Managed IT services pricing in Houston, TX: what businesses pay in 2026
An independent benchmark of Houston managed IT pricing — per-user ranges by tier, cost by company size, the in-house salary math, the energy and healthcare compliance premiums that move the number, and the contract costs that rarely appear on the first quote.
Managed IT services in Houston cost $125 to $250 per user per month in 2026, based on published pricing from 8 local providers and 4 national benchmarks. Basic coverage starts around $75 to $125; standard full-stack support runs $125 to $200; premium tiers with compliance and SOC monitoring reach $200 to $300+.
Start here
Quick pricing summary: the Houston managed IT market in 2026
If you are a business owner, CFO, or operations lead evaluating managed IT providers in Houston, pricing is the first wall you hit. Most MSP websites dodge the question with “contact us for a quote.” The ones that do publish numbers are pricing their own services, not benchmarking a market.
This guide takes a different approach. itreviews.co is an independent IT review platform, not a managed service provider. We do not sell IT services, and no provider paid for inclusion or influenced the pricing data here. What follows aggregates published pricing from Houston-area providers and national benchmark sources, combined with local salary data and cost-of-living context, so you have actual numbers before you ever get on a discovery call. Every figure traces to the source bank at the bottom of this page.
| Metric | Houston range (2026) |
|---|---|
| Per-user range (most common model) | $125–$250 / user / mo |
| Basic tier (monitoring + help desk) | $75–$125 / user / mo |
| Standard tier (full-stack managed IT) | $125–$200 / user / mo |
| Premium tier (compliance + SOC + vCISO) | $200–$300+ / user / mo |
| Co-managed IT | $75–$140 / user / mo |
| Per-device (alternative model) | $30–$75 / device / mo |
| Compliance premium (HIPAA / NERC CIP / CMMC) | +15–30% above standard |
| After-hours emergency support | $200–$350 / hour |
| Onboarding / transition fees | $500–$8,000 one-time |
| MSP vs in-house breakeven | ~50–75 employees |
The number that matters most
Watch the floor. The gap between a $75 quote and a $200 quote is rarely a difference in service quality. It is a difference in what the cheaper proposal excludes — usually the security tooling, the compliance work, and the on-site visits. Houston providers publishing at $75 to $100 per user are generally explicit that those three sit outside the base price.
Methodology
How we collected this data
We aggregated published pricing from 8 managed IT providers operating in the Houston metro area, cross-referenced against 4 national benchmark guides published in 2026.
Salary benchmarks come from Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, Indeed, PayScale, and Robert Half, all pulled for Houston-specific roles in 2026. Cost-of-living data comes from the C2ER Cost of Living Index as reported by the Greater Houston Partnership. Local industry and economic data draws from the Dallas Federal Reserve’s Houston Economic Indicators and the Partnership’s Economy at a Glance reports.
Because itreviews.co has no financial relationship with any provider mentioned in this guide, our methodology relies on aggregation of publicly disclosed pricing rather than on what individual MSPs prefer we publish. We excluded providers that do not publish pricing in any form, since the entire point is transparent benchmarking. The same principle governs our provider rankings — see the six-factor Trust Score methodology.
Where we departed from our source material
Two figures we started with did not survive verification, and we are naming them rather than quietly dropping them. A widely circulated vendor summary puts Texas at 41,557 internet crime complaints in 2024; the FBI’s own 2024 IC3 report records 62,340. And a provider-count breakdown we could not reproduce against the live directories has been removed rather than repeated. Where a number here is contested, we cite the primary source.
Models
Pricing models explained
Most Houston MSPs now bill per user per month, though you will still encounter per-device, tiered bundle, and flat-rate models depending on the provider. The model you are quoted affects your bill as much as the scope of work does.
Per-user pricing is the dominant model in Houston and nationally. You pay a flat monthly fee for each employee who needs IT support, regardless of how many devices they use. A worker with a laptop, a docked monitor, and a phone counts as one user. In Houston, per-user rates run $125 to $250 per user per month at the market centre, with budget packages below and compliance-heavy packages above. The model works for most SMBs because it is simple to budget and scales with headcount.
