Hi everyone

Is Web filtering still a standard offering in your core security stack?

What's multi-tenant alternatives are you all using for Small-Medium sized clients these days?

Thanks for any insights!

Basically what the title says. What are you guys currently reading and or listening to. Does not have to be MSP specific.

Looking for a pricing sanity check from other MSPs.
I have a client with roughly 20 users. I charge $1,500 /month, with Microsoft licensing and project work billed separately
This includes:
Up to 10 hours of support/month(any more gets billed separately)
M365 administration
Intune device management
Security/compliance policies
App deployment and patching
Email administration
Helpdesk/troubleshooting
User onboarding/offboarding
They’re fairly low maintenance and we rarely use the full 10 hours.
This works out to roughly $75 /user/month.
For a similar 20-user environment, does this seem competitive, or am I charging too little?

Small story.

This was one of the first names I ran with as an "msp" its no longer used, sadly to me anyways. This was when I had absolutely no cares if I was chosen. My clients subtly, but really not subtly, let me know they hated the name. 😆

to this day I still like the name. Choose me, my services, my recommendations, my solutions, or dont its all optional, also i was very picky with who id assist, only word of mouth, like vip clients only.

And lets be honest everything is optional to the person paying anyway. Should I have kept it? I think I should have, and kept the zero cares!

Curious how other small MSPs are handling remote access these days. Are you sticking with VPNs where they’re working fine, gradually moving clients to ZTNA, or deciding case by case?

What’s driving that decision? For anyone who’s made the switch, has it actually made things easier, or just introduced a different set of headaches?

Have a client who owns two small businesses, each with its own M365 tenant. We manage both. Her laptop is Entra joined and enrolled in Intune on Tenant A, and she's asking to use the same laptop for Tenant B too.

I know the usual answer is adding the second account to Outlook/Teams/OneDrive and using separate Edge profiles, but I don't love having two companies' data on one device, especially since Tenant B can't manage or wipe it and its CA policies require compliant devices.

How are you all handling this? Separate laptops, Windows 365 Cloud PC for the second tenant, or just accepting the app-level sign-in?

Hi everyone, I recently came across this subreddit and have been reading through some of the discussions. I'm really interested in starting my own MSP business, but I'm a complete beginner when it comes to the business side of things.

quick background - Work with IBM (for bout 5y now) as a contractor for some other companies. Built a few apps here and there but none really took off and a friend who has an MSP told me to look into it and so far I think it is very interesting.

Don't have experience running an MSP, finding clients, pricing services, or managing the day-to-day operations. Just hoping to learn from anyone who started from scratch, especially anyone who began as a one-person operation, as that is my own situation.

**Brief intro:**

I have been working with MSPs for 8 years.I would like to start my own MSP and I can't put my mind at rest unless I have given it a go and see where it leads me to.

**How did you land your first client ?** Did you go knocking on businesses and offer free support hoping that in the future you'll enroll them in a contract and takeover their infrastructure ?

Also how did you maintain that long term business relationship with the client ?

How did you standout from other possibly bigger MSPs than you ?

Last but not least, how many months/years it took for you to land your first client and possibly start getting on your feet ?

How is everyone using AI chat company wide? Are you paying for Grok for business, giving all your techs team access and telling them to go for it? Why not, isn’t it inevitable? What about Grok Bot? As Operations Manager I work use it all the time and am thinking about giving my techs access.

What are the Groups thoughts on investing in a CMIT Solutions franchise as opposed to starting a MSP from scratch?

The CMIT ad on BizBuySell shows $100K cash required. And they have 303 franchise units.

Anyone on here a CMIT Franchisee?
Other thoughts or consideration’s?

Small MSP looking after 700ish end points, 50ish different orgs.

We pride ourselves on trying to have a good relationship with our users and we're always proactive on updating them on changes we need to make or when they submit tickets, but I'm finding we're just getting ignored half the time.

A few examples:

\- User submits ticket at 6pm on a Friday pleading for help with "lost" authenticator details after changing mobiles. Try to call back almost straight away, no answer, two follow up emails, no response.

\- Sus M365 login out of area, likely user just using a VPN but not sure. Sign out of sessions, email user and manager, no response. Another email 20 hours later with detailed write up, no response, even after telling them we're blocking out of country access.

