Reassuringly expensive MSPs grow faster, Kaseya study of 900 MSPs finds
Research also suggests that EMEA players are charging less than their North American or Asia-Pac counterparts
Just as no one likes to pick the cheapest bottle on the wine list, IT buyers are actually more likely to gravitate towards managed services providers (MSPs) who charge more for their services.
That's according to the latest annual MSP pricing survey from systems management software vendor Kaseya, which quizzed 920 MSPs globally, including 190 in EMEA.
Some 18 per cent of those polled said they favour a per-user model, with 34 per cent using a per-device model and 48 per cent using a model combining the two.
But whatever the model, MSPs who charge more for their services were more likely to be in the 44 per cent of respondents which Kaseya branded as ‘high-growth' outfits.
These are those respondents who said they have enjoyed average annual monthly recurring revenue growth over the last three years of 11 per cent or over.
For instance, for the per device model, overall 39 per cent of respondents charged less than $125 for server support and maintenance per month.
But for slower-growth MSPs the figure was much higher than for their faster-growing counterparts - 45 per cent versus 33 per cent.
Similarly, some 27 per cent of high-growth MSPs charged at least $201 on this score, compared with just 19 per cent for those in the slower-growing category.
For the per-user model, 65 per cent charged less than $100, but the figure again varied between the two categories (71 per cent for low growth versus 57 per cent for high growth), while some four per cent of high-growth MSP charged more than $160 on this score, compared with just one per cent for those enjoying more modest growth.
High-growth MSPs are also much more likely to charge higher rates for cloud services, the research found.
On a regional basis, EMEA MSPs were found to charge on average less than both North America- and Asia Pac-based counterparts (as a flavour, 79 per cent of EMEA MSPs charged less than $100 per user, per month, compared with just 58 per cent for North American MSPs and 71 per cent for Asia Pac operators).
Kaseya also noted that the faster-growing outfits are more likely to offer a more sophisticated menu of services, particularly in areas such as security, back-up and disaster recovery and networking and infrastructure monitoring.
"Basically, whenever there is a choice, high-growth MSPs choose to offer more options and more complete service suites," Kaseya stated.
"This market bifurcation can be attributed to the current profound transformation in the MSP market as merger and acquisition activity reshapes the industry while, at the same time, SMB prospects demand complex new services such as layered security, cloud services, and network monitoring."