Per-device pricing charges by endpoint instead of by person. Rates in the Houston market land around $30 to $75 per device per month. It makes more sense for companies with shared workstations — manufacturing floors, medical exam rooms, dispatch desks — than for typical office environments where each employee carries two or three devices.
Tiered bundles package services into Bronze/Silver/Gold or Basic/Standard/Premium levels at fixed price points. You pick the tier that matches your risk tolerance and budget. Most tiered models in Houston price the middle tier at $125 to $200 per user, with premium tiers running $200 to $300+ for compliance-heavy packages.
All-inclusive flat-rate billing covers everything under one monthly number, usually $1,000 to $5,000+ per month for small businesses in Houston. It is the simplest model for budgeting, but read the contract carefully. “All-inclusive” sometimes excludes the exact services that get expensive: on-site visits, after-hours support, and project work.
Co-managed IT splits responsibility between your internal IT staff and an MSP. The provider typically handles 24/7 monitoring, security operations, and escalation while your team manages day-to-day user support. Co-managed pricing in Houston runs $75 to $140 per user per month, roughly half the cost of fully managed. Our co-managed IT guide covers when that split saves money and when it just adds coordination overhead.
| Model | How it works | Houston monthly range | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per-user | Flat rate per employee, all their devices included | $125–$250 / user | Standard office environments with stable headcount |
| Per-device | Rate per managed endpoint | $30–$75 / device | Shared workstations: plant floors, clinics, dispatch |
| Tiered / bundled | Pick a package, add modules | $125–$200 mid-tier | Buyers who want clear side-by-side comparisons |
| Flat-rate / all-inclusive | One flat monthly fee for the engagement | $1,000–$5,000+ / mo | Small businesses that want zero billing variance |
| Co-managed | Split with internal IT | $75–$140 / user | Firms that already have an internal IT person |
Tiers
Managed IT services cost in Houston by tier
Standard full-stack managed IT in Houston clusters between $125 and $200 per user per month, with budget and premium options sitting on either side of that range. Where your company lands depends on what is actually included in the monthly fee, not just the number on the invoice.
| Tier | Per-user range | Typical inclusions | Monthly cost (25-person company) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $75–$125 | Remote monitoring during business hours, help desk, basic patch management, standard antivirus | $1,875–$3,125 |
| Standard | $125–$200 | 24/7 monitoring, help desk, EDR endpoint protection, MFA enforcement, email security, backup management, patch management, vendor coordination | $3,125–$5,000 |
| Premium | $200–$300+ | Everything in standard, plus SOC/SIEM monitoring, compliance documentation (HIPAA, CMMC, PCI), vCISO or vCIO advisory, advanced threat hunting | $5,000–$7,500 |
| Co-managed | $75–$140 | MSP owns monitoring, the security stack, and escalation; internal IT handles daily user support | $1,875–$3,500 |
The gap between the $75 basic tier and the $200 standard tier is not padding. It is the difference between reactive monitoring with basic antivirus and a full security stack with EDR, MFA enforcement, encrypted backup, and strategic planning. Most Houston MSPs that publish pricing in the $75 to $100 range are explicit that security tooling, compliance support, and on-site visits sit outside the base price.
For a 25-person company in Midtown or the Energy Corridor, the standard tier — $3,125 to $5,000 monthly — is where most providers and most buyers converge. It covers the five categories of work that keep a business running: help desk, monitoring, cybersecurity, patching, and account management. Our guide to what an MSP’s security stack should actually include breaks down which controls belong in the base rate rather than in an add-on line.
Ask this before you sign
“Walk me through everything that is not covered by that monthly price.” A provider who answers clearly has nothing to hide. One who gets vague is counting on the add-ons to make up margin after you have signed.
