Having trouble pricing a solution per user? Here's what you need to do.

Do you bill by the number of supported computers and servers? Do you bill for block hours? Do you bill per user? If you are billing per user, how do you get to that number? We will discuss why we think MSP per user pricing or flat rate is the way to go and a methodology that you can use to calculate the right number for your business.

Why is pricing per user ideal for MSPs?

There are a few reasons per-user billing usually works out well for managed service providers (MSPs). One is ease of use. It is easy to sell and simple for clients to understand. I have seen competitors with a pricing model that is so complicated that you need a degree in accounting to understand it. That can be very off-putting to clients. Simple is better, especially when talking about MSP pricing with new clients.

There are additional benefits as well. When you use msp pricing per user and your client uses Active Directory, you can leverage software connectors that automatically true-up billing as users come and go. This keeps your managed services billing accurate while reducing the workload on your accounting team.

This software talks with your PSA to keep billing accurate and saves your accounting department time and effort. Your clients may appreciate it as well.

Per-user pricing also elicits less nit-picking from clients as well. Sometimes per device or hourly billing can have clients calling you every moment to add or remove devices or to dispute an hourly bill. They don’t like that it took John 1 hour to solve a problem with Steve solved it in 30 min. All the time involved costs something, and this can be another advantage of per-user pricing.

How does pricing per user work?

Per-user pricing works by assigning a fixed amount monthly for every person you support, no matter how many devices they use or how often they need help. Instead of juggling different device counts, hourly blocks, or complicated line items, this approach bases your MSP costs around the end user. It keeps managed services billing predictable for clients and much easier for your team members to manage.

To arrive at the right per-user price, you break the process into a few clear steps:

1. Determine your hard costs

Start with the non-negotiable expenses tied directly to each user. This usually includes:

• Your RMM and PSA licensing

• Antivirus or EDR tools

• Backup or cloud storage licenses

• Email security or other add-ons you bundle into your plans

These hard costs form the foundation of your managed services pricing per user.

2. Calculate your labor costs

Labor is often the biggest piece of the puzzle. This includes the fully burdened cost of your technical staff- salary, benefits, taxes, and overhead. Once you know what an hour of technician time costs you, look at how much support an average user typically requires to meet their different needs and deliver your value proposition.

If you have data, use it. For example, look at the total support hours logged for all clients over a year and divide it by the number of individual users. This gives you a realistic “hours per user” baseline, a key value metric.

3. Add your margin

After you have accounted for your hard costs and labor, add the margin you need to stay profitable and ensure sustainable growth. Many managed service providers aim for at least 30%, though this can vary based on your market and competition. Your margin ensures you can stay proactive, reinvest in tools, and avoid underpricing- one of the most common mistakes in MSP pricing.

4. Combine everything into a final per-user rate

When you put all the pieces together, the formula becomes straightforward:

Hard costs per user + labor cost per user + margin = monthly price per user

This clear model helps ensure your pricing aligns with the average MSP cost per user in your region and remains scalable as clients grow. You avoid debates about device counts, hourly charges, or one-off service disputes, and your clients appreciate the simplicity and predictability.

Cost of service delivery

When you’re trying to calculate what you need to charge on a per-user basis for support, you’ll need to start by knowing your hard costs. Hard costs are those that you’ll be incurring to deliver service to this client.

What do your RMM and PSA cost? If you’re providing AV to the client, what does that cost? If you’re providing backups, what is the cost of any associated licensing? Figure out all of those hard costs per user.

Labor is the next big thing you need to figure out costs on. What do you pay your engineers, including the cost of benefits? Knowing the actual cost of support enables you to build a profitable managed service provider pricing strategy rather than guessing and hoping it works out.

We typically refer to that as your fully burdened labor number. Take the time to write it all down and figure out all your labor costs to deliver service. What you’re trying to get at here is an average fully burdened cost for an hour of a technician’s time, which is the first step toward understanding your true costs.

How much will it take to support that client?

