About Georg Dauterman:
Georg believes in the fusion of technology and creativity. With a background in both fields, he started his career in IT departments of publishing and advertising agencies, realizing the critical need for tech aligned with business goals. Joining Valiant in 2004, Georg’s expertise and passion for efficiency brought industry recognition. He holds a history degree from Queens College and serves on Datto’s Global Partner Advisory Board. Beyond his leadership role, Georg enjoys exploring culinary skills, fitness, and outdoor adventures with his family.
About Megan Quick:
Megan is a member of the Valiant Marketing & Sales team, assisting in demonstrating the value of our services and ensuring positive experiences for prospective clients. When not working with technology, she is a theater production manager and performer, producing her own comedy shows, and is an avid writer. Megan has a B.A. in Theater from Sewanee: The University of The South.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- The history, transition, and philosophy behind managed service pricing — from the "break fix" model of the early 2000s to today's flat-rate MSP structure, and why the shift happened.
- What an MSP stack is and why standardization across tools, vendors, and configurations is essential for consistent, scalable service.
- How MSP pricing is built, including factoring in people, tools, insurance, training, travel, and environment complexity.
- Why $150–$250 per end-user per month is the current market benchmark, and what it means if someone quotes lower.
- Why you shouldn’t have to think about your IT systems when it’s done right, and how truly “invisible” IT is backed by clear, measurable outcomes.
- The single most important question to ask any MSP before signing: not what's covered, but what's not covered.
- Red flags to watch for when evaluating an MSP, including unwillingness to provide references and vague definitions of scope.
- Why chemistry and cultural fit matter just as much as technical capability when choosing a long-term technology partner.
Transcript:
Megan Quick:
Hello everyone, happy very early spring, perhaps a fall spring, I hope not. Welcome to the Creative Stack. It's a show about the intersection of creativity and information technology. I'm your host, Megan Quick, and I am joined as always by the illustrious, George Douderman. I'll choose a new adjective every week, George. They will always be true. I think I'm feeling really good with the weather today as well.
Georg Dauterman:
Much too much too kind. Yes. Yes, thank you. Yeah. Yep.
Megan Quick:
But this week, our topic, George, is something you really wanted to sort of get on the podcast. It's the why and the how around managed service pricing. I'm so excited to dive into this today with you.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah. Yes, it's the mysterious underpinnings of the entire industry that no one really understands or why we do it the way we do it. And there's so many different models. so having done this for a couple of years, I think we have a good sense of how we got here and the, I think the journey is important and the sort of like things that think about one year thinking about managed services or any kind of service and what goes into it. So.
Megan Quick:
Yeah. Yeah. And when we were talking about this topic, which is a little meta to bring up on the podcast, we, you just kind of touched on it. We, we talked about the history of this industry, which is still a fairly young industry. would say it's even in its pre-teens as far as industry go. And we're looking at a timeline.
Georg Dauterman:
It's definitely just maybe able to vote at this point, maybe, on who you ask. It's very much, especially for the small meeting business, the SMB market, it was very much like a lot of hours for dollars consulting. It was a very different marketplace even when we started. 2002, which when you say that, sounds pretty nuts when you say 2002, but it doesn't feel that long ago. But it's definitely changed so dramatically that I think that it's almost worth kind of like kind of going through a journey from that point to now. Yeah. And I think where the managed services model sort of originated in some ways and where it goes, I think is important.
Megan Quick:
Yeah. No. Well, so, dear listener, we're gonna go all the, just close your eyes, we're going back to 2002. Like the old time warp. Doctor Who or whatever time travel media you like, insert there.
Georg Dauterman:
Exactly.
Megan Quick:
And I wasn't around for the beginning of Valiant, but could you tell me a little bit about, I know from what I've heard from working here for six years, it was more of a break fix model, which would you mind explaining to folks what a break fix model was and sort of why a lot of MSPs sort of start there?
