In-House IT vs. Managed IT for a 10 to 20-Person Office

The short answer

For most offices between 10 and 20 people, a managed IT company gives more coverage for the money than one in-house hire. For a 15-person firm, AMP IT’s Best plan is about $7,500 a month. That is often less than hiring, managing and equipping an internal IT employee, and it comes with a broader support and security team behind it.

What one IT person can and cannot cover

A good IT generalist can handle daily support. The gaps show up around them: vacations and sick days, nights when something breaks, security monitoring, backups nobody tests, and specialist work like a server move or a Microsoft 365 migration. Tools cost extra too: security software, backup, monitoring and documentation.

The hidden option: the owner is the IT person

In many offices, nobody was hired. The owner or office manager handles passwords, new laptops, the printer and the software vendor calls. That time has a cost, and so do the security basics that slip when it is nobody’s actual job.

When in-house makes sense

A dedicated internal person makes more sense as you grow, when you have specialized systems that need someone on site every day, or when IT is a core part of what you sell. Many larger firms keep an internal person and add an outside team for security, after-hours coverage and projects.

Questions to decide

• If your IT person left tomorrow, who knows the passwords and the setup?
• When were your backups last restored as a test?
• Who watches for security problems at night and on weekends?
• How much owner or manager time goes to IT each week?