Side by side
| One in-house IT hire | CAL IT Group Managed Care | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual cost | About $105,000 in salary and benefits for one support specialist*, plus tools, training and recruiting | $179 per user / month for your first 100 users, then $149 for each additional user — all-inclusive, no onboarding fee |
| Staffed hours | One person’s schedule — usually 8 to 5 | Service desk staffed 5 AM–6 PM, Monday–Friday, with the same local team on call 24×7 for emergencies |
| Monitoring | When someone is at a desk | 24×7×365 NOC & SOC monitoring |
| Vacations, sick days, turnover | Support stops; knowledge leaves with the person | A full team and documented environment — no single point of failure |
| Expertise | One person’s skills, stretched across help desk, network, cloud and security | Help desk, network, cloud and security engineers, plus vCIO and vCISO guidance |
| Security tools | Bought and managed separately — about $46–$103 per user per month in software alone | Best-of-breed stack included: MxDR, SIEM, email security, MFA, DNS filtering, training |
| On-site support | Yes, if they’re in the office | Included — no dispatch or hourly charges |
| Accountability | Self-reported | SOC 2 Type II across all five Trust Services Criteria, and live, published response metrics |
* Average annual wage for computer user support specialists in the Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim area was $73,780 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2023). Benefits averaged 30% of employer compensation costs for private industry in June 2026 (BLS). Actual costs vary by role and experience.
The real cost of one IT hire
A salary is only the start. Add benefits, payroll taxes, recruiting, training and certifications, and the software every IT person needs — remote management, backup, security and documentation tools. Then add the cost of what one person can’t do: overnight monitoring, deep security expertise, coverage during vacations, and the time it takes to replace them when they move on.
For example, a 30-person company on Managed Care pays $5,370 a month — about $64,000 a year — for a full team, 24×7 monitoring, the security stack and strategic planning. That’s well below the cost of a single support specialist in Orange County, before any tools. Cost is only part of the case; our post on the main benefits of a managed service provider covers security, scaling and access to specialists.
The software, bought one tool at a time
For that same 30-person company, buying the tools Managed Care includes would cost roughly $1,375 to $3,100 a month in subscriptions alone — about $46 to $103 per user — before anyone is paid to run them:
| Included in Managed Care | Bought separately, per user / month |
|---|---|
| Endpoint protection (EDR)SentinelOne EDR on every computer | $5–$16 |
| 24×7 managed detection & responseSentinelOne-powered MxDR | $1–$4 |
| Managed SIEM + 24×7 SOCLog monitoring by a 24×7 SOC | $7–$16 |
| Vulnerability managementQualys internal + external scanning | $10–$18 |
| DNS content filteringCisco Umbrella | $1–$5 |
| Security awareness training & phishing testsTraining + simulated phishing for every user | $2–$4 |
| Browser securityDefensX browser isolation & phishing defense | $7–$17 |
| Remote management & patchingNinjaOne, OS and third-party patching | $6–$8 |
| Microsoft 365 / Google backupDropsuite backup of email, files and chat | $3–$8 |
| Server backup with cloud copyOn-site appliance + Azure replication | $2–$4 |
| Disaster-recovery failoverAzure Site Recovery | $0.83–$2 |
| Dark web monitoringAlerts when staff logins leak | $0.15–$0.72 |
| IT documentationRunbook and system documentation | $0.90–$2 |
| Software alone | about $46–$103 |
Typical prices for a 30-person company buying each tool itself, as of October 2026: vendors’ published list prices where they publish them, otherwise reputable estimates. Not included: the people to set up and watch these tools 24×7, backup hardware, and Microsoft licensing (MFA, Intune and Defender come with Microsoft 365 Business Premium). Several vendors require annual or multi-year contracts and minimum seat counts. Benchmarks: SentinelOne Singularity Complete list price; SentinelOne Vigilance MDR (third-party estimate; not published); Huntress Managed SIEM; Blumira Respond; Tenable Vulnerability Management (100-asset minimum); Qualys VMDR estimate; DNSFilter; Cisco Umbrella estimate; KnowBe4 Foundation–Advanced, 25–50 seats; Cloudflare Zero Trust + browser isolation (DefensX doesn’t publish prices); NinjaOne (third-party estimate; not published); Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365; Microsoft 365 Backup; Veeam Backup Essentials + Azure storage (hardware not included); Microsoft Azure Site Recovery, about $25 per protected server per month; Have I Been Pwned domain monitoring; Hudu, 1–2 admin seats.
When in-house IT makes sense
- You need someone physically on-site all day for specialized equipment or production systems.
- You have large, custom internal applications that need a dedicated owner.
- You’re big enough for a full IT department with specialists in each area.
Even then, most internal teams benefit from outside help with 24×7 monitoring, security and overflow — which is exactly what co-managed IT is for.
The best of both: co-managed IT
If you already have IT staff, you don’t have to choose. With co-managed IT, your team keeps the work they own and we add what they need: help desk depth, 24×7 NOC & SOC monitoring, best-of-breed security tools, documentation and project capacity. It’s scoped to your needs on a call.
Why businesses choose CAL IT Group
- No onboarding fee — our 60-day onboarding is included, and we can take over as soon as the next business day if needed.
- Longer hours — staffed 5 AM–6 PM, not 8 to 5.
- On-site support included — we never bill extra time to support your existing environment.
- Published pricing — see your price in seconds with our calculator.
Still comparing? Read break-fix vs. managed IT and our questions to ask an MSP, or download our service overview (PDF).