Georg Dauterman:
Mm-hmm. Right. Sure. the term MSP didn't really exist until, say that it was sort of, it was early two thousands. I would say the argument, mean, the first time we heard of it was sort of as a model going to trade shows and whatnot was in say 2006, something around that in 2007. But before that, you know, most computer IT work wasn't based on a fixed rate amount. it was more on what's called a, either two to two kind of Two setups was either a time materials or like flat contract rate, but the flat contract was very rare. was much more like, either you would, do the work and bill for it, or you'd buy a block of hours in advance. So, unfortunately I had a lot of this, you break it, we fix it mindset. And there wasn't a lot of incentive besides not getting yelled at to fix things right. The first time, the sort of model works, the MSP model sort of works in that we were taking on the risk and the work to sort of guarantee to some degree that things are going to work and function when you need them to. So it's almost like insurance is the best way to think of it. Not to go to deep philosophical underpinnings of why it exists, but the origin of it was very much like, Hey, my computer's broken. I need to call someone to fix it. And it all benefited really from the fact that small, businesses. you know, many of them were not remotely connected in like the nineties, you know, I still remember working at an office that just got computers and just got email. and their internet was a very, nascent and rough thing. and the expectation wasn't that it work all the time. It was a very different, wasn't, sort of today, computers and IT in, in
Megan Quick:
Right.
Georg Dauterman:
internet, phones, mobile devices. They're very much like utilities. We expect them to work at all times when we need them, much like electricity or the subway even. Subway's maybe my bad example in New York, the idea is that, yeah, unfortunately, if you've ever seen a Tokyo subway, the New York one, it's kind of a sad state of affairs. Someone's like, what could be?
Megan Quick:
Yeah. more of a dream that we have. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Even the, sorry, little tangent, even the Paris subway, I realized I stopped feeling any anxiety when I would miss a train, because I'm like, there's one, two minutes. That's not the New York experience. If you miss one, you're like, hmm. No, they are. I love our MTA. I wish they had more funding. That's what I'll say.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah. No, no, you're, they're trying, they're trying. I'll give them credit. They're trying, but it's a rough system and it's. Yes, I love it. Yes, exactly. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. Yeah.
Megan Quick:
So digression on that. George, you mentioned the insurance model and how that's sort of what MSPs are. It's a good way to sort of think about them with as far as understanding their pricing structure now. You mentioned you guys heard the term MSP in like 2006 at a trade show.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah. Trade show. Yeah. And you you, heard it in the industry, you you would sort of, go to different events and they would talk about this new model of billing that was flat rate. it was really dependent on a couple of things happening was, a change from being able to remote access tools so that we're, able to have a central service desk that was very easy and quick to service remote customers. RMM tools, much like, you know, data RMM, Kaseya, uh, Kinect wise, those tools are really critical for us to do our work so that we have visibility into what's happening on the, on the end point and through the, uh, network. And I think that the idea that the people needed, the customers, the clients needed this thing, these things to work all the time and it changed and became much more professional, professionalized versus sort of a guy with a bag who randomly would, you would call, you know, some Unix wizard or, you know, some kind of IT wizard guy that would come to your office, he'd be a little weird, fix your stuff and leave. It changed, became much more, I think, professionalized and it's matured as a business. So, so as the pricing originally and the whole thing was like, you know, a sophisticated setup, where someone would buy a block of hours. in advance and we would use those block hours to like do patches and service. So really the MSP model benefits the customer in that it allows us to, it gives us a certain amount of, the pay, certain amount of money, let's say you use that as a term or funds to do a very specific amount of work. So that, and the goal is that there's not a lot broken. And so when things break, actually has a sort of a penalty for us.
Megan Quick:
Yes.
Georg Dauterman:
You know, that's sort of the really interesting, I think misunderstood part of the business is that people think we want things to break. I mean, the best customers we barely hear from, we just wanted to do QBRs with you.
Megan Quick:
Yes, we want to check in, but if it's run, if things are quiet, it's because everything's running. It's like the IT becomes, right. It's there's an invisible like, yeah, it's like how you can turn on a light switch in your house and the lights come on. You know, you, I don't want to say take it for granted, but it's something that you trust is there every time.
