Most IT companies in Cardiff charge small businesses a fixed monthly fee for each person they support. Where providers covering the city publish their prices, the ones we found in October 2026 ranged from about £20 to £60 per user per month, and many don’t publish a price at all. Our own managed IT support starts from £45 per user per month + VAT. The headline figure tells you little on its own, though: what matters is what it includes. Here’s how IT support pricing works and what to check before you sign.

The short answer

Managed IT support is usually priced per user per month. Published prices we found for providers covering Cardiff ran from about £20 to £60 per user.
The cheapest plans are usually the narrowest. The lowest-priced plan we found was remote-only, with onsite visits kept for the dearer tiers.
Microsoft 365 licences are usually extra, as are new hardware and projects such as office moves.
Pay-as-you-go support, charged by the hour or in prepaid blocks, can cost less in a quiet year but is hard to budget for.
Ours starts from £45 per user per month + VAT, with a fixed quote once we’ve seen your set-up.

How per-user pricing works

A “user” is normally one person who uses your IT, along with their laptop, phone and accounts. Per-user pricing is simple to budget for: when you take someone on, the bill goes up by one user, and when someone leaves, it comes down. As an example, if your price worked out at £45 per user, a 10-person office would pay £450 a month + VAT, plus its Microsoft 365 licences.

Some providers price per device instead, or add a separate charge for each server, site or firewall. Neither approach is wrong, but make sure you’re comparing like with like. The things that usually push the price up are:

servers or other equipment in your office, rather than everything running in Microsoft 365;
more than one site, or a lot of staff working from home;
specialist software, such as case management or practice management systems, that needs looking after;
tighter security requirements from your clients, insurer or regulator.

What’s usually included

A good managed IT service covers the day-to-day running of your IT, not just fixing things when they break. Expect most of the following, and ask about anything that’s missing:

Helpdesk support by phone, email and remote connection, with response times written into an SLA.
Onsite visits when something needs hands on. Check whether they’re included or charged on top, and if your provider isn’t local, ask how visits work in practice.
Monitoring and updates, so problems are spotted early and security updates go on in good time.
Security: anti-virus, spam filtering, multi-factor authentication and sensible settings across Microsoft 365.
Backups, checked regularly, with a plan for getting you working again if something goes wrong.
Starters and leavers: setting up accounts and devices, and closing them down properly.
Dealing with suppliers, such as your broadband provider or software vendors, so you don’t have to.
Advice on what to replace and when, so spending doesn’t arrive as a surprise.

What’s usually extra

Microsoft 365 licences. These are almost always billed separately. Under Microsoft’s rules for licences bought through a provider, an annual-term licence can only be cancelled for a refund in the first seven days, and that window doesn’t reopen until it renews. Ask how your licences are set up before you add or remove people.
New hardware and software. Laptops, printers and software are bought separately, or leased.
Projects. Office moves, migrations, new servers and phone system changes are normally quoted as one-off jobs.
Out-of-hours work, with some providers.
Certification fees, such as the Cyber Essentials assessment fee, which is set by the scheme rather than your IT company. Our guide to what Cyber Essentials costs has the current figures.

Pay-as-you-go or managed support?

With pay-as-you-go, you call when something breaks and pay for the time, either by the hour or from a block of hours bought in advance. It suits very small offices with simple set-ups. If you’re a two or three-person business working entirely in Microsoft 365, and you rarely need help, it can genuinely be the cheaper option.

The catch is that nobody looks after your systems between calls. Updates, backups and security settings are left to you, and the provider earns more when things go wrong, not less. Costs are hard to predict, and people put off calling because every call costs money, so small problems grow.

Managed support turns that round. You pay a fixed fee, the provider monitors and maintains your systems, and it’s in their interest to stop problems happening. For most businesses with more than a handful of staff, or with clients who expect their data to be looked after properly, that’s the better deal.

Red flags in IT support contracts

Long terms that renew automatically, with a short window to give notice. Put the date in your diary before you sign.
“Unlimited” support with a long list of exclusions, or a fair-use limit that isn’t defined.
Onsite visits, starters and leavers or out-of-hours calls charged on top of a low headline price.
Price rises with no cap, or that can be applied at any time.
Response times with no SLA in writing.
Charges to leave, or a provider who holds your admin passwords, domain name or Microsoft 365 account in their own name. Those should belong to your business.
Licences locked into annual terms without anyone explaining what that means.

None of these is unusual on its own, but you should know about them before you sign, not when you want to leave. If you’re already tied into a contract like this, see how switching to us works.

What we charge

Our managed IT support starts from £45 per user per month + VAT. That includes unlimited support by phone, remotely and onsite, with urgent problems typically picked up straight away and response times backed by an SLA. It also includes proactive monitoring, daily backups and a disaster recovery plan monitored by our team, anti-virus and anti-spam on every device, multi-factor authentication and security best practice enforced, and systems kept to the Cyber Essentials standard whether or not you’re certified.

Microsoft 365 licences are extra (we can supply them), as are new hardware and software. Projects such as office moves and migrations are quoted separately, and our Evergreen IT leasing lets you spread the cost of hardware. The exact price depends on your headcount, servers and set-up, so we look first and give you a fixed quote. Our agreement includes a no-obligation review period, so you can see how we work before you commit.

See the full breakdown on our pricing page, or book a call and we’ll give you a fixed price for your business.

Sources

Published per-user prices from IT support providers covering Cardiff, checked on the providers’ own websites on 19 October 2026.
New Commerce Experience cancellation policy, Microsoft Learn.

How much does IT support cost in Cardiff? (2026)