By headcount
Managed IT cost by company size
Pricing scales with complexity, not just headcount. A 50-person energy services company with field crews across the Gulf Coast has a fundamentally different IT footprint than a 50-person accounting firm in the Galleria.
| Company size | Employees | Typical monthly range | Typical annual range | Per-user avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Micro | 1–10 | $750–$2,000 | $9,000–$24,000 | $150–$200 |
| Small | 11–50 | $1,650–$10,000 | $19,800–$120,000 | $125–$200 |
| Mid-small | 51–100 | $7,650–$20,000 | $91,800–$240,000 | $125–$200 |
| Mid-market | 101–250 | $12,500–$50,000 | $150,000–$600,000 | $115–$200 |
Read the monthly column as observed spend, not as a calculation. It will not always equal headcount multiplied by the per-user average at the endpoints, and that is deliberate. Minimum monthly floors compress the bottom of each band, and scope — not seat count — sets the top. A 101-person company at the low end of the mid-market band is buying a leaner package than the per-user average implies.
Per-user costs tend to decrease slightly at the mid-market level because fixed MSP overhead — account management, vCIO time, documentation — spreads across more seats. But do not expect dramatic volume discounts. MSP margins are tighter than most buyers assume, and the labour cost of supporting each additional user is real.
Micro businesses under 10 employees often see the highest per-user rates because the minimum viable service floor for monitoring, security, and backup does not change much whether you have 5 users or 25. Most Houston MSPs set a monthly minimum, so a 5-person company frequently pays the equivalent of a 10-user contract.
The comparison
Managed IT vs in-house IT in Houston: the real math
For Houston companies under 50 employees, managed IT almost always costs less than a single full-time IT hire. The breakeven sits around 50 to 75 employees, depending on how much internal infrastructure you are running. But the math only works if you use actual Houston salary data, not national averages.
The cost of one IT hire in Houston
| Role | Houston median | Fully loaded (×1.35) | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| IT Support Specialist | $64,500–$68,000 | $87,100–$91,800 | Glassdoor $67,987 · ZipRecruiter $66,089 · Indeed $64,492 |
| Systems Administrator | $84,388 | $113,924 | ZipRecruiter $84,883 · Indeed $84,388 · PayScale $74,733 |
| IT Manager | $108,660–$126,318 | $146,691–$170,529 | Glassdoor $126,318 · PayScale $108,660 |
The fully loaded column adds 35 percent for benefits, payroll taxes, PTO, training, and tools. That multiplier is the standard 1.3x to 1.4x range; we use the midpoint.
A note on the systems administrator figure
Three platforms publish Houston medians for this role and they do not agree: $84,883, $84,388, and $74,733. We use $84,388 — the median of the three — rather than rounding up to $85,000, because rounding up flatters the managed-IT side of the comparison and we have no reason to lean that way. Robert Half’s 2026 Salary Guide places the Houston range higher still, at $89,078 to $130,980, which would make the in-house option look more expensive, not less.
What that same budget buys in managed IT
Take the fully loaded cost of one systems administrator — $113,924 annually, or about $9,494 per month. At a Houston standard tier of $150 per user per month, that same dollar amount covers roughly 63 users worth of fully managed IT, delivered by a team of specialists rather than a single generalist.
That generalist is one person expected to handle your help desk tickets, manage your firewall, run your backups, patch your systems, and also be your cybersecurity expert, your vendor manager, and your strategic IT advisor. When they take vacation or leave, your IT capability drops to zero.
A real scenario, grounded in Houston
A 30-person oil and gas services company operating out of a Westchase District office, with a mix of field workers, office staff, and a small server room running industry-specific applications. Managed IT at the standard tier costs roughly $4,500 per month, or $54,000 annually. That is 47 percent of the fully loaded cost of one systems administrator — and it buys coverage across help desk, cybersecurity, monitoring, and strategic planning rather than a single point of failure.
The breakeven point
Managed IT becomes less cost-effective around the 50 to 75 employee mark. At 75 users paying $150 per month, you are spending $135,000 annually. For that budget you could hire a capable IT Manager — $108,660 to $126,318 median in Houston, $146,691 to $170,529 fully loaded — and supplement with co-managed MSP support for specialised functions like security operations and compliance. Note that even at the low end, one IT Manager fully loaded costs more than 75 seats of standard managed IT. The honest breakeven is not against one hire; it is against a two-person department.