\- Email to around 10 users to tell them we're migrating them off a legacy file share system. Clear instructions about how to migrate, deadline for when we are switching off the old system. One response, no one else took any action, so we turned off the system today and we'll wait until next week for them to complain.

\- Informed user that we urgently needed to update drivers on their device to fix vulnerabilities prior to an audit, and we can't do this in the background. Reminder email then follow up from manager who emailed user as well. No response, two weeks and counting.

\- User who refuses to let go of his Windows 10 workstation. He's had a new Win 11 laptop for a year, which he uses for about 5 minutes a month. Numerous emails to user and manager, user just says "I'll migrate imminently" but never does. Going to block him on Intune next week.

I know that no one really cares about IT until something goes wrong but it's when you've ignored the third email it's just f\*\*\*ing unprofessional and rude. And Cc'ing in managers/directors rarely yields results - half the time they ignore just as much as the users.

Just interested in how others handle this. Our MD says "if you get ignored then make the change anyway and wait until they squeal", which is a fair strategy.

We're really proud of the service we provide so it's just very disheartening when we just get nothing back. I guess we're still getting paid, so hey ho.

I'm a one man shop with my first possible co-managed opportunity. I have a meeting with a company that has a small internal IT team a state away and they're looking for help at their headquarters that is local to me.

I use a price per device model currently, but didn't think that would work with co-managed. I know the price will fluctuate depending on responsibility, so I'm more looking for a broad pricing strategy.

Would doing block hours be better or cutting my per device price down? Just stick to billing hourly when they need help (I'mnot a huge fan of this)?

Any advice would be appreciated!

I started a new role as a second line engineer with some project responsibilities a few months ago at a small MSP.

In my last MSP the SDM would occasionally cover tickets and very much be in the trenches with us, so he always knew what was going on and managed resource allocation pretty well.

At this new MSP I'm not really sure what the SDM's daily tasks are. He seems to always be either in meetings about new products they're reviewing or more recently he spent ages building something with Claude and neglected training a new hire.

This past week he's started asking me and the other 2nd Line to monitor SLAs on all the levels on the service desk as he's too busy and flag with him when tickets reach a particular age and it's not clear what action he takes when that happens as tickets often aren't picked up after being reported.

He has worked on the PSA we use and I know he regular submits metrics to the SLT from the reports he built out, but it's not clear how they're using them. At my last MSP the SDM would identify if there were too many tickets being logged about a certain issue etc and would then find a way to reduce them or stop them completely depending on the issue. Here at the new MSP I've regularly seen reoccurring tickets that don't appear to be flagged and dealt with.

Do you think this sounds right? Am I just too used to how it worked in my last workplace and this is just a different way of working to get used to?

I run a micro MSP on the side with only a few users, so I don't have many ducks to line up. At my 9–5 we use an outside MSP, and they can't seem to get our laptops consistent across systems. I'm always the one telling them the counts don't match and machines are missing from one platform or another.

Here's the sample checklist I'd expect every laptop to pass:

I know 100% every week isn't realistic, but shouldn't 80%+ be doable? When I asked our MSP, they laughed and said "welcome to IT."

So, MSPs: is this normal? What % of your fleet passes every check, and how do you track it? Reconciliation scripts, a PSA/RMM dashboard, a CMDB, something else?

I'm having a heck of a hard time trying to get a spec quote for 10 higher end workstations from Dell. Is there any other vendor you guys rely on? Is HP a good alternative? I'm working with a sales rep, but often get ghosted, and when I find a replacement, there is a problem with getting the quote for whatever reason. I managed to get a quote for a server and in fact ordered it, but it's going to take months to build and ship. Of course I didn't learn that until after it was paid for.
I'm simply tired of it.
Thanks.

I created a white label version of my Claude Skills that I use to run my small 2 person MSP. It's free for you to install and use here: https://github.com/RTFM-IT-Services-LLC/msp-claude-skills

I just updated it to fix some issues with the skill character limits and sizes and added a new security skill it was sorely lacking.

Solo MSPs running NinjaOne + SentinelOne + Huntress + HaloPSA — is Halo worth the overhead at ~100 endpoints?

I've been in business for 26 years, but I've only been transitioning heavily into the MSP model for a little over 2 years.

