Managed IT services cost in Australia typically sits between $130 and $3050 per user per month for the managed service itself, meaning the support, the security and the licensing needed to run it. Where a business lands inside that range depends on three things. How much security it needs, how much support it uses, and how complex its environment is.
Those numbers are a starting point, not a quote. Two quotes for the same headcount can sit a long way apart and both be perfectly reasonable, because they are not selling the same thing. Below is what moves the number, what a monthly fee usually includes, what it usually does not, and how to work out what you are paying right now so you have something honest to compare it with.
What actually moves the price up or down
Security requirements. This is the biggest lever. Microsoft 365 at a business-grade licence level with a managed security toolset over the top is one level. Add Managed Detection and Response, application control, email and web filtering and security awareness training, and you are at another. Insurers and larger clients increasingly ask about all of it, so for many businesses the higher level is not optional spend.
How much support you use. Some businesses rarely raise a ticket and are happy to pay for help as they need it. Others want every request covered, including setting up new staff and closing off leavers, without anyone watching the clock. Those are two different products at two different prices.
Complexity, not just headcount. It is tempting to assume more seats always means a cheaper seat. It does not work that neatly. In a small organisation the fixed work of securing and managing the environment is spread across only a few people, so the per user rate is a little higher. As headcount grows, that base work is shared more widely and the rate comes down, but complexity usually climbs with it. More devices, more systems, more locations, more people to bring into line with a policy. So the rate tends to come back up. Seat count on its own will not tell you which band you belong in.
Cloud and infrastructure. Most of the businesses we look after run in the cloud rather than on servers in a back room. An accounting practice might have its practice management software on a virtual machine in Microsoft Azure, with staff connecting through virtual desktops. A manufacturer might run the systems that control its plant the same way. Azure consumption is a real monthly cost, but it is a separate line from the per user management fee, and it should be shown that way.
- If your team uses Microsoft 365 Copilot, managing it properly is its own line. Licensing, enablement, training and controls over who can run up consumption. More on that below.
Onsite need. Most support is now done remotely, and done quickly. A business that genuinely needs someone physically in the room on a regular basis will pay more for it, because a person gets in a car.
What do the per-user bands look like?
The structure below is the part worth reading. It shows what changes between levels, so you can work out which band you belong in before anyone quotes you.
| Level | Who it usually suits | Indicative price | What sits behind it |
| Entry | Smaller organisations with a straightforward environment and low ongoing support needs | $130 to $200 per user per month | Microsoft 365 and security toolset licensing, managed security services, email filtering, and a small support allowance for the organisation, with further help charged as needed |
| Full managed service | Growing businesses, professional services, and anyone answering an insurer or client security questionnaire | Around $300 per user per month | Everything above, plus Managed Detection and Response, application control, web filtering, standardised email signatures, phishing and awareness training, structured strategic reviews, and unlimited support including onboarding and offboarding (projects excluded) |
| Managed AI (add-on) | Businesses using or rolling out Microsoft 365 Copilot | $80 to $90 per user per month, including the Copilot licence but not consumption | Enablement and training, basic agents bound to your own data and templates, security oversight, tool assessment, and consumption limited to approved users |
| Implementation and alignment | Every new client | From around $100 to $150 per month over a three-year agreement, or paid upfront | Putting security policies in place, raising security settings, and bringing every user and device into line before the service starts |
These are indicative figures for the managed service component, not a rate card, and entry is where a business starts rather than a price every business pays. The value of the bands is knowing which one you are in, because that tells you whether a quote is high, low, or aimed at a different business entirely. Call 1300 624 357 and we will price your actual environment.
When we quote, we usually put two or three options side by side. What we recommend, and where you can start if you would rather build up to it. We would rather show you the full picture up front than start low and add something every time we speak to you.
Why some security is not optional
Every business we support has a degree of security in place. We do not take on a client running plain Microsoft 365 with nothing over the top of it, because the first time we would really get to know that environment is during a security incident, and that is not how anyone wants to meet their IT provider. That minimum is what the entry band is built around.
What is normally included in a monthly fee
Across most Australian providers, a fixed monthly per user fee covers the ongoing running of your environment rather than one-off work. That typically means helpdesk support for your staff, monitoring of endpoints and network hardware, operating system and application patching, endpoint protection management, user setup and offboarding, and regular reporting on what happened.
Our managed service line also includes the Microsoft 365 and security toolset licensing that sits underneath it. Everything else is separately identified on the quote. Implementation, device hardware, network hardware, print, internet and voice each have their own line, so you can see exactly what each part of the service costs.
Our own inclusions are set out on the managed IT services page, and if you are weighing up fully outsourced against topping up an internal person, the IT support options page lays out how those models differ.
What is not included, and why that matters more than the headline rate
Almost nobody publishes this, which is exactly why it causes the arguments. Ask about every line below before you sign anything.
Licences. Some providers quote their management fee with Microsoft 365 and security licences excluded, so a low headline rate can end up dearer than a higher one with them bundled. Ours includes both. Line of business software and SQL licensing are separate lines. If you take up managed AI, the Copilot licence is included in that add-on.
Hardware. Laptops, firewalls, access points and printers are not part of the management fee. We can finance them over the term of the agreement, typically 36 months and sometimes 60, so they arrive as a predictable monthly line rather than a capital hit. We fund that ourselves, so there is no third-party financier to sign up with. That is not common in the industry, and it is not always the right call for every business.
Projects. An office move, a new site, a migration, or building a custom AI agent is scoped and quoted on its own. What matters is where your provider draws the line between support (included) and a project (extra), and whether that line is written down. Projects can be paid upfront or spread across the agreement.
