What Managed IT Actually Costs Small Businesses in 2026

Why this is hard to find online

Most managed IT providers — including ours — refuse to publish prices. Their reasoning is fair: every business is different, and a single number would either rip off the simple ones or undersell the complex ones. The problem is that small business owners are then stuck Googling "managed IT cost" and finding either generic ranges or sales pages.

This article fixes that. Below are real spending bands by business size, broken down by line item, based on what we see across small businesses in Greece, Israel, and Spain in 2026.

The honest baseline: managed IT for a 10-person business

For a typical 10-person small business — a law firm, an accountancy, a SaaS startup, an agency — here is what a complete managed IT setup actually costs in 2026, before any negotiation:

That is the realistic range for "everything in" — licenses, security, backups, support, and someone managing it all. If a quote comes in dramatically lower than this for the same scope, ask what's missing (usually backup or active monitoring). If it comes in dramatically higher, ask why.

Scaling up: 25-person business

For a 25-person business, costs do not scale linearly because some things (the management overhead, the backup infrastructure, the security baseline) are largely fixed. Typical 2026 ranges:

That works out to €80–€125 per user per month, all-in. Anything below €60 per user per month for a setup of this size is almost certainly missing something material.

What's not in these numbers

These ranges cover ongoing operations. They do not include:

One-time setup or migration costs. A Microsoft 365 migration for a 10-person firm typically runs €1,500–€5,000 as a fixed-price project.

Hardware. Laptops, firewalls, network gear procured separately. Most providers should pass these through at distributor pricing without mark-up.

Out-of-scope project work. A new ISO 27001 audit, a major office network rebuild, an acquisition integration — quoted separately.

A common mistake small business owners make is comparing a provider's monthly fee in isolation. The right comparison is total annual spend including all licenses, projects, and surprise invoices — and that's where opaque providers tend to get expensive.

Country-specific notes

Greece: Costs are very close to the EU baseline. The main premium comes from the small pool of GDPR-experienced providers, not the licensing.

Israel: Microsoft and Google both bill in USD or EUR; with shekel exchange volatility, locking in annual pricing is worth doing. Local cybersecurity insurance increasingly requires EDR (Microsoft Defender or equivalent) which is included above.

Spain: AEPD's enforcement of LOPD-GDD adds a small premium for compliance documentation work but doesn't change ongoing license costs. NIS2-impacted businesses see €100–€300/month uplift for the formal documentation and reporting requirements.

What you can do with this information

1Audit your current spend. Add up everything: licenses, security tools, backup, your IT person/provider, hardware leases. Compare it to the bands above. If you're significantly higher with no clear reason, you're being overcharged or paying for things you don't use.

2Check what's bundled vs separate. A "low" managed IT fee that doesn't include backup or security tools isn't actually low — you'll pay for them anyway.

3Ask for itemised invoices. Any reputable provider will give you a per-user, per-tool breakdown. If yours won't, that's information.