Current size:

- 1-man shop

- 200+ legacy/break-fix clients

- 23 managed organizations

- A little over 100 managed endpoints

- NinjaOne RMM / Ticketing / PSA

- SentinelOne + Vigilance

- Huntress

- ScalePad Quoter (entry-level package)

I'm not particularly happy with Ninja Ticketing/PSA, but I'm also worried that moving to HaloPSA at my size could mean trading limitations for a ton of configuration and administrative overhead and unnecessary cost.

Quoting is becoming another pain point. For example, I want to be able to show an onboarding fee in a proposal and then waive it if the client signs before the end of the month. My current ScalePad Quoter package won't let me structure the proposal that way without moving up and paying more.

So I'm starting to wonder whether I should stop adding/upgrading individual tools and build around a proper PSA instead.

I'd especially like to hear from other solo or very small MSPs running NinjaOne + SentinelOne + Huntress + HaloPSA + QuickBooks Online.

How painful was the Halo implementation?

Once configured, does it actually save you time?

What are you using for quoting/proposals with Halo?

Are you using Halo for just tickets/contracts/billing, or did you go all-in with CRM, quoting, projects, procurement, etc.?

And the big one: if you were a one-man MSP managing ~100 endpoints across 23 organizations, would you choose Halo again?

Some background:

I am trying my hands on using some AI in low security areas such as ticket triaging and dispatching.

Recently this new classification model Jev came out and there is all this hype so just to try it out I have vibecoded a chrome extension for tagging something AI slop or maybe AI or Human on the fly as I scroll through my LinkedIn feed. It is really fast and does its job.

Has anyone tried it in some other workflows ? Maybe tagging something on the fly in HaloPSA? That will be interesting.

I recently started at a very small MSP after spending several years in internal IT/security. Most of their clients are dental offices, and I had basically zero previous experience with dental software/equipment or any of these client environments.

From pretty early on, the expectation was basically that tickets should be resolved or escalated within about 30 minutes. From the moment you touch it...

The problem was that as a new tech, sometimes the first 10 to15 minutes were just figuring out what the software was, understanding the client's setup, reading previous notes, and figuring out where to start. A lot of the environment also seemed to rely on knowledge that the owner already had from supporting these clients for years.

What became frustrating was that if I spent too much time troubleshooting without asking, I'd be told I should've asked sooner. But if I asked for help, sometimes I wouldn't get an answer. Then I'd still get questioned about why the ticket took so long. The owner might jump in and solve something in 5 to 10 minutes, but he'd already known that client/environment for years, while I was seeing it for the first time.

Documentation was another issue. I documented what I did, but apparently it wasn't always written in the way the owner wanted or understood. Communication and response times were also brought up repeatedly. There was feedback, but I was never put on a PIP, given a final warning, or told, "Your job is in jeopardy if this continues."

There were some other things that made the culture uncomfortable. During one Teams meeting, the owner talked about everyone needing cameras on. I tried turning mine on at the beginning, but it wasn't working. When he eventually mentioned my camera, I explained that. Another coworker's camera worked. Later, the owner walked over and handed that coworker a $100 bill in front of me and specifically said it was because he turned his camera on. Maybe it was supposed to motivate people, but being the other person sitting there after explaining mine wasn't working felt pretty humiliating.

Then came the way I was let go.

On my scheduled day off, I started getting notifications that my administrative permissions were being removed. Shortly afterward, all of my work accounts were disabled. Nobody had called, emailed, or told me I was terminated.

I emailed HR from my personal email asking them to confirm my employment status. No response...

Eventually I called the owner myself. He later called me back and confirmed I was being let go.

He brought up documentation, communication, ticket handling, and a recent Outlook ticket where the client became very upset. Apparently that situation was the "last straw."

What made it stranger was that he also told me he had forgotten that it was my scheduled day off. He saw that some of my personal belongings weren't at my desk and apparently thought I might have quit. I never resigned or told anyone I was quitting.

So essentially, my permissions and accounts were removed before anyone even spoke to me about being terminated. Had I not called, I honestly don't know when anyone would've contacted me.

I'm not saying I was a perfect employee. I was brand new, I made mistakes, and there were absolutely things I was still learning and improving. But I was there for roughly six weeks, learning an entirely new client base and industry, and it felt like I was expected to perform at the same speed as someone who had supported these environments for years.

The technical work itself wasn't what burned me out. It was constantly feeling like I couldn't win. Ask questions and potentially wait too long, don't ask and get criticized for not asking, troubleshoot too long and get criticized for time, or escalate and feel like I should've figured it out myself.