When in-house still makes more sense
Managed IT is not the right fit for every Houston company. Organisations above 75 employees with complex on-premise infrastructure, companies running proprietary OT or SCADA systems in the petrochemical corridor, and businesses with dedicated internal security teams may get better value from a hybrid model where internal staff handles daily operations and an MSP owns specific functions like SOC monitoring or compliance documentation. Our MSP vs internal IT guide works through that decision in more detail.
Scope
What is included vs what is extra
Not every line item lands in your base monthly fee. Knowing which services are standard and which get billed separately keeps proposals honest — and the gap between the advertised rate and your actual bill usually lives in this table.
| Typically included in base pricing | Commonly billed separately |
|---|---|
| Help desk and remote support | Project work: migrations, office buildouts |
| 24/7 remote monitoring | After-hours emergency support (often 2x to 3x standard rate) |
| Patch management (OS and third-party) | On-site visits beyond a monthly cap of one or two |
| Endpoint protection or EDR | Hardware procurement and installation |
| Email security and spam filtering | Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace licensing |
| Backup management | Advanced compliance audits and SOC 2 readiness |
| Basic vendor coordination | VoIP phone system licensing |
| Quarterly business reviews | Network infrastructure projects (cabling, switch upgrades) |
| MFA enforcement | Cyber insurance policy management |
| New user onboarding and offboarding | Specialised application support (SAP, AutoCAD, industry-specific) |
The biggest surprise for Houston buyers is usually Microsoft 365 licensing. Many assume it is part of the managed IT fee, but most providers pass it through at cost — $12 to $22 per user per month for Business Basic through Business Premium — or mark it up 10 to 20 percent. Ask upfront whether licensing sits inside or outside the per-user rate.
Verticals
Industry-specific pricing adjustments
Houston’s economy runs on industries with above-average IT complexity. The city’s compliance landscape pushes MSP pricing above the standard tier for several dominant verticals.
Energy and oil & gas
Houston is the energy capital of the world, home to ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Halliburton, and — since Chevron relocated its headquarters from San Ramon in 2024 — a fourth supermajor, alongside thousands of midstream and services companies. Energy firms converge operational technology (SCADA, DCS, pipeline control systems) with corporate IT, creating network environments most generalist MSPs cannot support. NERC CIP compliance for utilities, TSA pipeline security directives, and ITAR restrictions for aerospace-adjacent work push pricing 20 to 30 percent above standard. Budget an additional $30 to $60 per user per month for genuinely OT-aware providers. Our Houston energy and oil & gas MSP rankings apply the same Trust Score with vertical-specific weighting.
Healthcare
The Texas Medical Center is the largest medical complex in the world — 54 member institutions, 21 hospitals, roughly 106,000 employees, and around 10 million patient encounters a year. HIPAA compliance is not optional for any practice, surgical centre, or multi-site clinic operating in its orbit. HIPAA-compliant managed IT in Houston typically runs 15 to 25 percent above standard tier pricing, and CloudSecureTech’s Houston data pegs healthcare MSP pricing at $165 to $275 per user per month. The premium covers encrypted communications, audit logging, access controls, BAA-ready vendor management, and security awareness training calibrated to clinical workflows. See our Houston healthcare MSP rankings.
Manufacturing and petrochemical
Greater Houston leads the nation in manufacturing output. The Greater Houston Partnership reports $126.9 billion produced in the sector in 2024, putting Houston above runners-up Los Angeles and Chicago for the third consecutive year. Manufacturing IT blends plant-floor OT networks with corporate IT, requiring segmentation expertise and familiarity with MES, ERP, and quality management systems. Pricing premiums of 15 to 20 percent apply for providers with real OT experience. Our Houston manufacturing MSP rankings cover this vertical specifically.
Legal and professional services
Houston’s legal sector handles energy litigation, oil and gas transactional work, and a deep bench of mid-market firms between 20 and 100 attorneys. Law firms need document management integration (NetDocuments, iManage), wire fraud prevention, and trust account security. Pricing sits 10 to 15 percent above standard for firms with a serious compliance posture. See our Houston legal MSP rankings.
