Should you hire an IT person, use an MSP, or both? It's the question almost everyone asks the moment a managed services quote lands in their inbox and the math starts running.
A 25-person office gets a quote that comes out to almost $4,000 a month. The instinct is immediate: I could just hire somebody for that. That instinct is fair, and it deserves a real exploration to determine what’s right for your business.
This article does the honest in-house IT vs managed services vs co-managed IT comparison. Not to talk you out of hiring someone, but to make sure you're comparing the full picture rather than one line on a spreadsheet. If you haven't already seen how managed IT services are actually priced, it's worth doing so, since these questions are really one decision viewed from multiple sides.
The Full Cost of an In-House IT Hire
The cost of hiring IT staff starts with a salary line, but it doesn't end there, and that's the part most buyers skip past when they do this math for the first time.
"A $48,000 salary is not the only number you're going to pay for them. That’s just the base. On top of that, you’ve got benefits, vacation, and anything else that comes into your total cost burden for a staff member." — Brett Walters, Co-Owner & Vice President
Here's the full breakdown, component by component.
- Salary
$48,000–$50,000 is the reference point for an entry to mid-level IT hire in the Indianapolis market. That's the floor, not the ceiling, and a capable hire recognizes their own market value quickly.
"How long will they really want to be in that environment at that rate? When they realize the skills they have, they’re marketable at seventy-five or eighty thousand — now where are they?" — Brett Walters
That's not a hypothetical. It's the normal career arc for anyone good enough to be worth hiring in the first place, and it means the salary line you budget for today is rarely the salary line you're paying in year three.
- Benefits and Burden
Employer payroll taxes, health insurance, retirement contributions, and similar costs typically add another 20 to 30% on top of base salary. A $50,000 salary becomes a $60,000 to $65,000 annual cost before that person shows up for their first day. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that employer benefit costs run close to a 1.3x multiplier on top of wages for private-industry workers, which lines up squarely with the 20–30% range this comparison assumes.
- Training and Certifications
IT isn't a static skill set. Security threats evolve, Microsoft 365 changes, and new tools get deployed across the industry every year. Someone in-house needs ongoing training and certification just to stay current, and unlike an MSP, where that cost is spread across many engineers and many clients, it falls entirely on you.
- Coverage Gaps
Vacations, sick days, personal days; a single in-house hire means zero coverage the moment they're out. For a business running five days a week, that gap is significant, and it shows up exactly when you can least afford it. An MSP, by contrast, has a team; coverage doesn't disappear when one person is unavailable.
- Skill Depth and Breadth
This is the hardest cost to put a number on, but arguably the most important one.
"You go to an MSP and just with the handful of engineers, you probably have fifty, sixty, seventy years or more of experience between those folks. Between Mike and I there is 60 years alone, not to mention all our engineers, so over 100. When you hire somebody, even if they're really good at what they do, they're just not going to have that level of depth." — Brett Walters
There's also a replacement cost worth factoring in once you accept that even a strong in-house hire won't stay at an entry-level rate forever. According to SHRM's 2025 Benchmarking Report, the average cost to hire a non-executive employee in the U.S. runs $5,475. This is a real, recurring expense every time that single point of coverage walks out the door and has to be replaced from scratch.
What an MSP Provides That a Single Hire Fundamentally Cannot
Even if the numbers end up close, there are structural differences no single hire can replicate, regardless of how talented they are. The capabilities you get with a team will outmatch an individual, every time.
Start with the breadth of experience across a team. A small team of MSP engineers brings decades of experience to your environment compared to the experience of one person. That depth means more patterns get recognized and more institutional knowledge to draw on when something unusual comes up.
There’s also a meaningful difference in proactivity. A well-run MSP is watching for issues before they surface, rather than waiting for a ticket to come in and reacting after that. That shift from reactive to proactive is hard for a single person to sustain on their own, no matter how conscientious they are. They simply don’t have the bandwidth to be watching for what hasn’t gone wrong yet.
The strategic side matters as much as the technical side. The regular meetings a good MSP holds with clients are focused on where the business is going next, not a rundown of ticket volume from the past month. That’s a different conversation than a single in-house hire has the time or experience to lead.
Finally, there’s the value of a wider network of specialists a well-connected MSP can bring in. TeamMIS, for example, draws on the TrustX Alliance when a problem falls outside what the immediate team specializes in.
