Co-managed IT means your in-house IT person or team keeps running day-to-day IT, and an outside provider supplies the tools, security monitoring, after-hours escalation and extra hands they can’t cover alone. In Boston and on the North Shore it usually fits companies with 25 to a few hundred users that already have one to three IT staff. At Boston Managed IT it starts at $75 per user per month, with a 25-user minimum.
Key takeaways
- Co-managed IT is a split. Your IT staff own the relationships and the daily work. The provider owns the tooling, the monitoring and the overflow.
- It fits best when you already employ IT staff and the gaps are coverage, security depth and documentation, not a lack of IT altogether.
- Our published rate is $75 per user per month for co-managed, minimum 25 users. A 150-person company with its own IT team comes out around $12,150 a month in our pricing examples.
- The split has to be written down. Most co-managed problems start with “I thought you were handling that.”
What is co-managed IT, in plain terms?
It is shared responsibility for your IT environment. Your internal person knows the business, the people and the quirks of the office. The provider brings what a one- or two-person IT department rarely has time or budget to build: monitoring and patching software for every device, managed detection and response, a security team that watches alerts at night, and engineers who have seen the same problem at twenty other companies.
It is not outsourcing your IT person’s job. Done well, it makes that person more effective and less likely to burn out, because they stop being the only line of defense.
What does a co-managed provider usually take on?
Every arrangement is a little different, but these are the pieces that most often move to the provider:
- Tooling. Remote monitoring and management, patching for Windows, macOS and common apps, and endpoint security on every device.
- Security monitoring. Managed detection and response so a suspicious sign-in at 2 a.m. gets looked at by a person. On our co-managed plan MDR is a $2 per device add-on.
- Escalation. A second set of senior eyes for the firewall problem, the Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace tenant issue, or the server that won’t boot.
- Coverage. Vacations, sick days, and the week your IT lead is buried in an office move.
- Projects. Migrations, network refreshes and security assessments that would take months to fit around daily tickets.
Your internal team usually keeps the help desk for walk-up issues, vendor relationships, line-of-business applications, purchasing and the knowledge of who needs what.
When does co-managed IT fit, and when doesn’t it?
It tends to fit when:
- You have 25 or more users and at least one person whose job is IT.
- That person is spending most of their week on tickets and has no time for security, documentation or planning.
- An auditor, insurer or client has started asking about MFA, endpoint detection, backups or logging, and the honest answer is “partly.”
- Nobody covers IT when your one IT person is out.
It usually doesn’t fit when there is no internal IT person at all. In that case someone in operations ends up as the go-between, and fully managed IT is the better model. It also doesn’t fit when the internal team wants a tool vendor but not a partner. If nobody will read the alerts, the tools don’t help.
How much does co-managed IT cost in Boston?
Pricing models vary across the market, so ask every provider for a per-user number and a written list of what that number includes. Ours is public: co-managed starts at $75 per user per month with a 25-user minimum, fully managed starts at $125 per user, and project work is $165 per hour. Nonprofits get 10% off.
A worked example from our pricing page: a 150-person company with in-house IT pays 150 users at $75 ($11,250), MDR on 150 devices at $2 ($300) and email security on 150 mailboxes at $4 ($600), for an estimated $12,150 a month. Hardware, software licenses and onboarding are separate, and every number is confirmed on the first call. You can run your own setup through the calculator on the pricing page.
The fair comparison is not “provider versus nothing.” It is provider versus the cost of a second IT hire plus the security tools, after-hours coverage and training that hire would still need. Our BMIT vs. in-house IT comparison walks through that math.
How do you split responsibilities so nothing falls through?
Write a one-page responsibility matrix before the contract starts. For each area (help desk, devices, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, network, backup, security alerts, vendors, projects), name who does the work, who approves changes, and who gets called first. Then agree on three practical rules:
- One ticketing system both teams can see, so work doesn’t vanish into side emails.
- Shared documentation, including admin accounts, network diagrams and vendor contacts, kept current by both sides.
- A monthly review of tickets, alerts and open projects, so the split adjusts as the company changes.
Does co-managed IT work for companies outside Boston proper?
Yes. Most of the work is remote: monitoring, patching, security response and escalation happen the same way whether your office is in the Back Bay, Burlington or Beverly. When something needs hands on site, we come out from our Waltham office across Greater Boston. If your office is farther out, ask any provider how on-site visits are scheduled and billed before you sign.
Frequently asked questions
Will co-managed IT replace our IT person?
No. The model assumes you keep them. The provider covers tooling, security monitoring and overflow so your IT person can spend time on the work that needs someone who knows the business.
Who owns the admin passwords in a co-managed setup?
You do. Both teams should have named admin accounts, and your company should hold a break-glass account the provider can’t remove. Shared logins are a red flag.
What is the minimum size for co-managed IT?
For us it is 25 users. Smaller companies usually get more from fully managed IT, which starts at 5 users.
Can we start with co-managed and switch to fully managed later?
Yes. That is common when an internal IT person leaves or the company outgrows a single-person IT team. The tooling is the same, so the switch is mostly a change in who answers the help desk.
If your IT person is stretched thin and you aren’t sure which parts of your environment anyone is actually watching, Boston Managed IT will look at it with you for free. Call (617) 322-5155 or visit bostonmit.com/contact to book a 15-minute co-managed IT review.
— Boston Managed IT