Georg Dauterman:
What's the hope? Right. You should, you should do it. mean, not that you, I mean, you, should, you should understand a little bit how it works, but at the end of the day, it's not what you do day in day out. You shouldn't worry about why the light turns on. You just want to make sure it turns on. If it doesn't turn on, you want someone that you can call to help you to ensure that it turns on. That's really what, that's really what we do. And that's one half of it. The other half of it is there's some strategic advisory around what's happening inside your business.
Megan Quick:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. rights.
Georg Dauterman:
And for us to give you some guidance and help in this decision making and from a couple of different perspectives, one is a de-risk it from IT risk, I should say. the other one is to help with growth and your goals. and the MSP model promotes that it's not perfect. Once again, some places doesn't really work great, but generally speaking for most SMBs and, and, and for large businesses for sections of their business, it works really well, I think. So.
Megan Quick:
Yeah, no, I mean, I even remember, sorry to get like a personal story here, but I remember when I interviewed for this job and I was thinking about, I was thinking about working for Valiant and I remember just being like, God, every, like every company now is a technology company. It has to run, it has to work that way. And so I guess were there major, again, to go backtrack a little?
Georg Dauterman:
Correct.
Megan Quick:
you were hearing about it at trade shows, were there any instances where you realized this can really fundamentally change how we serve our customers? Like, yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
Oh yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Because if, if, if, if it's a, if it's sort of like a predictable, well, one is, is a pretty little cost for both us and the customer. So we sort of know what, what sort of like a say bucket of money, you want to call it that we have available to us. The other part of it is that we have a very clear, um, mission and deliverables that when you're running in like a time materials way or like break fixed way, you, you.
Megan Quick:
Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
You do still have a clarity of what you have to do. So, you know, we have a very clear definition of like our patching schedule, our, our stack of equipment that we support, the tools we build around that. And they're all built around the maximum uptime, fixability, trainability and consistency of experience for both us and the customer, our engineers. Yeah.
Megan Quick:
I'm so glad you mentioned training too, because when you were even discussing the shift from break fix to the managed service provider model, I was like, there's a trainable, like, now there's a trainable way to do this job rather than the one guy who kind of is luckily very good at all this stuff that you call. can be like we have here at Valiant literally down the hall for me, a team of people who know what they're doing. And on that note, you already mentioned this word, but I would love for us to unpack it for the listener. You talked about a
Georg Dauterman:
Right. Yeah.
Megan Quick:
stack. And I know when I started working with y'all, I learned what a stack was. I worked with our wonderful VCIO, not VCIO, CIO, Justin Pinchina about this, but could you give us sort of the basics of what a stack is when it comes to a managed service provider? Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
Yes. So in a very general way, the stack is the standards and standards and equipment and vendors, prop policies, configurations for just about everything that we deploy at a customer. So we have a standard switch type, manufacturer. have a standard, OS that we support. Well, we support both Macs and PCs, but you know, we have, we have, we have a version that is our like supported. versions of it, you're sort of in lockstep with the manufacturers, but at end of the day, we monitor the version type to make sure that we're supporting it. We have a standard antivirus, an EDR package, we have a configuration methodology for Office 365 or in Google Workspace. The idea is that we're trying to get to that 90 plus percent consistency across customers. And this is a sort of a personal note. We used to always talk about not having cookie cutter IT and doing bespoke work for people, but unfortunately, um, there's a much higher cost for that. And while you can do that, um, it gets really pricey because, uh, you either have really, um, generalist people who do all bunch of different stuff or they're like a wizard, like a hippie or a wizard again, but like,
Megan Quick:
Mm-hmm.
Georg Dauterman:
Um, and just have a few I've worked with over the years. I like wizard is that going to fix stuff. There's a few that, there's a few that work here and there is people that you can throw into it and be like, I know you've never seen this firewall before, but you're really smart and you can figure this out, but that's not scalable. And it's not very consistent because, um, if that person's not available, you might be waiting for hours for someone to fix it. Um, and, and really what we don't want.
