Average Cost of IT Support Services in Los Angeles

Average Cost of IT Support Services in Los Angeles

Does estimating the average cost of IT support services in Los Angeles appear difficult?

Sure, you understand the role of IT in business operations, know the importance of maintenance, and comprehend that downtime will cripple your business operations.

However, the whole idea of:

• Determining the average cost for IT support service
• Selecting the right service model
• Establishing if the services are worth the cost

All make your skin crawl.

The truth is:

A lot goes into consideration when estimating what a business pays for IT support services. To help you understand better, we’ll start from the beginning.

What Are The Different Types of IT Support Services Model?

IT companies offer different models of tech support services, including:

• Break/fix IT support services
• Managed IT services
• Build-In vendor IT services
• A full-time IT manager services

To compare the cost of IT support in Los Angeles accurately, you need an understanding of the existing service models and how they affect the price of IT support services.

Let’s examine each service model and how they influence the amount you’ll pay for tech support services.

1. The Average Cost for Break/Fix IT Support Services in Los Angeles

The average cost for break or fix services in Los Angeles ranges between $125 and $225 per hour with a 1½  hour minimum. The IT company can offer you a 5% – 10% discount if you buy a block of hours in advance.

The big question, however, is:

Is Break/Fix IT Support Services the Best Solution for Your Business?

It depends.

Break/fix IT service is a model where an IT company provides and bills services when an IT problem strikes.

The IT company sends a professional IT technician to your business to examine the system issues and then provide a solution. Vendors of Break/fix services don’t require contracts or subscriptions — your business gets the service it needs whenever it needs it.

For the most part, break/fix vendors charge for specific work or offer hourly rates. However, the services are not meant for all IT problems — they can suit your business when you:

• Only want to pay for services it receives and avoid monthly contracts and subscriptions
• Have in-house IT support but occasionally contact outside party for services the internal team cannot offer
• Want to fix short-term technical problems

On the flip side, your business might want to avoid break/fix service when:

• Fixing a long-term problem
• You’re avoiding budget uncertainty
• You want a specialist familiar with the specific system in your business — non-familiarity may cost your business more because it’ll take the technician some time to understand your system

Rather than going for situational IT assistance, your business has the option of going for a holistic approach and building an ongoing relationship with the IT company. Such support sums up the second service model.

2. Managed IT Services — What’s the Cost Estimate in Los Angeles?

Estimating the correct price for managed IT services is quite a challenge, but it all stems down to the services a company will offer you. In a general sense, the pricing of managed IT services is subject to the number of devices you want the IT company to maintain, back up, or support.

There isn’t one fixed price to determine what you’ll spend on managed IT services.

However, in Los Angeles, the monthly cost ranges between $150 – $500 per server, $15 per mobile device, and $25 to $75 per desktop. Your business has the option of picking:

• Fully managed IT Services — the external IT company acts as your business’s IT department, handling all your technical needs
• Partial managed IT Services — the external IT team only manages specific sections of your IT operations

Managed IT services vendors assume the role of your IT department — handling nearly all your technical problems continually — but remaining an outside expert. The IT company usually sends you an invoice monthly or yearly.

The only problem, though?

Determining the exact amount your business will spend is a challenge. However, here’s an overview of how IT companies price managed IT services.

Least Expensive Managed IT Services in Los Angeles

The least expensive managed IT services only involve monitoring services.

Depending on the device, you’ll incur $75 – 150$ per device a month. In most cases, the cost only covers security-guard-like services from the managed IT services company.

What you spend only covers monitoring IT concerns in your business, and you’ll have to take care of the technical problems yourself or hire another external expert.

Mid-Range Managed IT Services — Common in Small and Mid-Size Businesses

When your business wants to outsource some of its IT operations, mid-range services can be the best shot to take. Here, the IT company can monitor your technical problems, solve them, and help you prevent future cases of the problem.

For instance, the service vendor can offer cybersecurity services — running tests to identify flaws in your security system. If the IT company spot any, it can implement software and hardware upgrades to seal the gaps.

The contract for mid-range IT services  may include:

• IT planning
• Strategy and design services
• Backup
• Disaster recovery procedures
• Combination of remote and on-site support

Your IT company can charge your business per technology device or per user. The price varies depending on the device your business wants to be maintained. On average, your monthly cost can range between:

• $15 – $40 per switch
• $30 – $75 per firewall
• $50 – $100 per workstation
• $100 – $400 per server

If your vendor charges per user, the cost ranges between $75 – $175 per user every month.

