Managed IT in Vancouver, WA — what $99/user/month actually buys

I'm Justin Oberg. I run River Mountain Systems out of Vancouver, WA. We do managed IT for small and mid-size businesses across Clark County and the Portland metro. The most common question I get on a first call is some version of: "your site says $99 a user — what does that actually include, and where do the surprise bills come from?"

This post is the long answer. If you've shopped managed IT in Vancouver, WA before, you've probably seen quotes that range from $79/user to $250/user with vague service descriptions. Below is exactly what our $99/user/month plan covers, exactly what it doesn't, and how to tell whether the price is reasonable for the work involved.

What the $99/user/month plan covers

The flat per-user fee covers the recurring operational work needed to keep a small business running on Microsoft 365 (or Google Workspace), with secured Windows or Mac endpoints, basic cloud backup, and a real human on the other end of a ticket. Specifically:

Managed endpoint

Each user gets one managed primary device — laptop or desktop, Windows or Mac. Managed means we install the RMM agent, the EDR (endpoint detection and response) agent, and our patching policy. We track the device in our inventory, we know when it last checked in, and we can push remote support without you needing to download a tool every time. If the laptop is encrypted (it should be), we hold the BitLocker or FileVault recovery keys.

Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace administration

We run the tenant. That means user provisioning and offboarding, license assignment, MFA enforcement, conditional-access policies, mailbox cleanup, shared mailbox and distribution-list maintenance, OneDrive/SharePoint permission review, and the inevitable "fix this calendar invite that won't stop bouncing" tickets. License costs are passed through at Microsoft's published rate — we don't mark them up.

Helpdesk for end users

Your users get a real ticket address and a phone number. Same-day response, business hours. We handle the standard list: password resets, printer setup, new-laptop provisioning, "Outlook is broken again," app installs, file recovery from OneDrive version history, MFA token resets, mobile-device email setup, the works. The plan assumes a normal ticket volume of roughly 0.5–1.5 tickets per user per month. Heavy-user environments get scoped separately.

24/7 endpoint monitoring & alerting

The RMM agent reports back constantly. Disk failing? We get an alert before you do. Drive 95% full? Alert. CPU pegged for 30 minutes? Alert. EDR sees suspicious behavior? Alert and automated containment. Most of these issues we resolve before the user notices.

Patch management

Operating-system updates and supported third-party application updates roll out on a tested schedule — typically a small pilot ring first, then the rest of the fleet a week later. This is the part of IT that quietly prevents 70% of breach scenarios. Skipping it is how small businesses get ransomware.

Antivirus / EDR

We deploy a real EDR product (not the free OS antivirus) on every managed endpoint. EDR includes behavioral detection, isolation, rollback in many cases, and central reporting. The license is included in the per-user price.

Cloud backup of Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace data

Mail, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams chats — backed up daily to a separate cloud, retained for one year by default. Microsoft does not back up your tenant for you. I cannot count how many businesses learn that after they've already lost a year of inbox.

Documentation

We document your environment in our IT Glue equivalent — passwords (in a vault, not a spreadsheet), vendor contacts, network diagrams, SOPs for recurring tasks, license inventory. If you fire us, you get a copy. Documentation is non-negotiable; companies without it pay 3x the rate to onboard a new IT provider when something goes wrong.

Quarterly business review

Every 90 days I sit down with you (or your office manager) for 45 minutes. We go through ticket trends, security posture, devices coming up for replacement, license utilization, and the next quarter's project pipeline. No charge, no upsell pressure. The point is to keep IT visible and predictable, not surprising.

What the $99/user/month plan does not cover

This is where the honesty matters. A flat per-user MSP fee is not a magic credit card. It covers the recurring operational work above. It does not cover everything that has the word "IT" in it. Specifically:

Project work

Anything with a defined scope, deliverable, and end date is a project. Examples: a Microsoft 365 migration, a network refresh, a new firewall deployment, a server-to-cloud lift, a phone-system cutover, a WMS or ERP rollout, a new-office build-out. Projects are scoped and quoted separately. Our project floor is $25,000. Below that we don't take it on, because below that the discovery and planning take longer than the work and nobody ends up happy.

This is the single biggest source of "surprise bill" complaints in the MSP industry — the customer assumed everything was included, the MSP didn't say otherwise loudly enough, and ten months in someone gets a $40K project bill they didn't expect. We say it on the first call and we say it again here. See the pricing page for the full breakdown.

Hardware

Laptops, desktops, monitors, docks, switches, firewalls, access points, printers — those are pass-through. We'll spec them, source them at our partner pricing (which is usually 5–10% better than retail), configure and ship them, but the hardware itself is its own line item. We don't lease hardware bundled into the per-user fee, because that's how MSPs trap clients into 36-month contracts they can't escape.

Third-party software licenses

Microsoft 365 licenses, EDR seats above the included tier, line-of-business apps (QuickBooks, Procore, Sage, Adobe), specialty add-ons — pass-through at vendor pricing. We don't mark up Microsoft.

After-hours emergency response

The base plan is same-day response, business hours (Monday–Friday, 8am–5pm Pacific). If your operation runs nights, weekends, or 24/7 (manufacturing shifts, jobsites, event production), we add a 24/7 on-call tier — that's an additional flat monthly fee, scoped to your environment.

