If you are a small business owner in South Africa, you have probably heard the term “managed IT” and wondered whether it is worth the monthly cost. Or maybe you have been paying someone to fix things when they break, and it has been working fine. Or maybe it has not, and that is why you are reading this.
This is not a sales pitch for managed services. Both models exist for a reason. Here is an honest look at how they compare, what they actually cost, and which one fits different types of businesses.
Two ways to handle IT support – in plain language
Break-fix is exactly what it sounds like. Something breaks, you call someone to fix it. You pay by the hour. Between calls, nobody is watching your systems, managing your updates, or monitoring for problems. You are the monitoring system – you find out something is wrong when it stops working.
Managed IT means you pay a monthly fee for ongoing support, monitoring, and maintenance. Someone is watching your systems, applying updates, running backups, and catching problems before they become emergencies. When something does break, it is included in the fee (or handled at discounted rates, depending on the plan).
The key difference is not just who fixes things. It is when problems get discovered.
What each approach actually costs
This is where the conversation gets real. Most articles about managed IT vs break-fix give you vague generalisations. Here are actual numbers.
Break-fix costs (what you pay when things go wrong):
- Remote support: R650 per hour
- On-site support: R850 per hour
- No monthly commitment, no retainer, no SLA
- You pay nothing when everything works fine
That sounds reasonable until something serious goes wrong.
One of our clients had a server go down on a Friday evening. It took 5 hours and 45 minutes of emergency troubleshooting to get everything running again. The support invoice came to R7,633.75. For a single incident.
And that did not include the cost of staff who could not work, clients who did not get responses, or invoices that did not go out. The actual business impact was far higher than the support bill.
Managed IT costs (what you pay monthly):
It depends on the plan and what services you choose. But to give you a sense:
- A basic monitoring plan for 5 devices (device monitoring + patch management) might cost a few hundred rand per device per month
- A more comprehensive plan with security, backup, and full support costs more, but includes services you would otherwise pay for separately
- Emergency support within a managed plan is either included or discounted
The monthly cost is predictable. The break-fix cost is not.
What break-fix actually costs you (beyond the invoice)
The hourly rate is just the visible part. Here is what you do not see on the bill:
Your time spent troubleshooting
Before you call IT support, you probably spend 30 minutes to an hour trying to fix it yourself. Restarting things, Googling the error message, asking colleagues. That is time you are not spending on your actual work.
Problems that repeat because nobody investigated the cause
Break-fix solves the immediate symptom. Your email stopped working – we got it working again. But why did it stop? Was the server running out of disk space? Was there a failing drive? Was an update pending for three months? In break-fix mode, nobody is looking at those questions. The problem comes back, and you pay again.
No monitoring means you are always the last to know
With break-fix, you discover problems when they affect your work. A managed approach catches a hard drive at 95% capacity before it fills up and crashes. It spots a server that has not rebooted in 60 days. It flags a backup that quietly stopped running two weeks ago.
Security gaps you do not know about
Break-fix does not include antivirus management, email security, patch management, or threat monitoring. Those are separate costs if you want them – and most break-fix clients do not have them. Until something goes wrong.
Staff frustration
This one is hard to quantify, but it is real. When IT problems are recurring and unpredictable, your staff gets frustrated. Productivity drops. The best people start looking for employers who have their systems sorted out.
Break-fix is not always the wrong choice
We offer a break-fix plan ourselves (our Lite Plan). Here is when it genuinely makes sense:
- You have 1-3 people and simple IT needs. A few laptops, email, maybe a printer. Problems are rare, and when they happen, they are usually quick to fix.
- You are just starting out and budget is tight. Paying R650 per hour a few times a year is cheaper than a monthly managed plan if your IT needs are truly minimal.
- You want to try working with an IT company before committing. Break-fix is a good way to test the relationship without a monthly obligation.
- Your IT environment is straightforward. No server, no complex network, no sensitive data that requires protection under POPIA.
The Lite Plan exists because we recognise that not every business needs full managed services. Some businesses genuinely operate well on a call-us-when-you-need-us basis.
Managed IT earns its fee when the stakes get higher
The case for managed IT gets stronger as your business grows and your IT becomes more complex:
- You have a server. Servers need monitoring, maintenance, patching, and backup. Leaving a server unmanaged is like driving a car and never changing the oil. It works until it does not, and the repair bill is brutal.
- You rely on email for business. Email accounts for 1 in 4 of all our support tickets. If your business depends on email (and whose does not), proactive email monitoring and security saves you from the problems that cause the most disruption.
- You handle sensitive data. POPIA requires “appropriate, reasonable technical measures” to protect personal information. That means antivirus, access controls, backup, and monitoring. Break-fix includes none of these.
- You have 5+ people depending on the same systems. The more people affected by downtime, the higher the cost of every incident. Managed monitoring catches problems before they become company-wide outages.
- You have had expensive emergencies. If you have already experienced a server crash, a security incident, or a data loss event, you know firsthand what unmanaged IT costs. Managed services are designed to prevent exactly those situations.
- You want predictable IT costs. Managed plans are a fixed monthly expense you can budget for. Break-fix is unpredictable – you might spend nothing for three months, then get a R7,000 invoice on a bad Friday.
You do not have to choose all or nothing
This is something most managed-vs-break-fix articles do not mention: you can take a layered approach.
Our Core Plan, for example, lets you pick exactly which managed services you want. You might choose device monitoring and patch management (so your machines are watched and updated) but handle everything else on an as-needed basis at discounted rates. You get some of the preventative benefits of managed IT without paying for a full package.
As your needs grow, you add services. When a security scare prompts you to add endpoint protection, you add it. When you set up a server, you add server monitoring and backup. You are not locked into either extreme.
The question is not really “managed or break-fix.” It is “how much of my IT do I want someone watching, and how much am I comfortable leaving unmanaged?”
A practical way to figure out which model fits
Ask yourself these questions:
- What would happen if your email went down for a full day? If the answer is “not much,” break-fix is probably fine. If the answer involves lost revenue, missed deadlines, or angry clients, you need monitoring.
- When was the last time you checked your backups? If you are not sure, or you do not have backups, that is a risk you are carrying without knowing it.
- How many hours did you spend on IT problems last quarter? Add up the support invoices, the time you spent troubleshooting, and the time your staff was unproductive. Compare that to a managed plan cost.
- Do you store client data, financial records, or personal information? If yes, POPIA applies. You need documented security measures. Break-fix does not provide them.
- How many emergency calls have you made in the past year? Two or three emergency calls at break-fix rates can cost more than several months of managed monitoring.
If most of your answers point toward risk and complexity, managed IT will save you money and stress over time. If your setup is genuinely simple and problems are rare, break-fix might be the honest answer.
Not sure where your business fits?
We are happy to look at your setup and give you a straight answer about which approach makes sense. No obligation, no pressure to sign up for the most expensive plan.
Call: 087 820 5005 WhatsApp: 081 526 1626
Or try our IT Health Check – a quick assessment that helps you understand what your business actually needs.
Want to compare options? See all five plans side by side.
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