“How much does IT support cost?” is the first question every business owner asks — and the honest answer is: it depends on how you buy it. Here are the three common models in Australia and what each really costs.
1. Break/fix (pay by the hour)
You call when something breaks and pay $120–$200+ per hour. It feels cheap until something serious happens — and because the provider only earns when you have problems, there’s no incentive to prevent them.
2. Managed IT services (fixed monthly fee)
A flat monthly fee — typically per user or per device — covers monitoring, maintenance, security and unlimited support. Costs are predictable, and the provider profits by preventing issues rather than billing for them. For most Melbourne SMBs this lands between a part-time IT hire and a full-time one, with far broader coverage.
3. In-house IT staff
A dedicated IT employee costs $80k–$120k+ plus super, leave and tooling — and one person can’t cover security, cloud, networking and helpdesk around the clock. In-house makes sense at scale; most businesses under ~80 staff get better coverage from a managed provider.
Which model fits you?
If IT downtime costs you money or you handle sensitive client data, fixed-fee managed IT almost always wins on total cost of ownership. Ask any provider to quote a flat monthly figure and show exactly what’s included.
Get a transparent fixed-fee quote from DomainIT — managed IT services in Melbourne, call 03 9122 5224.