Megan Quick:
No, we have a few on the team. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
Is to have any single point of failure, both of people and the systems. That's a big piece of this is sort of like a, an ability to, I say survivability, but as, as a high survivability factor for keep for that, you know, if one person's on vacation, even since it's so simple or there's not available, didn't pick up their phone that we have a method to get things working and, repaired that sort of thing. So it's really important.
Megan Quick:
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah, no, I love the single point of failure because, and I know I feel like that's a philosophy obviously beyond or a business practice beyond managed service providers. But I, I do feel like I got very familiar with that concept when it came to this, like to working at Valiant. and it makes so much sense. It's like, can't, there can't be one person who knows all the passwords and then they go away and that, you know, that that's a very basic example, but it still happens.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's, it's the one that's still 20, 20 plus years into this. You'd be shocked how many places, you know, this only lives in Jim's head. And, know, if you have, if it should happen to win the lottery, which is those, he's not picking up his phone, right? Exactly. Like, so you really, you really want, you know, as a business, as a leader, your, your, one of your obligations is to have a level of risk management for this.
Megan Quick:
Yeah. Yeah. He's not picking up his phone.
Georg Dauterman:
And MSP can be part of that risk management and no, no, no. And, and, and a part of that is managed and it's also part of, your overall strategy for, for your technology. Because once again, MSPs are really good at doing a lot of consistent tasks consistently well, but it's not the end all be all solution to any business. There's a, there's a component of, collaboration with the, with the leadership, the staff.
Megan Quick:
Yes. And go on, George, sorry. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
And that's really critical that makes it, that makes it like a force multiplier that the outcome gets really great. We see it when we work with people that have a sort of a, I'm tangenting myself here, so I'm sorry. It's really, it's part of, it's part of, mean, it's why it's part of the pricing is that, um, one of the things that people don't think about when they think about their technology spending, they, they may say, we spend as money on printers and workstations and MSP and.
Megan Quick:
No, no, this is good. This is good. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
you know, systems, but they don't look at the time it takes for people to do things. And they don't look at the time it takes for us to manage it. And they don't look at the potential risk. so our job is to help people do that. You know, like, you know, we, started to go back to our sort of core philosophy of, know, stabilize the environment, just figure out what's going on there, get it working, you know, secure it so that people can sleep at night. And that can mean everything from backing data up to making sure that
Megan Quick:
Right. Right. Right.
Georg Dauterman:
There's no obvious holes like these accounts, this account has been logged in into for 352 days. That's a problem. Like we should talk about that. Why is that? What does that account do? Whose account is that? Um, it's really important.
Megan Quick:
Yeah. Yeah. It's as simple as patch it, like, right? you know, I think, yeah. It's so dry, but it's so vital to the security.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah, patching and that's part of it too is that with the Most, most, not to go into the cybersecurity info sex side, but most many breaches are a combination of the phishing and unpatched systems. So, so it's a really important inter table stakes for any MSP. It should be patching reporting on that. And I think that most people don't really care per se that your patch report, but really what it comes down to is people want to know the exceptions. It's not about, it's not about reporting the issue, reporting that everything's normal.
Megan Quick:
Yep.
Georg Dauterman:
is the exceptions to that. But the Hawaii doesn't replace the pricing is that when we build our pricing, we're building that patching and risk management into the price.