Next, it is time to dig into the data if you have any. Look across all your clients for how much time is spent working on their accounts each year. Divide that number by the total number of users you are supporting for the same period. This is the best approach which should give you an average hour per user number, which will enable you to calculate labor costs and understand what your customer needs.

We recognize that every network is different and that not all clients are created equal from a support needs perspective. What you’re trying to do here is just get a working average that helps you serve a wide range of customers. Once you have that number and all your hard costs, you should have a good idea of your total costs for delivering support on average.

At a larger MSP with a long track record of data, the numbers we pulled came out to 0.96 hours per user per month of support for unlimited remote support and to 1.34 hours per month per user for unlimited remote and unlimited onsite support. If you don’t have data to work with yet, those would probably get you in the ballpark.

Those numbers are worth pulling occasionally. We are seeing a trend right now of those hours per user going down as businesses migrate to more SASS applications and have fewer servers on-premise.

Margin

Most MSPs will want to include at least a 30% margin as a minimum on their deals. A little higher if you can get it. It will keep your earnings healthy so you can be proactive and serve your clients well, including both small business and enterprise customers. It also ensures your managed service provider rates remain competitive but profitable. After you have calculated all hard costs and labor costs, be sure to add in your desired margin for the right pricing strategy and ensure a healthy cash flow.

Final calculations

Time to do the math.

Hard Costs Per User + Fully Burdened Labor Costs Per User + Margin = Customer PriceThis will vary significantly depending on what part of the country you’re in and several other factors. I’ve seen per user pricing anywhere from $50-$200 per user per month. This is why you really need to run these numbers for your MSP to see where you need to be. I would also take a careful look at your competition and see if you can find out where they are at to ensure that you’re competitive and can make an informed decision.

Data helps

As your business matures and you collect more real-world data on clients in different industries, use it to your advantage. Once you have your typical average support cost number, it is great to help with pricing and devolopment. Some industries require fewer support hours, and therefore you can adjust their per-user cost accordingly and still make your required margins. We try to look at our existing clients that are most like a prospect in terms of network complexity and number of users. This can potentially give you an even more accurate forecast of labor hours than the average labor hours calculation. This can allow you to be more aggressive when you know there is competition on a deal.

What are the advantages of pricing per user?

Managed services pricing per-user gives them a cleaner, more predictable way to bill for their services. It removes complexity for clients while helping you maintain steady, scalable revenue.

• Simple for clients to understand: One user equals one price. No confusion, no complicated breakdowns, and far fewer questions during the sales process.

• Easy to scale: As clients hire or lose employees, you just adjust the user count. Billing stays accurate without chasing device lists or updates based on product usage.

• Reduces billing disputes: You avoid debates about whether a device should be billed, or whether a technician spent “too long” on a task. Everything is included in the per-user rate.

• Encourages clients to reach out for help: When support is bundled, clients don’t hesitate to call. That means problems are solved faster and don’t turn into larger issues.

• Creates more predictable revenue: User counts remain relatively steady month to month, giving you stable MRR and easier forecasting.

• Less administrative overhead: No more tracking devices or chasing down hourly tickets. Billing becomes cleaner and more efficient for your team.

All of these make per-user one of the most reliable models in modern managed services billing.

What are the disadvantages of pricing per user?

While per-user pricing simplifies a lot of things, it is not without its challenges. MSPs need to be aware of a few potential drawbacks so they can plan their pricing strategy carefully for their target market.

• Some users require far more support than others: Not every employee uses technology the same way. Power users, new hires, or employees working with specialized applications may generate more tickets, increasing your support hours without increasing your revenue.

• Complex networks aren’t always reflected in user counts: A client with 25 users and a heavy server load could demand more time and resources than a client with 40 users and a simple SaaS-based environment. A flat per-user fee might not capture that difference.

• Easy to underprice without solid historical data: New MSPs often guess their per-user rate before building a clear picture of their average support hours. If the guess is too low, the model becomes unprofitable quickly.