High-End Managed IT Services — The IT Support Services Assume The Roles of Your IT Department

At the very top end, you’ll pay for the IT company to handle nearly all your tech needs and assume the roles of your IT department. Not all full suite managed IT services are equal, but at its core, your business will get:

• 24/7 help desk: The IT service company can set up a call center where your employees can ask for technical help. While it can mean lower cost to your business, the setup exposes your company’s and client’s data.
• Server Virtualization: Some IT companies will help you divide a physical server into several independent units. In case of downtime, the virtual servers kick in to protect your company against productivity loss.
• On-site Support: Nearly all managed IT services include on-site support. However, investigate the cost of on-site support by asking your vendor more questions about their local presence.
• Software and Hardware: If you subscribe to high-end managed IT services, they can offer various software updates. On the flip side, hardware will always come at an additional cost.
• Firewall Protection: Firewall is a security system that prevents the outside world from accessing in or out of your business computer network.
• Service Level Management: This is an agreement that the IT company will check and maintain the hardware to ensure your business systems work the right way.
• Mobile Device Management: Your business’s greatest asset and weakness are employees. You might want to protect your employees’ mobile devices because they are susceptible to phishing.
• Experience: Technology develops rapidly, and one person might not be enough to keep up with it. An IT company employs several information-technology talents and can afford to hire an expert in a particular area of IT.

Not all businesses require a full suite of services, but the Los Angeles price range for full-packaged managed IT services ranges between $250 — $500 per user a month.

3. Estimate Cost of Software Vendor IT Services

Software vendor technical support varies greatly. For instance:

• Microsoft will charge your business around $499 for one incident and $1,999 for five incidences
• Sage’s basic support starts at $439 a year and advances support up to $2879
• Ciscos charges for support varies greatly — ranging from $12.99 to $15,402

Software Vendor IT services mostly help with the vendor’s software and might charge more to handle IT problems unrelated to their software.

4. Hiring a Full-Time IT Manager — How Much Does it Cost?

According to PayScale, hiring a full-time IT  manager in Los Angeles will cost you $94,000 a month. The best thing about hiring a full-time IT manager is that your business has all the control.

However, a full-time IT manager can cost your business a fortune and is, therefore, suitable for large businesses with 250 employees or more.

Factors Affecting IT Support Pricing

What determines the price of IT support services is:

• The type of services your business requires
• The level of involvement of your IT company
• The complexity of your infrastructure

An IT service vendor will charge you more than a flat fee for monitoring services as the services increase. However, you won’t need to worry about throwing away dollar bills for different extra charges.

Your infrastructure complexity also determines how much you’ll pay to your IT company. The presence of several technologies helps service providers to determine the price of IT support including:

• Web Filters
• Smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops
• Physical servers
• Antivirus software
• Warehouse management
• Services on-sight and data centers
• Wifi for internal users and external users
• Cloud application
• Business software
• Warehouse connectivity

The more workload you require an IT company to handle, the higher the price. And that begs the question:

How Much Will Your IT Support Cost?

It depends. Here are a few questions to answer to get a clear perspective:

• Are you considering having an internal staff, or are you willing to outsource your IT operations? An internal IT team is typically more expensive to maintain than a managed IT services team.
• What’s your budget like? Are you planning to pay a flat rate or a low monthly fee with different extra charges? If you’re on a budget, your best shot is to outsource the operation to an external IT company.
• How complex is your technology environment — does it contain multiple devices, different technologies, or a system that requires an expert familiar with the system? You’d consider an internal team that can quickly identify problems with your system.

You should understand that while there are similarities in all IT support services you can get, there isn’t a standard price. The same services one IT company will offer you are priced differently from another company, even when the service package is named the same.

As a result, ensure that the company you’re interviewing is as transparent as possible and ensure you’re getting exactly what you want.

Are IT Support Services Worth the Cost?

At the bare minimum, every business needs some form of IT support. However, the confusion about the cost might make some businesses debate the worth of IT services.

The truth is that the IT part of your business has a lot in line — in data and monetary terms. The question you should be asking instead is:

Can you afford to leave your business’s IT needs unattended? Have you calculated the cost of downtime for your business? What will it cost you when you:

• Can’t access your company’s data because your network goes down
• Are attacked by ransomware, and you have to pay the average ransom payment

If you take a close look, you’ll see that the cost of downtime can be crippling. You’d want to choose the best IT support services to ensure your network infrastructure runs smoothly.

Generation IX Will Offer Your Business the Best IT Support Services in Los Angeles

Your business is not a joke. You can’t afford to risk your business efficiency and security with random IT support services and pray for results.

You need a team of hungry perfectionists who can reliably offer IT solutions like:

• A regular system update to secure your business operations
• Cloud server management
• Day-to-day IT solution and support
• Monitoring, maintenance, backup, and disaster recovery
• Phishing and security awareness
• Penetration testing services to check for vulnerability before cybercriminals do

You need an IT company whose service prices include the cost of engineers going onsite when the need arises.

At GenIX, we’ll help protect your business against losses stemming from a lack of adequate technical support. Schedule a free IT service consultation right now to get help with any level of IT support for your business in Los Angeles.

Thanks to the team at 4BIS.COM in Cincinnati for their support and help with this research. Discover more about them at https://www.4bis.com/cincinnati-it-services/