Megan Quick:
Yes. Yeah. And as you were saying, we were talking about the scalability and also companies just being able to plan. It's the fact that also now your technology is there's a budget for it rather than a does a, and this is an extreme example, but if you don't have an MSP in place or some sort of support, you have a breach, you have something, the amount, the amount you pay when a breach happens versus how much you pay just by having that month. Like you said, insurance, just by having that monthly. support. and work again, working in this industry for six years, the pricing can go like to all the extremes, different models. And I and I, I do not blame when folks get on the phone with us, they just, we have to sort of break it down. But also, like, they often ask us, why does your pricing look like this versus this person's look like this? Could you speak to that a little bit? Yeah. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
percent. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. It's all, it's all over the place. And, I'll give credit to where it's due. You know, I heard it said, you know, when you first start doing pricing, it starts out as a really small spreadsheet with a couple of lines and it gets to a really big spreadsheet that you're really trying to figure out all the different components of it. And I think what it comes down to is that you, depending on how sophisticated your, your offering is, who you're offering to their level of
Megan Quick:
Yeah. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
their level of sophistication or risk need or managerial complexity, know, totally different environment supporting, let's say, you know, a small sales office compared to a video post-production house. The technology is completely different. you know, they say that those things would be the same price, it's sort of nuts. you actually take, you step back for a second and say, so there's a lot of, there's a lot of variation in it. know, and as a, take off my IT person MSP half of my business owner at how much does it cost? How much, here's one of what does this cost? And so I'm, I'm a big fan of giving people a range of what, so, you know, I say that modern MSP cost will probably net out to between about 150 to $250 per end user per month. That's sort of a safe price in 2026. So in a lower end might be offshoring, they might have reduced onsite coverage, they might have, there's a lot of different variations on what happens. Um, and there's definitely nuance to it, but anything cheaper than that is either going to be some kind of co-managed or, very, very, um, reduced service offering or a madman. Right. Right.
Megan Quick:
Right. Or they add the or they say it's this and then all of sudden your bill comes in because you're getting out.
Georg Dauterman:
Correct. And I think, think, and I think, I think if anyone's listening to this or reading this or it asks what they don't cover is ask what's not covered in the, in the manager's contract. That's way more important than what is covered because on the surface, looks like a lot of stuff that may say to do a lot of stuff. then the thing you really need is a, we have a, we have a small manufacturing facility in Jersey. Um, and then onsite is not covered, but you know, you're to be having someone that
Megan Quick:
That's the device.
Georg Dauterman:
need to come on site every month to do maintenance or whatever it is, there may be a huge cost you didn't anticipate that could cause that to be, have a problem. So, you know, really like I would go deep into it. And so a lot of our, you know, a lot of what we do is try to understand what's happening at the customer before we work with them directly. try to, we want to do, depending on the setup, obviously they're very simple or startup. They may be three computers in a room.
Megan Quick:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
That's a very different conversation than this is a 45 year old company. We've been working for years with this provider. we kind of outstripped their ability to support us at this point, or we need something different. That's a very different conversation. And they might have like, legacy systems, which I mean things that are like been around for 25 years or, that was built by the, by the founder, you know, like I, we've, we've run at this multiple times where. It's a custom build application. And I think as my 2026 warning to everyone is, be very careful with custom build applications. Just really understand them. They can be really dangerous at any small business or any large business even any business. So.
Megan Quick:
Yeah I think that's a, that's a prescient warning and a good thing to sort of flag. I wonder, are there any like, and this is not to, put any negative content out there, but are there any like obvious red flags that if someone's talking to a managed service provider says they offer these things and if they say, we don't do this or we don't do this. Are there things that if you're getting this, if you're getting this, they should be doing this.
Georg Dauterman:
Sure. Yeah. mean, I would, I would the first and most important thing I would ask anyone is, you know, hazing customer references. It's not willing to give you references. Um, if they have an, physical location, um, go visit it. That's a sort of powerful thing. Like it's unbelievable when you see where people actually work. Um, if you can, obviously, mean, some people are 100 % remote. may not be possible, but, um, a good way to think about this is that.
Megan Quick:
That's being included. Yeah. Yes, yes.
Georg Dauterman:
If, if done well, this is a very long-term relationship and one partnership, right. And one that has a really deep impact on your operations and your business. And you have to be very careful who you select to work with. You know, it has to be an element of trust. Trust would verify, obviously you want to make sure that they're doing what they say they're going to do. But, um, I think that, uh, I think you should also look at what, what they're like if they're, if they're outsourcing, what, what part is being outsourced?
Megan Quick:
Yeah, partnership, yeah. Yep.
