Ballpark figure for cloud server managed by MSP?
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Say you had a customer who wanted a VM hosted in the cloud and he wanted to run some open source software, for example nextcloud or something.
What would the ballpark monthly cost be for him to have an MSP manage the server for him?
Not including any setup and installation costs and not including any monthly costs for the actual cloud VM.
But making sure it's running, do security updates, manage backups, keep the open source software updated etc.
$100? $200? $300? $400? $500?
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It's so hard to say. But like $35 - $75 normally.
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Monitoring, patching, system updates, etc. isn't expensive. Let's use NextCloud as an example. Once set up.... all of the things mentioned would easily be done for $50/mo.
Some software will be much harder than others. And if you want changes, or app management that's another story. Say you want Zimbra or NextCloud and you want the contract to include making users and you have 10,000 users. Well, just the user creation / deletion time would be more than $50 a day, let alone a month. But even with 10K users, maintaining the VM and OS and app itself would take very little.
The app matters a lot here. Something like Apache would cost a lot less, Zimbra would cost more. NextCloud is a reasonable middle ground.
Now obviously this doesn't include the hosting cost or backup cost. Just the management cost.
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@scottalanmiller said in Ballpark figure for cloud server managed by MSP?:
Now obviously this doesn't include the hosting cost or backup cost. Just the management cost.
Yes, that was what I was thinking about.
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I do have an MSP client that we charge more. Two servers for $400/mo. But that's two physical hosts that they dictate and that we maintain the hardware (to a degree, it's still in a colo), the base OS, the app on top, and do all of the app management on top with a ton of tweaking and stuff. It's loads of time and they have admin access and we can blow through hours of work because of broken changes that they've made. So a bit different.
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As soon as I read the OP, I was thinking 1/2hour billable time. Though looks like Scott likely put it even lower than that.
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@Dashrender said in Ballpark figure for cloud server managed by MSP?:
As soon as I read the OP, I was thinking 1/2hour billable time. Though looks like Scott likely put it even lower than that.
If they were doing billable, then 30 minutes would definitely be needed. If doing a flat rate, I would estimate a bit less. Billable hours tend to have more overhead.
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@scottalanmiller said in Ballpark figure for cloud server managed by MSP?:
@Dashrender said in Ballpark figure for cloud server managed by MSP?:
As soon as I read the OP, I was thinking 1/2hour billable time. Though looks like Scott likely put it even lower than that.
If they were doing billable, then 30 minutes would definitely be needed. If doing a flat rate, I would estimate a bit less. Billable hours tend to have more overhead.
Well I was basing it on a billable rate... yeah assuming a flat rate, means less overhead - though for a single line item, one likely the tech still has to make anyway for their own accountability, I'm not sure what's saved.
What is NTG's typical billable rate for stuff like that? I would assume $150/hr or more.
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@Dashrender said in Ballpark figure for cloud server managed by MSP?:
@scottalanmiller said in Ballpark figure for cloud server managed by MSP?:
@Dashrender said in Ballpark figure for cloud server managed by MSP?:
As soon as I read the OP, I was thinking 1/2hour billable time. Though looks like Scott likely put it even lower than that.
If they were doing billable, then 30 minutes would definitely be needed. If doing a flat rate, I would estimate a bit less. Billable hours tend to have more overhead.
Well I was basing it on a billable rate... yeah assuming a flat rate, means less overhead - though for a single line item, one likely the tech still has to make anyway for their own accountability, I'm not sure what's saved.
What is NTG's typical billable rate for stuff like that? I would assume $150/hr or more.
If it was hourly, it would be somewhere likely north of $150. More like $175-$200. Depending. But flat rates are really very distant from hourly. Flat rates are more related to salary rates than to consulting rates.
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Another thing you could do is put all nextcloud data into s3. You could then run automatic updates on the instance. If the instance ever shits the bed you can automate rebuild and connect it to S3.
Essentially still doing server maintenance but with alot less time involved and better reliability for the client. Then you bill them as you see fit for the management value.
It's fairly inexpensive, too. Let's say about $20 a month for instance and $5.99 a month for a TB in wasabi.