Cloud consumption. Azure virtual machines, virtual desktops and AI usage are billed on what you consume. They belong on their own line, not buried in a per user figure.
Implementation. Every new agreement starts with an alignment phase. It has nothing to do with Microsoft licensing. It is the work of putting security policies in place, raising security settings and bringing each device into line. For a very small business that is usually around $3,000 to $4,500 in total. For a 20 person business it is more likely to be around $9,000, because pushing controls down to every laptop and mobile phone means touching every person, and that changes how people work. Most clients spread it across the agreement rather than paying upfront.
Third party vendors. Your practice management vendor, your accounting software support, your internet carrier. A good provider will still make the call on your behalf, but the vendor’s own fees are not in your monthly figure.
If a provider will not tell you what is excluded, that is information too. We will tell you what is not included, in writing, before you commit.
How does a fixed monthly fee compare with break/fix?
Break/fix looks cheaper because you only see the invoices you get. In regional Victoria it is not unusual to be paying around $120 a call, with licences and everything else itemised on top. The way to test it is to add up what you actually spent, then divide it down to a per user per month figure you can put beside a managed quote. Pull your last 12 months of invoices and total these five lines.
- Hourly or per call support charges.
- After-hours callout and travel premiums, which are usually the ugliest line.
- Anything quoted as a project that was really a repair of something that should not have failed.
- Time your own staff spent waiting, or fixing it themselves. Use their charge-out rate if they have one, their cost if they do not.
- Downtime. Hours lost multiplied by what an hour costs you. If you can calculate dollars per hour for your line, your warehouse or your billable staff, use that number.
Divide the total by 12, then by your user count. That is your real current per user monthly cost, and it is the only fair comparison. Most businesses are surprised by lines 4 and 5, because they never appear on an invoice. Businesses that move to us from break/fix usually land in the entry band.
The other difference is not financial. Under break/fix, nobody is paid to notice the failing drive, the backup that has silently stopped verifying, or the administrator account still active for someone who left in March. When a business leaves a break/fix provider, the handover is often a list of usernames and passwords and nothing else. Under a fixed fee, finding and documenting those things is the job, because every incident costs the provider money.
A worked example, a 22 person law firm
Take a practice running LEAP, Smokeball or Actionstep, Microsoft 365, a document store going back years, and PEXA settlements booked to a specific hour. The firm has 22 staff, two partners who work from home most Fridays, and an insurance renewal questionnaire sitting in the practice manager’s inbox.
Run the five lines above on that firm and two costs usually dominate. The first is settlement day. If the practice management system or internet is unavailable during a settlement window, the cost is not the support call, it is the exposure. The second is the questionnaire. Answering yes to multi-factor authentication on all remote access, offline backups, endpoint detection and a documented incident response plan is either work already done, or work you are about to pay for at project rates under time pressure.
That is why a firm like this usually lands in the full managed service band, around $300 per user, rather than entry, and why its per user figure is higher than the office next door with the same headcount. Size is not what decides it. One of our most security-mature clients is a three person accounting practice that says yes to every security improvement we put in front of it. What this looks like in practice for a firm, including the software involved, is set out on our IT support for legal firms page.
Where does managed AI sit on price?
Managed AI is an add-on to the managed service, typically $80 to $120 per user per month including the Copilot licence. Consumption, the token-based usage behind more advanced features, is billed on top, and we lock it down to approved users so it cannot run away.
Inside the managed service we cover enablement and training, basic agents that work across your own templates and project data so staff get consistent results, security around how the tools are used, and assessment of any tool someone wants to bring in. Anything beyond that, such as connecting several data sets for an agent-based workflow or building something custom, is project work. We help with it, but it is quoted separately.
The point is not to say no. It is to know where your data has gone. Before a new AI tool goes in, we would rather stop and ask what it is for, whether something already inside the Microsoft security boundary can do the same job, and how it will be controlled.
Where does co-managed sit on price?
If you already have an internal IT person, you do not need to buy the whole function again. Co-managed pricing is normally lower per user than fully outsourced, or scoped as a retainer covering specific responsibilities, because your person keeps the day job and we cover what one person cannot cover alone. Overnight monitoring, project delivery, leave cover, and the security work that never gets to the top of the list. Co-managed means alongside your IT person, not instead of them.
Does it matter how close your provider is?
Less than most people think. What matters is how quickly someone owns the problem. Our average time to eyes on a ticket is currently six minutes, and nearly everything can be resolved remotely. When something does need a person on site, we can dispatch across Ballarat, Geelong and Melbourne well inside a standard critical response window, while someone else keeps working the issue remotely.
That is also why we support clients well beyond western Victoria, including in Mackay and Karratha. Distance changes lead times for hardware, and we plan around that. It does not change how fast someone picks up the ticket.
Questions to ask before you compare two quotes
Ask what happens when we call, who we deal with, and how quickly someone actually looks at the ticket. Ask what is excluded. Ask whether licences are inside the per user figure or on top of it. Ask whether implementation is charged, and how. Ask whether someone attends site, and whether that is included or charged. Ask what the notice period is, not just the term. Ask what they hold, and whether they can show you the scope rather than the logo.
On that last one, we hold ISO 42001, ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certification. Externally audited, not self-assessed, and the scope is available on request.
What to do next
We have been doing this from Ballarat since 2007. Our focus is western Victoria and the Ballarat, Geelong and Melbourne triangle, and we support clients nationally. You can see the sort of businesses we work with, including relationships we have held for most of those years, in our customer success stories.
Call 1300 624 357 and ask for a systems audit. Bring your last 12 months of IT invoices and we will run the numbers above with you, tell you which band you are in, and show you two or three options with what each would cost. Ask us what is not included, too. Most providers hope you will not.