Georg Dauterman:
But what's not being outsourced, what part they're doing themselves. I think it's worth asking, you do they have a disaster plan themselves? Like how do they train their, and vet their people? There's a lot of great questions you can ask. And then there's a whole episode we can do like how to interview an MSB. But just, we should do that. I was going to, yeah, mean, well, well that's the thing, right? I mean, I think really when you look at this, it's like what goes in, what, you know, the kind of answer a very direct question, like what goes in the pricing.
Megan Quick:
Actually, yeah, I think we should do that. Everyone's thinking how the sausage is made right now.
Georg Dauterman:
The pricing consists of the service and the people doing the work, which is much more expensive than people sort of on the surface think. So let's say, you know, we have, and depending on the maturity of the tool sets, tool set stack really, there's all those tools that have to be paid for, but the people to operate them effectively is really the cost. And then obviously there's additional pieces like insurance.
Megan Quick:
Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
travel, ongoing training for the MSP because part of what, you think about what, you know, in your cost, you are paying for the people to be trained to be ready to work for you when you needed to. It's always changing, right? And I think, you know, you have to kind of look at, and I think one of the things that we don't do a great job is help people understand their downsides.
Megan Quick:
Yeah. Yeah, because it's always changing. Like everything's changing, yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
and their upsides of not working with MSP or with any provider, right? This step back for second, even from the MSP world, but more about the, how do people assess the risks to their operation, their business, and how can you help them do a better job of assessing that risk and understanding it? sorry, that was a very long-winded answer, but there's a lot that goes into this that I think is unseen. And that's the other piece of it.
Megan Quick:
No.
Georg Dauterman:
Unfortunately, really great IT is almost invisible.
Megan Quick:
Yep, it is. It's just things are just working and you only know, you only see it when it, when something happens. Yeah. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
When it's broken. And that's what we strive for is that the parts that shouldn't break often are managed and maintained and they're working. And that when you do have an issue, because we document it well, we understand the systems, it's quickly repaired and gets you back to work. It's the sort of hitting costs of downtime, hitting cost of poor experience for your staff.
Megan Quick:
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
And, and also it's something does go really bad. You want to have someone that's going to be there for you and help you through that. having done this number of times, you know, it's, it's very stressful and you want to have a plan. That's where they.
Megan Quick:
Yeah. Mm-hmm. No, and a partner who also just, and that's, again, I know I use that word a lot, but I think partner captures it a little more, especially like you were saying, if the MSP is, the goal is to have long-term partnerships. They know your environment. When something goes wrong, they also know how to, because they helped you build it, they also know how to fix it if something goes wrong. So yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah. Right. And, and, and this is a kind of a harsh, not every environment or every customer is a great MSP candidate. Not everyone, some people really have either a super high specializations and they need it has people that do the work. Sometimes there's not enough revenue to justify having a high end MSP or, so you really, I look at your business and, and now look at the criticality of, of, of, of the IT systems security risk you're taking.
Megan Quick:
Yeah, yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
and, and I, other piece I would talk to talk to before you select any one person, talk to color, different people doing it because you really do want to get a sense of, I was going to say like, you know, I might not be the right flavor for you and you might be not be the right flavor for me. And so, there's a lot of great providers out there, especially here in New York. I there's some really good teams out here and throughout the whole country, really. And, and you can find people that are going to do.
Megan Quick:
Yes. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
really great work for you and be a great partner. And you don't want to shift very often because it's hard and it's complicated and it's disruptive.
Megan Quick:
Yeah. Yeah. No, and I think, and hopefully this isn't too under the hood, but I do remember a few years ago when we got to work with a new client and the point of contact we were talking to, she was just like, you know, she lists all the reasons she went with us. And again, this is broadly when you're looking for a partner, but she also said, you know, vibes, we really liked your vibes and vibes matter. You have to like, you know, George, sorry, but if someone is working with us, they might have to call you when excuse the language, which hits the fan.
Georg Dauterman:
The vibes matter. Yeah, it's exactly right.