Construction
A fast-growing vertical in the Houston market, with Procore integration needs, multi-site job coordination, and mobile workforce management. Construction MSPs typically price within the standard tier but add project-specific charges for job site networking. Our Houston construction MSP rankings cover this niche.
For a broader view of what compliance work an MSP should actually be doing across any of these verticals, our MSP compliance guide covers the frameworks and the ongoing maintenance they require.
Context
Managed IT in Houston: local market context
Houston’s cost of living sits 6.7 percent below the national urban average and 24.8 percent below the average of the nation’s most populous metros, on the C2ER Cost of Living Index for Q1 2026. That keeps IT labour costs below coastal metros, and it flows directly into MSP pricing.
Houston sits near the national midpoint on price, and slightly below its in-state peer. Typical Houston per-user rates of $125 to $250 run just under what our own independent benchmark found in Dallas, where the standard tier lands at $135 to $175 against $125 to $200 here. The two Texas markets are close enough that a quote well outside this band deserves a question, and far enough apart that a DFW provider’s rate card is not a Houston benchmark on its own. Against a high-cost coastal metro the gap widens: our New York City benchmark puts the standard tier at $150 to $225. If you are comparing a Houston quote against a national pricing guide, the Houston number should land at or slightly below the national figure — not above it.
The local economy is growing, but more slowly than usual. The Greater Houston Partnership’s 2026 employment forecast projects 30,900 new jobs in the metro area, a lower-than-usual figure, with health care, education, and public administration expected to stay insulated from the business cycle while sectors tied to upstream oil face headwinds from lower prices. Five sectors — manufacturing, professional services, real estate, government, and health care/education — generated more than half of the region’s economic output in 2024.
The threat environment is not abstract. Texas ranks second nationally in FBI IC3 reported losses, at $1.35 billion across 62,340 complaints in 2024 — a $328 million increase year over year. The June 2026 breach of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s licensing vendor exposed driver’s licence and passport data for more than 3 million Texans. And the Conduent breach — which occurred between October 2024 and January 2025 but whose Texas impact was revised sharply upward in February 2026 — is now reported to affect over 15 million Texas residents, including Medicaid recipients and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas members. For Houston businesses, that is the environment that makes the difference between $90 per user basic monitoring and $175 per user full-stack security a business decision rather than a budget line.
Provider density is high, and quality varies widely. Clutch’s Houston MSP directory is one of the largest in the country, and CloudSecureTech profiles 24 vetted Houston providers. That competition keeps pricing honest, but it also means the spread in capability between the top and the bottom of the market is wide, and directory placement is not a quality signal. That is the gap our scored Houston MSP rankings exist to close.
Buyer framework
How to evaluate a managed IT proposal
The cheapest proposal is rarely the cheapest option. Evaluate scope and fit before comparing monthly numbers, and treat the proposal like a contract rather than a brochure.
- Normalise what is included first. Two proposals quoting $150 per user per month are not comparable if one includes EDR, backup, and MFA while the other charges those as add-ons. Build a one-page scope comparison before you look at price.
- Confirm the security stack in writing. Ask for the specific platforms deployed: endpoint detection and response (SentinelOne, CrowdStrike, or equivalent), email security, backup platform, MFA enforcement. If the answer is “we use best-in-class tools” without naming them, that is a flag.
- Get an SLA with teeth. Response time commitments should specify critical versus standard issue thresholds, with financial penalties or service credits for misses. “We respond fast” is not an SLA.
- Ask what triggers out-of-scope billing. Every provider bills project work separately. The question is where the line sits between included maintenance and billable project. Ask for three examples of past out-of-scope charges from current clients.
- Request the offboarding process upfront. What happens to your documentation, domain registrations, and vendor accounts when you leave? Mature providers hand off clean. Budget shops hold data hostage, or never created the documentation in the first place.
- Verify local presence. For Houston businesses with any on-site IT needs — server rooms, network equipment, physical hardware — a provider operating from a call centre in another state cannot deliver the same response as a team based in Katy, Sugar Land, or the Galleria. Ask where their technicians are physically located, and how many.
- Check the onboarding timeline. A real onboarding takes two to four weeks and includes network discovery, security baseline deployment, documentation, and a written IT roadmap. If they promise to have you fully transitioned by Friday, the work that matters is getting skipped.
