At the time of this writing, there were over 30 million small businesses across the United States. Updated statistics show that to now be 33.2 million. However, 20% of small businesses in America won’t survive their first year of trading. In order to avoid this happening to your business, you need to create proper infrastructure for your business.
The strength of your business IT can have a huge impact on the success of your business. You need this to communicate with clients, promote your products, and store your data securely. This is why IT services for small businesses are essential. An IT support provider can provide the expertise and support your business needs.
Not sure what IT services for small businesses do or how much they cost? Then you’ve come to the right place.
Read on to find out everything you need to know about the cost of small business IT services.
Why Does IT Matter for a Small Business?
You may not realize it but your business uses IT every day. Because of this, your computer system forms a vital part of your business’s infrastructure.
Having a decent IT system means that your employees can easily interact with it. This means using programs that are user-friendly and having support on-hand if anything goes wrong with these. This will allow everyone in your business to use computer networking without a problem.
But your IT system can also have a huge impact on your customers as well. This is where you’ll run your website and advertising campaigns from. When your IT system doesn’t run properly, neither do these.
This can have a huge impact on the success of your business.
For example, your IT system will affect how quickly your website loads. Research shows that if this takes more than four seconds you lose 25% of website visitors. With them you also lose their business, so you can’t afford simple mistakes like this.
Most business’ IT systems also store a lot of data on the business and its customers. For your business to succeed this data needs to be kept secure. 60% of small businesses that fall victim to a data hack will fail within six months of the attack.
As you can see, your IT system can have a huge impact on multiple areas of your business. This is why it’s important to look after it properly.
But maintaining your computer system takes a lot of time and expertise. For most small businesses, this can get in the way of the everyday running of the company. This is where business IT services can help.
What Does IT Services Do?
IT services offer tech support for small businesses, which means that the company doesn’t have to hire an in-house team. This is great if you’re a small business without loads of resources or IT expertise. IT services from Houston offer tech support for small businesses, which means that the company doesn’t have to hire an in-house team. This is great if you’re a small business without loads of resources or IT expertise.
- Updating software
- Cybersecurity programs
- Updating your business’s technology
- Backing up the system for you
- Dealing with any technical issues that arise
- Training staff to use the computer system
- Website design and maintenance
- Creating an IT network for your company
- Maintaining and monitoring the system for issues or threats
All this means that your system should run smoothly at all times. This is because the IT service should be able to identify a problem and deal with it before it develops. If you do encounter an emergency then decent IT services should also have a 24/7 help desk to resolve this quickly.
Sounds great right? Obviously, all of this help and support comes at a cost. Let’s take a closer look at what you’ll need to budget to bring in an IT services team.
How Much Do IT Services for Small Businesses Cost?
As you can imagine, different IT services will offer different rates for their work. This may depend on the types of services you choose or the level of expertise that they offer.
Generally, IT help for small businesses costs between $1000 and $2500 a month. This works out at a maximum of $30,000 a year. Obviously, if your budget is tighter you can hire a low-cost company meaning you’ll spend around $12,000 a year.
To figure out how much you could pay, let’s take a look at some of the things that can affect the cost of IT services.
The Size of Your System
A bigger system will take more maintenance and attention, so this will mean you pay more for IT support services. There are three things to look at when assessing the size of your system. These are:
- The number of devices on your system (including desktops, smartphones, laptops, and tablets)
- The number of servers that you use
- The amounted of data you need to store
Most IT services use this equation to figure out how much to charge you: (Number of devices + Number of servers) x 25 support hours each year x $100 per hour
So let’s say you have six devices on your system and use one server. This would work out at $17,500 per year (7 x 25 x 100.)
This may be higher if you have a lot of data to store. The additional data cost is worked out using this equation: (Amount of data you need to store in GB)/5. For example, if you have to store 10,000 GB this will cost an extra $2,500 a year.
Altogether, this means that your basic IT costs for a system with five devices, two servers and 10,000 GB of data would cost $20,000 a year. This works out at around $1,600 per month.
One Time Costs for System Repairs
If something goes majorly wrong with your system, your IT service provider may need to do extensive work to correct this. Because of this, you may end up paying a higher monthly bill that month.
However, before your IT service carries out any additional work they will also get in touch with you first. This means that you can evaluate whether or not you’re happy to pay for this extra work.
It’s important to keep in mind though that using an IT server will lower than the chances of you facing these one-time costs. This is because your system will be continuously monitored and have better security. Because of this, it will be less vulnerable to threats.
How You Choose to Pay
How you choose to pay for your IT services can also affect how much you pay.
Buying in bulk usually comes with a discount. However, if you don’t have lots of capital available you can choose to buy-as-needed instead.
This means just buying enough hours for the IT services you need at the moment. If you need more in the future, you just have to buy more.
Buying-as-needed usually costs around $150 per hour. If you want to buy in bulk this usually works out at $100 per hour but you have to buy a minimum of 20-hours of service. This means that over 20 hours, buying in bulk will save you $1000.
If you haven’t used an IT services company before though buying-as-needed is a great way to test the water. This is because bulk bought hours usually have to be used within a certain period of time and are not refundable. Buying a few hours will help you get a feel for a company without you spending loads.
How Does This Compare to Your Other Options?
IT services aren’t the only way to maintain your IT systems. Depending on your budget, you could hire an IT expert to work at your company maintaining your IT systems. If you run into difficulty, you could always bring in an emergency technician.
However, when it comes to price, these other options are a lot more expensive than outsourcing your IT service needs.
The salary for a junior-level IT support technician is roughly $40,000 a year so this will set you back a fair bit. On top of this, if you have a larger staff or multiple IT systems you will need to hire several technicians. In that case, you’re looking for paying upward of $80,000 to run your systems properly.
Bringing in an emergency technician when you need one might feel like a way to save some money in the long run. These technicians usually charge between $93 and $125 per hour.
However, these technicians will only deal with problems rather than updating your system so it runs well. You may pay less but you’ll also get a lot less for your money. And if you don’t deal with the root of your IT problem then there’s nothing to stop it from happening again.
Because of this, IT services are a great option for a small business’s budget. They give you great value for your money and will help you create an IT system that really delivers.
What Are You Waiting For?
IT services for small businesses for an absolute must for any business that wants to succeed. So make sure you look up ‘small business IT support services near me’ today!
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