Megan Quick:
they want to want to talk to you so
Georg Dauterman:
Well, yeah, that's really the, that's the, that's sort of the, the, the, the sort of SM small business, small medium business. And that's the sort of a consultative like deep in the environment. Um, and really should be want, um, that you, that, and, once again, not everyone does not for everyone. It's very, it's very, you know, it's sort of like a specific thing. And, um, and I think, you know, you want to, what you want to do is really look at the MSP. Uh, part of the other part of the present is, is, is the tool set they're using is, they using well dot well regarded tools or are they using something that's not made not best in class? And yet the, either the kind of pick and there's a lot, and really what there is there, there most of us will, um, stand behind their selection of technology. And that's part of what you're paying for is that time for someone to vet those technology to understand it really well, you know, like
Megan Quick:
Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
You get into the esoteric conversation of why one firewall is better than the other one, but fundamentally did. Yeah. I mean, go to some sub Reddit and watch them argue, but I mean, really what it comes down to, there's a lot of. Maybe it's do the same thing over and over again, do the same thing relatively well. And really what you want to do is find someone who's an expert in that field and that tool who can really,
Megan Quick:
We can do an episode on that too. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
operate it well and do it consistently for you. So, is it very all over the place? I could talk about this for hours.
Megan Quick:
No, no, this is, and I think again, to bring it back to what we were, the episode is about pricing the how and the why. think this outlines the how and the why and also why it's not a one size fits all thing. are definitely philosophies and models we apply, but have the conversations. I mean, and George, you and I always say this, but like ask all the questions up front. Nothing is too stupid. Just get clarity. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
No. No, a hundred percent. and yeah, I mean, I'll, I'll throw, I'll throw another one out here. This does, it might be a hot take, use AI tools to help you make a decision. You know, ask the ask, you know, run it past an AI tool and, know, your language model of your choice. you know, what, what questions should we ask MSPs? What, what, what, what, what, what are some unexpected things or, or challenge a challenge to assumptions?
Megan Quick:
Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
Cause it's very powerful to it's, it's, it's a thing. you've never, it's a good thing would be like, if you've never bought a car before, it's very hard. The first time you go to a car dealer to buy a car, it's super confusing. those are trained salespeople who are been selling car, they sell cars every day and they, have a lot of tricks and the tricks, but they have a lot of methods. and, it's confusing, right. And in cars you can.
Megan Quick:
because this is like, yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
There's a manufacturer's suggested retail price. You can look that up before you go. And there's no manufacturer's suggested retail price for MSPs.
Megan Quick:
Right. No, right. And that's why, I mean, not to toot our own horns, but that is why we're trying to like put more information out there so that the folks looking for the support, have just have like a map in front of them or their basic questions answered. Cause like it's, you know, you deserve to have good support that also like you're paying for what you get, you know? I mean, it's the basics, right? You want it, you want to be paying for what you're getting. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah. Correct. Correct. Yeah. Exactly. And he wants someone that's going to say what they do and do what they say and be very clear. But fundamentally, their pricing is based on the cost of the tools, the cost of people to operate the tools, a certain amount of support per end unit, and a certain amount of support per complexity, if that makes sense.
Megan Quick:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
Like if you have a very complex environment or you're running 24 seven, you, you know, the price for a, you know, oil pipeline managed service is gonna be very different than I'd say like a PR firm, you know, just because of the complexity and the, and the risk involved and the location. Um, so there's a lot, and it was, it was factors go into it. And so what may appear to be like, that's outrageous. It may be perfectly reasonable when you start breaking down the costs and, and that sort of thing.
Megan Quick:
Yeah, yeah. Well, George, think that's a really great place to leave it if you're feeling good about that. And tune in next week, everybody. We have a fun series coming up. I won't say too much right now, but we do. George, have a wonderful day. I hope you enjoy this gorgeous weather. Everyone in New York, it's 70 degrees out, so please get outside.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah. Yes. you Yes. Thanks a lot, Vagan. And it was great talking to you about this. And I can't wait to our next episode. Thanks a lot. Thanks lot. All right. Bye now.
Megan Quick:
Yes, I can't wait either. All right. Have a good day, George. Bye. Bye, everyone.
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Jun 3, 2026