Houston managed IT — published prices, full math.

Because the alternative — 'request a quote' on every page — is the polite version of 'our number is bigger than the competitor's published number, and we don't want it on the same page where it can be compared.' We surveyed 18 Houston MSPs in April 2026; one of them publishes real per-user dollar figures. The other 17 use the same 'Schedule Discovery Call' gate. We'd rather put the math on the page than burn a discovery call on someone who would have walked away once they saw the number anyway.

Houston MSP managed IT runs roughly $75–$250 per user per month depending on what's included. $125 lands mid-market on the headline number. What moves a buyer up or down that range is the stack: MSPs at the lower end ($75–$100) typically don't bundle EDR, managed backup, identity threat detection, AI activity monitoring, or Microsoft 365 backup — those get charged as add-ons after the contract is signed. MSPs at the higher end ($200+) usually do include those items but don't publish the total anywhere public. Mako is priced mid-market with upper-market inclusions because we pass vendor partner discounts through to you rather than keeping them as margin.

Because every business needs a different M365 SKU. A construction company can run on Business Basic at $6/user. A multi-location healthcare practice needs Business Premium at $22/user for Defender + Intune + Compliance. A petrochemical firm with TWIC contractors might need E5 at $57/user for advanced compliance and identity protection. Bundling M365 into our fee would either force you onto the wrong tier or hide the cost in a way that benefits us, not you. We help you pick the right SKU; you buy it through our partner AppRiver at Microsoft's published rate; AppRiver bills you direct.

Yes — AppRiver pays Mako a small partner commission on every M365 license and Azure-spend dollar. The price you pay is the same as buying anywhere else (Microsoft sets the rates, AppRiver passes them through at MSRP). We disclose this because the whole point of this pricing page is that you should know where the money goes. A commission you didn't know about is functionally the same as a markup you couldn't see — and we'd rather you know.

No. ThreatDown, Acronis, Keep Aware, Huntress ITDR, Huntress Managed Security Awareness, MXSnap — all included in the $125 per-user fee at our wholesale partner cost. We earn on the labor and the relationship, not on a hidden license markup. The vendor partnerships we hold (direct ThreatDown partner, Acronis partner, Huntress partner) get us better wholesale rates that we absorb into the $125 rather than pad our margin with.

A managed server is closer to a 24/7 critical-infrastructure engagement than a desktop. Standard at $275/server/month covers monitoring, patching, backup, EDR, performance review. Compliance-heavy at $400 adds audit-grade logging and evidence retention for HIPAA / CMMC / PSM / CFATS workloads. Bunker-hosted at $600 includes Tier III colocation in the Westland Bunker — a real data center we work inside of every day.

Two reasons. First, we standardize on Cisco Meraki for every client — one vendor, one cloud dashboard, one Cisco ticket path. That standardization means the ongoing work is largely in the dashboard, not in box-by-box hands-on tuning. Second, we pass through our Cisco partner wholesale on the license rather than holding it as margin — so your Meraki license cost (a 1, 2, or 3-year term match with your MSA) is a separate line on your bill, and the $50 is pure Mako labor: policy changes, dashboard monitoring, firmware patching, config backups, named Cisco escalation. An MSP that quotes you $150/mo 'all-in' for a managed firewall is usually bundling a license markup into that number without itemizing. We'd rather show the math.

Because they don't change. Once an AP or switch is specified correctly, deployed, and configured, it sits there and does its job. Firmware updates happen on a vendor cycle. Config changes are rare. The ongoing 'managed' work on a switch or AP is real but not recurring — we patch, monitor, back up configs, and open tickets with the vendor when firmware goes sideways, but that activity doesn't justify a monthly line item. You pay for the hardware (passed through at our wholesale, no markup) and the project labor to deploy it. After that, it's absorbed into your per-user fee. Most Houston MSPs charge $10-$30 per switch and $5-$20 per AP every month. We think it's hard to justify invoicing you every month for something that never changes.

Practically, the model fits best for businesses at 10 users and up. Below that, our minimum starts to look like a high per-user rate because the underlying engineering cost doesn't scale linearly. If you're under 10 users we'll have a straight conversation about whether co-managed support, a single project engagement, or a referral to someone better-suited makes more sense for you.

Not as a one-off. We don't do break-fix or non-contract emergency work. The reason: post-incident response done well requires a real engagement (forensic preservation, environment hardening, ongoing monitoring) — and a one-off engagement for the IR phase only leaves you in the same vulnerable state two months later. If you're in active crisis, we'll refer you to an incident-response specialist firm that does that work as a focused engagement. If you want long-term IT under a managed agreement after the dust settles, that's a different conversation — we're often the right fit for that. Call us either way.

No, and we're upfront about why. Most of your monthly cost is vendor pass-through — EDR, SIEM, backup, email security. We sign term commitments with those vendors to lock in bulk pricing and pass the discount through to you. A longer commitment on your side gets you a better rate on ours. We offer 1, 2, and 3-year agreements with no mid-term exit; everything is spelled out in writing before you sign.

Yes. We offer a standalone Risk Review for businesses that aren't ready to switch MSPs but want an honest second opinion on their current security posture. Project work (M365 migrations, office moves, compliance gap audits) is also available as one-time engagements — quoted against the actual scope. See /services/cybersecurity/risk-review for the Risk Review specifically.

Within reason — we adjust at renewal to reflect vendor cost changes (Microsoft, Huntress, Acronis, etc. raise their wholesale rates over time) and to reflect any new tools added to the standard stack. We don't surprise you mid-contract; mid-contract pricing is locked.