-a-ride afterwards.
What is included in your monthly fee:
- Unlimited UK-based helpdesk and on-site visits across Lichfield, Burntwood, Tamworth, Cannock and the wider West Midlands
- Microsoft 365 tenant management
- Cyber security stack (MFA, conditional access, endpoint protection, email filtering)
- Monitoring and patching
- Awareness training and phishing simulation
- A dedicated account manager and quarterly strategy review
What is NOT included in the monthly fee (we quote these separately):
- Microsoft licences (you buy these from Microsoft direct, or we resell at cost – your choice)
- Hardware (laptops, monitors, phones – we recommend, you buy)
- One-off projects (server migrations, office moves, new system rollouts – see IT Consultancy & Projects)
- Specialist software (anything beyond Microsoft 365 and the cyber security stack)
- Third-party SaaS subscriptions
- Travel beyond our standard service area
Anything not in your support plan, we quote up-front before doing any work. If you want to see what other businesses asked us before signing, our 2026 Buyer’s Guide walks through the eight questions you should ask any UK IT provider.
5. “How do we switch without downtime?”
This is the question we hear most often near the end of a conversation – and it is usually the thing keeping someone from making the change.
Switching to us takes about 30 days end-to-end, and your team should notice nothing on day one. Here is how we make that work:
- Week 1 – Audit. We map your current environment without changing anything.
- Week 2 – Transition. We take over admin of your Microsoft 365 tenant and security tooling. We manage the conversation with your current provider so you do not have to.
- Week 3 – Stabilise. We start applying our standard security baseline. MFA enforced, conditional access deployed, monitoring connected, backups configured.
- Week 4 – Sign off. You get a written confirmation of what was found, what we changed, and what is next.
We have done this dozens of times – see our case studies for examples. In almost every case, the only thing your team notices is that response times get faster. For a deeper walk-through of the switching process itself, see our 30-day onboarding playbook.
So what is the next step?
If you have read this far, the questions you are asking are the right ones to ask any IT support company. We are happy to answer them in detail for your specific business on a 30-minute call – no slides, no sales pitch, just a chat to see whether we are a fit.
Prefer to read more first? Our 2026 Buyer’s Guide walks through how to evaluate any UK IT provider, not just us. Or jump straight to pricing if you want the numbers.
– Andy Price, Founder & MD, Initial IT · 01543 524594 · hello@initialit.co.uk