Conclusion
The bottom line on Houston managed IT pricing
Managed IT services in Houston run $125 to $250 per user per month for most small and mid-market businesses in 2026. Basic monitoring starts lower. Compliance-heavy industries push higher. The range is not as wide as it looks once you normalise what is actually included in the fee.
Pricing is the starting point of the decision, not the decision itself. A $100 per user proposal that excludes security, backup, and compliance support will cost you more than a $175 per user agreement that covers everything — especially when the first ransomware incident hits and you discover what “out of scope” means at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday.
Now that you know what to budget, compare independently scored MSPs in Houston to find the right provider for your business. For national context outside the Houston market, see our US MSP pricing guide. Every ranking on itreviews.co is earned through our Trust Score methodology, not paid placement.
Show your work
Pricing data sources
Every pricing figure in this guide traces to one of the sources below. Vendor-published pricing guides are marked as such — they are useful data points, but they are written by companies selling the services being priced, which is exactly why we aggregate rather than rely on any single one.
| Source | Type | Year | Data point used | Section |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CloudSecureTech — Houston | Directory | 2026 | $125–$250/user/mo Houston; $165–$275 healthcare; $75–$140 co-managed; 24 vetted providers | Headline range, healthcare, market context |
| CinchOps | MSP vendor (Houston) | 2026 | $125–$300/user/mo Houston, tier breakdown | Tier pricing, hidden costs |
| LayerLogix | MSP vendor (Houston) | 2026 | $125–$275/user/mo; co-managed $75–$140 | Tier pricing, co-managed |
| ITSGURU | MSP vendor (Houston) | 2026 | $75–$200/user/mo Houston | Tier pricing, per-device |
| Makologics | MSP vendor (Houston) | 2026 | $75–$125 basic, $125–$200 mid, $200+ premium | Tiered breakdown |
| Enstep | MSP vendor (Houston) | 2026 | $100–$250/user/mo Houston SMBs | General range |
| Other Guys IT | MSP vendor (Houston) | 2026 | $50–$75 budget, $100–$150 mid, $200–$300+ enterprise | Tiered breakdown, budget floor |
| Impress Computers | MSP vendor (Houston) | 2026 | $150–$200/user/mo for 20–100 user companies | Cost by company size |
| Uprite Services | MSP vendor (Houston) | 2026 | $100–$250+/user/mo; $125–$225 standard | General range |
| VC3 | MSP vendor (national) | 2026 | $150–$400/user/mo national | National baseline |
| Corsica Technologies | MSP vendor (national) | 2026 | $150–$300+/user/mo national average | National baseline |
| Petronella Tech | MSP vendor (national) | 2026 | $150–$200/user/mo national standard tier | National baseline |
| Flamingo | MSP vendor (national) | 2026 | Bronze $80–$120, Silver $140–$200, Gold $220–$350 | National tiered breakdown |
| Velo IT Group | MSP vendor (Texas) | 2026 | $125–$275/user/mo Texas markets | Regional Texas pricing |
| Clutch — Houston MSP directory | Directory | 2026 | Houston provider density | Market context |
| ZipRecruiter — Systems Administrator | Salary data | 2026 | $84,883 Houston median | Salary math |
| Indeed — Systems Administrator | Salary data | 2026 | $84,388 Houston median (used as working median) | Salary math |
| PayScale — Systems Administrator | Salary data | 2026 | $74,733 Houston median | Salary math |
| Robert Half — Systems Administrator | Salary data | 2026 | $89,078–$130,980 Houston range | Salary cross-reference |
| Glassdoor — IT Manager | Salary data | 2026 | $126,318 Houston median | Breakeven math |
| PayScale — IT Manager | Salary data | 2026 | $108,660 Houston median | Breakeven math |
| Glassdoor — IT Support Specialist | Salary data | 2026 | $67,987 Houston median | Salary math |
| Greater Houston Partnership — C2ER cost of living | Economic data | 2026 Q1 | 6.7% below national urban average; 24.8% below most-populous metros | Market context |
| Greater Houston Partnership — Economy at a Glance | Economic data | Mar 2026 | $126.9B manufacturing output 2024, #1 nationally 3 years running; five sectors >50% of output | Manufacturing, market context |
| Greater Houston Partnership — 2026 forecast | Economic data | Jan 2026 | 30,900 new jobs forecast; health care, education, public administration insulated | Market context |
| Dallas Fed — Houston Economic Indicators | Economic data | 2026 | Houston payroll growth, energy sector conditions | Market context |
| FBI — 2024 IC3 report | Government | 2024 data | Texas $1.35B losses, 62,340 complaints, #2 nationally | Cyber risk context |
| GovTech — TPWD vendor breach | News | 2026 | 3M+ Texans exposed, June 2026 | Cyber risk context |
| Malwarebytes — Conduent breach | Security research | 2026 | Texas impact revised upward Feb 2026; Medicaid and BCBS TX members affected | Cyber risk context |
| Texas Medical Center | Primary source | 2026 | 54 member institutions, 21 hospitals, ~106,000 employees, ~10M patient encounters | Healthcare vertical |
Where published ranges disagree, we show the spread rather than averaging it away. Two source figures were rejected during verification and are described in the methodology note above.