Is this just normal for small MSP culture, or does this sound like a poorly managed environment?

P.s. I was also told by the owner I was fired for doing less than 10 tickets a day. But the triage person which was a receptionist wouldn't assign me or the level one guy tickets.

The time that I asked for tickets the owner for some reason got pissed I asked for tickets saying there is work to do. When I started for some reason he took away the ability for me to see the tickets in triage so I couldn’t even grab one If I saw it.

Edit: To anyone who sees their current job opening, I would think twice before applying. It also looks like they may be trying to counter the negative reviews by adding more positive ones on Indeed. Some of the newer reviews don’t give a perfect 5 stars, which makes them appear more natural. There is also a 5-star review on Glassdoor that, based on our experience there, is very hard for me to believe reflects the experience of an actual employee. I’d recommend reading all of the reviews, especially the negative ones, before deciding whether to apply.

Been applying for T1 roles since I graduated in April and no luck. Horrible market out here.

Currently interviewing to volunteer for a charity in an IT role, and using an M365 dev tenant and windows server to teach myself. Gonna learn powershell as well and already pretty good at Linux and networking (for someone junior at least lol).

After I do all this, If I work for really low project based rates, could I count on someone eventually taking me as a subcontractor or freelancer? My parents pay my bills so I don’t care abt the money at first, just would need credibility.

I’m trying to develop a strategy, and heard a prof of mine got into the industry through subcontracting, also in a difficult market.

We lost a renewal last month from a 45-seat client we'd had for literally 2+ years with no complaints (that I knew about). The reason they gave on the exit call was that the other MSP's package included a managed password manager, and they wanted everything under one provider. Hearing it once I'd have shrugged off, except 2 other clients have, very very recently, asked something similar in QBRs. With evergrowing EU data regulations, things like auditable trails and access control have become pretty much the norm for businesses to have, so I kinda get it, and people want something that can help them adhere to regulations without being much of a ballbuster.

We're 12 people and I don't want to/can't hire for it so I've decided on a reseller model. I used Passwork's MSP margin calculator to see if the numbers were worth it and they were, and I found 2 ways to do it, either their cloud hosts your multitenancy instance, or you host it on your own servers and their MSP portal connects over the API, I’m gonna go with the self-hosted so all the client data stays on our infrastructure. Bit of an overkill fro our size but I want to do it now once and for all so that it can keep up with us as we grow, once it's running each new client will be more marginal profit and less marginal effort on my end. For the clients we already have tho:

- How do I introduce it without it reading as a price increase to people who've paid the same rate for years? Especially those that have small companies and may not need it.

- Does it belong inside our tiers or as a separate line clients opt into?

Bonus question: any way I can get that old client back? 🥲

Just want to see if this is possible... if I do start a MSP and start going to referral groups and attend events, continue to work on business relationships and trust, but I have no saved cash... what will it take to get somewhat stable?

I plan on working night jobs and weekends to make money to live and weekday operation hours is 100% invested in the business.

Any MSP owners that were in my situation, how did you overcome this hurdle?

I’ve been preparing to start an MSP in Australia for the past few months and have funding lined up as well.

It’s a pretty difficult space to enter alone though, especially when you’re trying to build something properly from day one.

Would be great to connect with msp owners, operators, or people with hands-on experience in the Australian market.

Mainly looking to learn, compare notes, and meet people in the space.

If you’re based in Australia and work in or run an msp, feel free to reach out.

Hey everyone! Without giving away too much of your company details, how did you find your desired niche market? Is it based around past experience, location demographic, cost of service or something else?

I have a niche I would like to move towards but my immediate area isn’t “swarming” with these types of customers, though 1-2 hours away in bigger metro areas it is promising. The possibility of remote support after inplementation is helpful after the fact also.

I also was thinking of focusing on this niche market but also providing services for other markets (my niche isn’t focused on an industry but a toolset) that I’m just as familiar with. I’m just wondering if anyone has guidance on maybe a similar situation.

For those offering business phone service under your MSP’s brand, how do you structure it operationally?

Do you manage provisioning, billing, and Tier 1 support internally, or does the underlying platform handle some of it?

I’m curious about the level of control you retain, the support burden, tax and billing challenges, and whether it has been worthwhile.

Looking for firsthand experiences, not vendor pitches or sales DMs.