Compliance work

If you're in a regulated industry — HIPAA, PCI-DSS, CMMC, SOC 2 — that work is scoped separately. The $99/user plan gives you the security baseline most SMBs need, but formal compliance attestation involves audit prep, evidence collection, policy authoring, and ongoing assessment. That's project work plus a recurring uplift.

The 10-user minimum

We have a 10-user minimum on the managed plan. That math seems arbitrary until you do it.

Below 10 users, the fixed cost of running an MSP relationship — onboarding, documentation, RMM/EDR/backup license minimums, the monthly hour or two of admin overhead — eats most of the per-user revenue. We've tried it. Both sides end up unhappy, because the small client expects the same response as a 40-user client and we can't deliver it economically. If you're under 10 users, you're better served by a part-time IT freelancer or a co-managed model where we back up an internal admin. Happy to refer.

The minimum applies to billable seats — owners and full-time staff who use IT. Seasonal or contract users on shared workstations don't count toward the floor.

How the 30-day pilot works

We don't ask anyone to sign a 36-month contract sight unseen. The standard engagement is a 30-day paid pilot with a one-page agreement and 30-day exit either way after that.

1. Week 1 — Discovery. We inventory every device, every cloud tenant, every user account, every line-of-business app, every vendor relationship. We look at backup status, MFA coverage, patch status, license utilization, and any obvious risk gaps. You get a written assessment at the end of the week, regardless of whether you continue.
2. Week 2 — Onboarding. RMM, EDR, backup agents deployed. Documentation seeded. Helpdesk address goes live. We start taking tickets.
3. Week 3 — Stabilization. The "now that you're here, please fix this thing that's been broken for two years" requests come in. We knock down the top 10. We close out any quick-win security gaps (MFA gaps, missing backups, expired SSL certs).
4. Week 4 — Review. We sit down, look at ticket data, look at the assessment, and you decide whether to continue. If yes, we move to month-to-month. If no, we hand back documentation and uninstall agents.

The pilot is priced at the same $99/user/mo rate. No setup fee, no exit fee. The point of a paid pilot (rather than free) is to make sure both sides are serious; free pilots get treated as free and nobody invests appropriately.

Managed IT vs. break-fix — the real comparison

The other model in this market is break-fix: hourly billing, no retainer, you call when something is broken. Break-fix shops typically charge $135–$185/hour in the Vancouver/Portland market. The math sounds attractive when nothing's broken — and it usually is, until it isn't.

Here's the honest comparison for a 15-user business:

• Managed at $99/user/mo: $1,485/month, $17,820/year. Includes patching, monitoring, backup, EDR, helpdesk, M365 admin. Predictable.
• Break-fix average: Most 15-user shops we've onboarded from break-fix were spending $9,000–$22,000/year in tickets, plus paying for ad-hoc license management and project work. Plus the unpriced cost of the owner doing IT triage themselves.

Where break-fix wins: you have a strong technical owner, almost no employee turnover, no compliance pressure, no remote work, and you genuinely never have problems. That's a smaller and smaller share of businesses every year.

Where managed wins: anything with regulated data, anyone who has had a phishing or ransomware scare, anyone with remote or hybrid staff, anyone whose owner is tired of being the help desk. For most Clark County businesses we talk to, managed is the right call by year two.

Frequently asked questions

Are you actually local?

Yes — Vancouver, WA. I founded the company here and run it from here. We can be on-site in Clark County or the Portland metro the same day for anything that requires hands. We have no offshore tier-1 helpdesk; tickets go to people who live here.

Do you support Mac shops?

Yes. Roughly a third of our managed endpoints are Macs. The plan is the same price.

What if my user is a heavy user — designer, developer, finance?

Same flat rate. Heavy users do generate more tickets, but it averages out across the fleet. We only renegotiate if a single user is generating 5+ tickets a week consistently, which is rare and usually points to a workflow problem we can solve.

Do you require a long-term contract?

No. After the 30-day pilot, we go month-to-month with 30-day notice either way. We don't believe in 36-month auto-renew traps. If the service isn't worth $99/user this month, it shouldn't be worth $99/user next month either.

What's your response time?

Same-day response, business hours. Critical issues (multiple users down, suspected security incident, payroll-day outage) jump the queue. Non-urgent tickets typically resolve same day or next day. We publish ticket data in the quarterly review so you can see actual numbers, not promises.

Can you take over from our current IT person or MSP?

Yes — we onboard from internal IT, freelancers, and other MSPs regularly. The hand-off is part of week 1. If your current provider is cooperative, it goes smoothly. If they aren't, we still get there; we've done both.

What industries do you focus on?

The bulk of our work is general SMB managed IT, with vertical specialization in construction firms in Clark County, light manufacturing, and warehousing/3PL operations. The plan is the same price across verticals; the depth of vertical knowledge means we don't bill you for our learning curve.

Where do I see the full menu?

Full service descriptions are on the services page, with prices and project floors on the pricing page. Both are kept current.

The right MSP price isn't the lowest one — it's the one where you understand exactly what you're getting and the math still pencils out two years from now. $99/user/month is what that math looks like for us, with the work above included and the work outside it priced separately.

Related reading: if your firm is in the trades, see IT for Clark County construction firms — jobsite Wi-Fi, Procore, ransomware risk. If you're not sure whether you've outgrown DIY IT yet, see 5 Signs Your Business Has Outgrown DIY IT.