Why We Publish Our Prices (and Why More MSPs Should)

Try finding the price of managed IT services online. Go ahead — pick any provider in Ireland, visit their website, and look for a number. You will find “Contact us for a quote,” “Request a proposal,” “Book a discovery call.” What you will almost never find is an actual price.

This is an industry-wide pattern, and it is not an accident. We think it is a problem.

The “request a quote” problem

When a business owner starts looking for managed IT support, they have a simple question: “What will this cost?” It is a reasonable question. It is the first question anyone asks about any service.

The standard MSP response is to gate that information behind a sales process. Before you learn the price, you need to fill in a form, take a call, describe your environment, sit through a presentation, and wait for a tailored proposal. This process can take days or weeks.

For the provider, this makes sense. Every prospect becomes a sales conversation. The pricing can be adjusted based on perceived budget. The discovery call is a chance to build rapport and demonstrate expertise.

For the buyer, it is frustrating. You cannot budget without a number. You cannot compare providers without comparable quotes. And you cannot tell whether a provider is even in your price range without investing significant time.

Why MSPs hide prices

The usual justifications are sincere but insufficient.

“Every environment is different.” True, but this applies to every professional service. Accountants, solicitors, and architects all manage to publish indicative pricing alongside the caveat that final fees depend on complexity. Managed IT is not uniquely complex.

“We do not want competitors to undercut us.” If your pricing can be easily undercut, the issue is not visibility — it is value. Competing on price alone is a race to the bottom that hurts everyone.

“Clients might not understand the value.” So explain it. Publishing pricing forces you to articulate what each tier includes and why it costs what it does. That is a better outcome than hiding behind vague service descriptions.

The real reason most MSPs hide pricing is that opacity is comfortable. It preserves negotiating power, avoids comparison shopping, and keeps the sales team in control of the conversation.

What transparency signals

When we decided to publish our pricing, it was a deliberate choice about the kind of business we want to be and the kind of clients we want to attract.

Publishing prices signals several things simultaneously:

Confidence in value. If you are willing to show your price alongside a detailed breakdown of what is included, you are confident that the value is clear. You are not relying on a salesperson to justify the cost in a 45-minute call.

Respect for the buyer’s time. A business owner researching IT options at 10pm should not need to schedule a call to get basic pricing information. Published prices mean they can evaluate fit on their own terms, at their own pace.

Standardisation. Published pricing implies a standardised service. Every client at a given tier gets the same security baseline, the same SLA, the same tools. This consistency is actually a sign of maturity — it means the provider has a repeatable, proven process rather than making it up for each engagement.

Accountability. When prices are public, so is the expectation. If you publish that a tier includes MFA enforcement, Conditional Access, and 15-minute critical response — you have to deliver it. There is no ambiguity about what was promised.

How published pricing qualifies leads

One counterintuitive benefit of publishing prices: it actually improves lead quality.

When pricing is hidden, every enquiry starts at zero. The sales team invests time in prospects who may have wildly different budgets, expectations, and needs. A significant percentage of proposals never convert — not because the service is wrong, but because the price was never going to work.

When pricing is visible, prospects self-select. Someone who lands on our pricing page and sees EUR 85 per user per month for comprehensive managed IT either thinks “that is reasonable” and gets in touch, or “that is outside our budget” and moves on. Both outcomes are better than spending a week on a proposal for someone who was hoping to spend EUR 20 per user.

The clients who contact us after seeing our pricing arrive informed. They know the ballpark cost, they have read what is included, and their questions are about fit — not about fishing for a discount. These conversations are more productive, more honest, and more likely to result in a good long-term partnership.

Our experience

We have been publishing our pricing since day one. Every tier, every price, every included feature — visible before you speak to us. Our SLAs are published too. So is our Security Baseline, our Secure Score results, and our operating model.

Has it cost us deals? Probably. Some prospects want to negotiate, and published pricing leaves less room for that. Some may have been scared off by a number without the context a sales conversation provides.

Has it been worth it? Unquestionably. The clients who choose us on the basis of published, transparent information tend to be better fits. They value clarity, they respect straightforward communication, and they are less likely to churn — because there were no surprises from the start.

The bottom line

The managed IT industry’s reliance on hidden pricing is a legacy of an era when information asymmetry benefited the seller. That era is ending. Buyers are more informed, comparison is easier, and trust is built through transparency, not mystique.

We publish our prices because we believe it makes for better business relationships. Not every provider will follow suit — and that is fine. But the next time you see “request a quote” where a price should be, it is worth asking: what are they not comfortable showing you?