• Multiple devices per user add hidden workload: Even though you are pricing by user, each user might have two or three devices- laptops, desktops, tablets, phones- and each one still requires monitoring, patching, and troubleshooting.

• Regular review and adjustments are needed: If your costs rise, tools change, or clients start working differently, you may need to revisit your per-user rates. This can be a difficult conversation if clients expect the price to stay the same indefinitely.

5 Reasons why IT teams are choosing SuperOps for their services

IT teams are increasingly turning to SuperOps because it combines powerful features with simplicity, helping MSPs manage their operations more efficiently. Here is why so many teams are making the switch:

A unified platform

SuperOps is a unified PSA-RMM platform. This means teams no longer have to switch between multiple tools to manage tickets, track assets, or monitor performance. For example, tickets can be linked directly to assets from alert templates, streamlining workflows and reducing the risk of errors. The result is smoother operations and less time wasted managing separate systems, thus lowering MSP costs and reducing vendor sprawl.

 Automation powered by Monica AI

The platform leverages Monica AI to handle routine IT tasks, such as patch management, intelligent alerting, and automated remediation. This minimizes manual work, reduces false positives, and helps ensure that technicians focus on higher-value tasks. Automatic time tracking for tickets also ensures that every billable action is captured, preventing revenue leakage and improving overall profitability.

 Intuitive user interface

SuperOps is designed with the end user in mind. Its clean, modern interface makes navigation simple, enabling technicians to learn the platform quickly and become productive faster. The intuitive design encourages collaboration, reduces the learning curve for new staff, and ensures that teams can focus on resolving client issues rather than figuring out how the software works.

Detailed reporting for smarter decisions

SuperOps provides comprehensive reporting on both client IT environments and internal technician performance. These insights allow management to monitor SLA compliance, track contract profitability, and make data-driven business decisions. Real-time reports on time spent against SLAs, ticket resolution trends, and technician workload help MSPs identify areas for improvement and prevent revenue leakage.

Consolidation and cost savings

SuperOps significantly lowers the total MSP cost of ownership by replacing multiple tools with a single SaaS product. Functions like RMM, ticketing, billing, and scripting are all built into one system. This consolidation simplifies IT operations, reduces licensing costs, and helps MSPs keep their managed service provider pricing competitive. Thus giving teams more time to focus on delivering proactive, high-quality service to their clients.

Conclusion

There is some complexity in pricing managed services on a per-user basis. We think it is worth the time to do so. You will find yourself selling more deals with a simple, clean pricing model that prospective clients can easily understand and drives most value for your business. We hope these insights help you refine your managed services pricing per user approach and close more deals with confidence. Good luck, and happy selling!

Frequently asked questions

What does “pricing per user” mean for an MSP?

Pricing per user is a billing model where MSPs charge clients a fixed monthly fee for each individual user they support. Instead of counting devices or tracking hours, the fee covers all standard IT services for the number of people in the company. This approach simplifies billing, makes costs predictable for clients, and helps MSPs scale their services efficiently.

Why should MSPs consider per-user pricing?

Per-user pricing offers simplicity, transparency, and predictable revenue. Clients understand what they’re paying for, disputes over hours or devices are minimized, and billing scales naturally as the client grows. It also allows MSPs to automate tracking to meet their business goals, reduce administrative work, and focus on proactive support rather than micromanaging tickets, devices, or time entries.

Which pricing model should MSP choose?

The ideal pricing model depends on services offered, client needs, and profitability goals. Per-user pricing works well for recurring IT services, while per-device or hourly billing may suit specialized projects. MSPs often combine approaches and include tiered pricing, but per-user billing is typically easier for scaling, forecasting revenue, and maintaining clear, predictable contracts with clients.

What factors influence pricing?

Several factors affect per-user pricing, including labor costs, software licenses, service complexity, client environment, and desired profit margin. Regional market rates and competitor pricing also play a role in determining price points. Additionally, the number of devices per user, support hours required, and automation capabilities influence the final per-user rate, ensuring MSPs cover costs while staying competitive.