How to Choose an MSP
Most businesses choose a managed service provider on two numbers: the monthly price and the promised response time. Both are easy to quote and neither tells you much. The questions that separate a good provider from an expensive one are the ones nobody puts on the first page of the proposal.
Who actually answers at 7pm?
Every provider says they offer after-hours support. Ask what that means in practice. Is it a person who knows your environment, a rotating on-call engineer working from a ticket, or an answering service that promises a call back? Ask what the escalation path looks like when the first person cannot fix it. The honest answer will tell you more about the firm than any brochure.
What is included, and what is billed separately?
This is where surprise invoices live. Monitoring, patching, user onboarding and offboarding, after-hours work, on-site visits, project work, licence management — each of these is either inside the agreement or outside it, and a provider who is vague about which is which has usually left the gaps in their own favour. Ask for the list in writing. A defined scope at a defined price is not too much to expect.
What happens if we leave?
Ask who owns the documentation, the domain registration, the licence tenants and the administrator credentials. The answer should be you, and it should be in the contract. A provider who cannot answer this question clearly is not managing your environment; they are holding it. The best test of a technology partner is how cleanly you could walk away from them — a good one makes that easy, because they are confident you will not want to.
How many clients do they have per engineer?
A provider running hundreds of clients through a small team has to run on tickets and scripts, and your account is a queue position. There is nothing wrong with that model at scale, but it is not what most established businesses are actually buying when they hire an MSP. If you want someone who already knows your environment when you call, ask how many environments each engineer is responsible for.
Will they tell you no?
The most useful question of all. Ask for an example of a time the provider told a client not to buy something, or not to do a project. A firm that only ever says yes is selling, not advising. Ask, too, whether they have ever turned a prospect away. Selectivity on their side is a good sign for you.
A short checklist
- A written scope with a fixed monthly figure and a clear list of exclusions
- A named person, not a queue, for day-to-day contact
- Documentation and credentials that belong to you, in the contract
- A defined after-hours path with real names attached
- Evidence they say no when it is the right answer
If you would like a second opinion on a proposal you have received, or on the provider you already have, we are happy to give one. It is confidential, and you keep whatever we find.