Pricing

Frequently Asked Questions

• How do you charge for your services?

  We use a combination of number of employees, computers, and locations per month. We found this method is the most fair, allowing us to accurately match your size to products and services.  
  
  Our pricing can vary depending on:

  • If you need a secure cloud environment to host your applications (and how much data needs hosted).
  • Your compliance requirements.
  • Whether you want 24/7/365 support baked into your fee (or you can pay per hour for when you need after-hours support).

• What forms of payment do you take?

  Our preferred payment method is ACH. ACH offers minimal transaction fees and eliminates the need to update us when your credit card expires or is stolen.

  We accept all major credit cards, but a 3% fee will be charged to cover the additional transaction fees. 

• What is your service area?

  We're located in Phoenix, Arizona. However, we have clients all over the US. 

  Regarding our Service Desk:

  • Business hour support is available in Arizona's time zone.
  • If that's a problem, or if you need after hour support, our 24/7/365 Service Desk is available and is very responsive.

   

  Regarding on-site availability:

  • If you're in the Greater Phoenix Area, or two hours from it, we can support you on-site. If you are outside of Arizona, we're a member of an IT association with over 1,300 IT firms across the USA. This allows us to tap into every major city and connect with qualified IT people that can act on our behalf.
  • For our current out of state clients, we've been successful with shipping items to our HQ, configuring, then shipping to them. We also can ship workstations directly to clients and have them follow a simple guide that will automate onboarding as long as they have internet.

• My nephew's roommate knows computers, why would I use you over them?

  Great question. Billy may have built his gaming PC in 2020 and believed he was at the top of the IT world, but that doesn't translate to a business use case.

  Here are two pitfalls to avoid when using unqualified IT people:

  1. Don't use consumer-grade equipment in business.
     Typically, the inexperienced are unaware that IT equipment exists outside of Best Buy. We've seen it a million times. The firewall is a gaming router with no security; the $500 budget PCs are running "Windows Home" and are lucky to last two years. Let's not even talk about how insecure consumer equipment is and how it costs more in the long run.
  2. Don't use uninsured, uncertified technicians.
     When Billy sets up the company firewall and you get hacked because he didn't change the default password or update the firmware because it had a critical security flaw, who's accountable? No contract, no errors & omissions insurance policy, no dice. This is especially important in regulated industries; Billy didn't get the memo that HIPAA/FTC/SEC/IRS have hundreds of pages of rules your business needs to follow. Long story short, the business is accountable (and negligent) for misconfigurations and mistakes because they allowed an unqualified individual to get them into that mess.

• How do I compare what I'm paying now to what you charge?

  Almost no two IT companies have the same pricing model or even grade of solutions. Below is an example of how many versions of a fixed-fee agreement we've seen in the last fifteen years:

  • Fixed fee madness examples
    • Pricing based on some or all of the following: number of users, computers, network devices, phones, email addresses, and the number of locations. We'll call these per-X pricing.
    • Pricing per product (backup, security, Microsoft licenses, etc.) may be bundled into a per-X, itemized, or a mix of both.
    • Pricing for maintenance and monitoring are likely bundled into the per-X, or it could be per hour, or a mix of both.
    • Technical support is typically included in the per-X price, covering remote, on-site, or both. It could also be during business hours or 24x7x365.
    • Projects such as office moves, new computer installations, and significant technology rollouts are typically billed separately per hour. However, some IT companies may include a specific number of hours for projects because they have already baked it into the per-X price, whether you need it or not.
      

  
  How can you compare quotes when there are so many variables? It's tough. You need to break out the major categories and find where apples look like apples on each side.

  If you're looking at us as a possible new IT company, send us your last invoice, and we'll do all the legwork to make a comparison. We do not want a situation where we underquoted and didn't replace a service or product you used before and need us to source.

• Do you offer month-to-month agreements?

  All of our support agreements are annual contracts. You'll find the majority of our industry, especially those backed by private equity, are pushing 2-5 year agreements to lock you in and fatten their evaluation.

  Why not month-to-month agreements?

  • Annual agreements allow us to commit to higher product quantities with our downstream vendors, enabling us to access better pricing, which we pass on to you.
  • When we deploy our cloud hosting solution and resell Microsoft licenses, Microsoft heavily incentivizes annual commitments from us. Otherwise, our costs will increase by over 20%, which will be passed on to you. We would rather pay Microsoft the least money necessary to get the job done.
  • Annual agreements help us stabilize our support staffing levels so that we don't have to worry about fluctuating monthly demand.
  • Finally, a relationship with an IT company is a big commitment. Firing and hiring an IT company should not be done in haste. We are looking for long relationships only. For example, we are a bad fit if you cycle through IT companies annually and switch purely on one mistake or cost alone without a conversation. Also, spoiler alert: almost no two IT companies charge the same. When you only shop on price, don't be surprised when you find out something wasn't included or that they were so cheap because they are one dude in a van who has never heard of Cyber Insurance.

• How are on-sites billed?

  For Clients in the Greater Phoenix Area:

  • We offer a fixed-fee on-site scope add-on to our per user fee on request for businesses within one hour of the Greater Phoenix Area.
  • We also provide on-site support at the preferred per-hour rate included in our agreements. This is the only on-site option offered to Clients further than one hour away from the Greater Phoenix Area
  • For projects, our agreements include a preferred per-hour rate that will cover travel & on-site labor.

   

  For everyone else, our approach is:

  • Determine if an on-site technical resource is truly needed.
    • We can ship pre-configured network equipment, servers, workstations, and VoIP phones.
    • We have an app that turns your phone's camera into our eyes, making remote troubleshooting much easier.
    • We specialize in migrating on-premise servers to Microsoft AVD, removing the need to manage servers on-site. We don't need to go on-site very much.
  • If an on-site is needed, we can tap into a network of 1,300 like-minded IT firms across the USA to act on our behalf.
    • We discuss the billing terms in advance specific to your area. It's a seamless experience.
    • We instruct and pay them, you only have to deal with one IT company and one bill from us.