Co-managed IT in Canada is almost always quoted as a monthly fee, either per user, per device or as a flat amount for a defined scope. The final number depends less on a published rate than on how much work your internal team keeps and how much the provider takes. Because the split is different for every business, any single “average price” tells you very little. What matters is knowing which fee model you are being offered, what sits inside it and what sits outside.
This guide explains the pricing models, the factors that move a quote, the extras that surprise buyers and a practical way to compare proposals. NetFusion Designs does not publish co-managed rates, so you will not find a made-up price here. You will find the questions that produce a number you can trust.
Co-managed IT is an arrangement in which an outside provider shares IT work with an in-house team, while in a fully managed model the provider runs most or all of IT. In practice, your IT lead or small team keeps the work they are good at: knowing your people, your line-of-business software and your priorities. The provider adds what is hard to staff: round-the-clock monitoring, security operations, tooling, backup management, escalation engineers and cover for holidays and sick days.
That difference is the heart of the pricing question. A fully managed plan has to price in the helpdesk, the onboarding of every new hire and the routine fixes. A co-managed plan can leave those with you and charge only for the pieces you hand over. For a detailed look at where the line falls, see our page on co-managed versus fully managed IT and our explainer of co-managed IT for Canadian SMBs.
There are four common ways to structure the fee. Most proposals use one of them or a blend.
| Fee model | How it works | Best fit | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per user, per month | One rate multiplied by the number of people you employ | Offices where headcount drives the workload | Whether part-time staff, contractors and shared mailboxes count as users |
| Per device, per month | A rate for each workstation, server or network device | Environments with many shared or kiosk machines, such as plants and clinics | How servers, printers, firewalls and phones are counted |
| Tiered bundle | Fixed packages (for example, monitoring only, monitoring plus security, full stack) | Teams that want a clear menu | What each tier excludes, and the cost of moving up |
| Flat fee for a defined scope | A set monthly amount for named services such as 24/7 monitoring and security operations | Teams whose in-house staff cover everything else | What happens when scope grows mid-term |
Co-managed deals also often combine a recurring fee with a block of project hours or an hourly rate for work outside the agreement. That is normal. What you need is for the boundary between “covered” and “billable” to be written down in plain language.
If your headcount is stable and each person uses one or two devices, per-user pricing is simple to budget. If you run a manufacturing floor with shared terminals, or a clinic with many workstations per employee, per-device pricing usually reflects the real workload better. Ask for the quote both ways if the provider allows it, then see which one matches how your business actually uses technology.
The services below are the building blocks of most co-managed agreements. Your quote may include some and exclude others, which is exactly why two proposals with the same headline price can differ widely in value.
Often included in the recurring fee
Frequently billed separately
At NetFusion Designs, co-managed IT sits alongside ad-hoc support, emergency support and outsourced IT, so a business can start with the portion it needs and adjust later. Our own security offering covers managed anti-virus with EDR, 24/7 SOC and MDR, and penetration testing, which are the services co-managed clients most often hand over first.
Six factors move a co-managed quote more than anything else.
Multi-location businesses should also ask whether each site is priced separately. Network equipment, local circuits and on-site visits can differ by office.
The honest comparison is not price against price. It is what each model leaves you responsible for.
| Internal team only | Co-managed | Fully managed | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who handles daily requests | Your staff | Your staff, with provider escalation | Provider |
| 24/7 monitoring and security operations | You build it or go without | Provider | Provider |
| Cover for absences and turnover | Gap in service | Provider fills it | Provider |
| Tooling and licences | You buy and maintain | Provider’s stack, usually included | Provider’s stack |
| Main cost | Salaries, benefits, training, tools | Your team plus a provider fee | Provider fee |
| Main risk | Single points of failure | Unclear division of tasks | Less in-house knowledge |
A useful starting figure for the in-house side is wages. Job Bank reports a median wage of $35.71 per hour for computer network technicians in Ontario. Over a standard 2,080-hour year, that is roughly $74,300 in wages before benefits, payroll costs, training, tools and vacation cover. One person also cannot watch your network overnight. That is the gap co-managed IT fills. For a local worked example, see our outsourced versus in-house IT cost breakdown for Toronto.
The example below uses invented round numbers to show the method. It is not a price list and not a quote.
Imagine a 40-person professional services firm with one IT administrator. The administrator handles onboarding, the helpdesk and vendor calls, but cannot cover nights, has no security tooling and takes holidays. The firm wants three things from a provider: 24/7 monitoring, managed endpoint security and escalation support.
The total is the real annual cost: twelve months of the recurring fee, plus onboarding, plus project time you expect, plus licences. Comparing that total to the cost of hiring a second technician and buying the same tools shows where co-managed pays off. It will not pay off for every business, and a fair provider will tell you when your needs fit another model.
Use these to turn a proposal into something you can compare.
If a provider answers a pricing question with “it depends” and stops there, ask what it depends on. A good answer names the variables. A good proposal puts them in the contract.
We see the same pattern in Ontario SMBs. A capable internal IT person, sometimes two, is stretched across helpdesk tickets, security alerts and projects, and nobody is watching at 2 a.m. Co-managed IT works when we treat that person as the owner of the relationship with the business and take on the work that is hard to staff: monitoring, security operations, backup verification and escalation.
We prefer pricing that is predictable and in plain language. Before we quote, we want to know what your team does well, what keeps them up at night and which compliance obligations you answer to. That conversation decides the scope, and the scope decides the price. A number given before that conversation is a guess.
Our team is SOC 2 Type II certified, we run a 24/7 NOC and we manage our infrastructure in-house, so you are not left coordinating a chain of third-party vendors. If you later want us to take over more, the same relationship scales from co-managed to fully managed without starting over.
Geeshan
We scope co-managed IT around what your internal team already does well, then add the 24/7 monitoring, security and escalation support you are missing. You get a plain-language proposal with the covered services, the billable extras and the onboarding plan listed.
See how co-managed IT and our other support options work, or contact NetFusion Designs to discuss your environment. If you are comparing models, our managed IT services pricing guide and the 2026 Canadian managed IT guide go deeper on fully managed plans.
There is no single rate, because the fee follows the scope you hand over, your user and device count and your security needs. Online ranges for managed IT are wide and mostly describe fully managed plans, which cost more than co-managed ones for the same headcount. The reliable way to get a figure is to ask for a written quote based on a defined service list.
Often the recurring fee is lower, because your internal team keeps tasks such as the helpdesk and onboarding. That saving only holds if your staff have the time to do that work. If they are overloaded, the cost shows up as slow response and missed alerts rather than on the invoice.
Onboarding, projects, hardware, software licences, on-site visits and penetration testing are commonly billed separately. Ask for these to be listed in the proposal with their rates so that nothing is a surprise in the first year.
Yes. Many businesses start co-managed and hand over more as they grow or when their IT lead leaves. A provider that documents your environment during onboarding makes that change much easier.
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