Questions
What Houston buyers ask before signing
$125 to $200 per user per month covers full-stack managed IT at the standard tier for most Houston SMBs. A 25-person company lands at roughly $3,125 to $5,000 per month.
Per-user pricing is the dominant model here, and it bundles help desk, monitoring, cybersecurity, patching, and strategic planning into one number. Anything below $100 per user should make you ask what has been left out.
For companies under 50 employees, almost always. A single systems administrator in Houston costs around $84,400 in base salary, or $113,924 fully loaded at the standard 1.35x multiplier.
That same budget covers managed IT for about 63 users at the standard tier. You also get a team instead of one person who cannot simultaneously run your help desk, manage your firewall, and respond to a security incident.
Usually, yes. Per-user pricing ($125 to $200 per month in Houston) is simpler for typical office environments, because each employee uses two or three devices and per-user pricing covers all of them.
Per-device pricing ($30 to $75 per device per month) works better for companies with shared workstations — manufacturing plants, dispatch operations, or medical practices with rotating exam-room terminals. Run the math both ways before signing.
Expect a 15 to 25 percent premium above standard-tier pricing. That puts most Houston healthcare practices at $165 to $275 per user per month.
The premium covers encrypted communications, audit logging, access controls, BAA execution with every subcontractor, and security awareness training for clinical staff. Cutting this line item to save $30 per user is the kind of math that looks smart until the OCR audit letter arrives.
Because the network is not just an office network. Energy firms converge operational technology — SCADA, DCS, pipeline control systems — with corporate IT, and that requires segmentation expertise most generalist MSPs do not have.
Layer on NERC CIP for utilities, TSA pipeline security directives, and ITAR restrictions for aerospace-adjacent work, and pricing runs 20 to 30 percent above standard. Budget an extra $30 to $60 per user per month for a genuinely OT-aware provider, and ask to see the segmentation architecture before you sign.
Most providers have 5 to 10 percent flexibility on the base per-user rate, especially for multi-year commitments or larger seat counts.
But the easier savings sit in the scope, not the price. Ask about including on-site visits in the base fee, bundling Microsoft 365 licensing at cost instead of marked up, or removing line items for services you have already covered internally. The providers worth working with would rather adjust scope than race to the bottom on price.
$50 per user per month covers a help desk ticket queue and basic remote monitoring. It does not cover endpoint detection, email security, backup management, patching, MFA, or strategic planning.
That is not managed IT. That is a phone number you call when something breaks. The gap between $50 and $150 per user is not margin — it is the entire security and management stack that keeps a business operational.
Now pressure-test the quote
You know the price. Now check the scope.
The per-user rate matters less than the scope behind it. Two Houston providers quoting $150 per user can deliver very different levels of accountability, security depth, and compliance coverage. Bring the same four questions to every conversation: what exactly are you responsible for, what falls outside scope, what happens after hours, and what does your SLA actually guarantee in writing?