"Most IT companies unfortunately get pulled in after the fact. Hey, we've got this new initiative, we're doing this new thing — can you guys make this work? With us, it's no, let's have that conversation well in advance so we can tell you the pitfalls and what's coming." — Brett Walters
This isn't a criticism of in-house IT as a concept. A skilled in-house hire can absolutely be proactive if they're given the mandate and the bandwidth to be. But in practice, one person covering everything tends to be reactive by necessity, not by choice. Bandwidth constraints do that to even the most talented individual.
When In-House IT Is Actually the Right Choice
It’s worth noting that there are some situations when in-house IT is actually the right choice. In short, in-house genuinely makes more sense when your IT needs are simple and finite, such as desktop management and basic software support, without complex security, monitoring, or disaster recovery requirements.
There's also a headcount threshold where the calculation flips in the other direction entirely. When you've grown past roughly 100 to 200 employees and need a permanent, physical, on-site presence every day.
"When you hit 100, 150, 200 employees, you're going to need somebody who's there. That's where I see the breakpoint. They tend to want somebody who can walk over to their desk when they say, hey, I need you to come look at this." — Brett Walters
Co-Managed IT: The Third Option
Most articles frame this as a binary choice: hire someone, or outsource everything. That's not the full picture, and leaving out the middle option does you a disservice.
"You've got the focus of the folks who are on-site doing their job very well. And then working with the MSP in the back end who can do all the really intricate work without being seen — making sure things work the way they're supposed to." — Brett Walters
In practice, this usually means removing specific components from a standard managed services package based on what the internal team already handles — often the help desk, since an on-site person is well positioned to cover that directly. The MSP fills in behind them: security, monitoring, disaster recovery, patching, and the strategic planning a single in-house hire rarely has the bandwidth for.
How a co-managed arrangement is typically structured is a good model for a business that already has someone they like and trust in-house, but wants real depth behind that person rather than asking them to be everything at once.
How to Decide Which Model Is Right for Your Business
Here's a practical way to think through the managed IT vs in-house vs co-managed cost question for your specific situation. These question will help you self-assess where your business stands.
Choose an MSP if you say yes to one or more of the following:
- Do you have 20–150 employees with no internal IT staff?
- Do your needs go beyond basic desktop support (security, monitoring, disaster recovery, compliance, strategic planning)?
- Do you want guaranteed coverage regardless of vacations, turnover, or sick days?
- Do you want a team of specialists rather than one person covering everything?
- Does the full-time salary plus burden cost of a capable hire come close to, or exceed, MSP pricing?
Consider in-house if:
- Your IT needs are genuinely simple (desktop management and basic software support only)
- You have 150+ employees and need a permanent, physical, on-site presence every single day
- Your business depends on having someone physically embedded with your team at all times
Consider co-managed if:
- You already have an in-house IT person you like and trust
- That person is stretched thin, handling everything from help desk tickets to security strategy
- You want to keep the on-site relationship while offloading the complex, specialized, or time-intensive work to a broader team
You now have the framework. The only piece left is comparing it against your own numbers.
If you want to see how the comparison plays out for your specific team size and situation (no commitment), book a 30-minute conversation or take a look at how TeamMIS is priced to start with a real number instead of a guess.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it cheaper to hire IT in-house or use a managed service?
It depends on your headcount and the complexity of what you need. For a small to mid-sized business (roughly 20–150 employees) with real security, monitoring, and disaster recovery needs, the fully loaded cost of an in-house hire (salary, benefits, training, and coverage gaps included) often runs close to or higher than an MSP's monthly rate, while delivering far less depth. For a business with very simple, narrow IT needs, or one large enough to need someone permanently on-site, in-house can be the more cost-effective choice.
What does an IT person cost vs managed services per month?
An entry to mid-level in-house IT hire typically starts around $48,000–$65,000 a year once benefits and burden costs are included, before training, coverage gaps, or turnover risk are factored in. A well-resourced MSP serving a similarly sized business typically runs in a comparable or lower monthly range, while providing a full team rather than a single point of coverage.
When does in-house IT make more sense than an MSP?
In-house tends to make more sense in two specific situations: when your IT needs are genuinely simple and finite (basic desktop and email support, with no complex security or backup requirements), or when your business has grown to roughly 100–200+ employees and needs someone physically on-site every day. Outside of those two cases, the numbers and the depth of coverage usually favor an MSP or a co-managed arrangement.