Guide
What IT support costs a small law firm in Florida
Here is the short answer: a small law firm working with IT First Response pays either $125 per hour for support as needed, or $125 per user per month for a managed plan that includes the day-to-day support. This guide explains what each of those actually buys, when hourly is the right choice, and what to ask any provider before you sign, because most will not show you a number until you sit through a sales call.
The two ways law firms pay for IT
Hourly, when something breaks. You call when there is a problem and pay for the time it takes to fix it. My commercial rate is $125 per hour with a one-hour minimum, including Microsoft 365 and Azure work. For a very small firm with rare problems, this is the cheaper month most months.
The catch is what hourly does not include. Between calls, nobody is watching your backups, applying patches, or noticing that an account was signed into from somewhere it should not be. And when something does break, the person triaging it is usually whoever at the firm is least busy, which at most small firms means a paralegal or an attorney. A firm sells time. An attorney spending an afternoon on a printer costs the firm more than the printer did.
A flat monthly plan. A managed plan turns IT into a fixed line item. You pay per person, the routine protection is automated, and day-to-day problems go to me instead of interrupting billable work. This is the model most providers sell as managed IT or managed services, and it is the model the rest of this guide prices out.
The number, and exactly what it buys
This is the actual plan card from my pricing page, not an example. Slide the seat count to your firm and the math updates.
Managed IT
$125per user, per month
Your estimate: $625per month, with 5 pooled support hours
One-time onboarding: $750, waived if you choose an annual term.
Covered by your plan
- Automated monitoring and alerting
- Automatic patching and updates
- Managed antivirus and ransomware protection
- Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace backup
- Account and device management
- One hour of remote support per user each month, pooled across your team
Billed at $125/hr
- Remote time beyond your monthly pool
- On-site visits
- After-hours and weekend work
- New-device or new-office projects and migrations
- Cabling and hardware
- Support for software outside your managed stack
I will always tell you before work moves into billable territory.
A five-person firm, worked out
Take a firm with two attorneys, two paralegals, and an office manager. Five users at $125 comes to $625 per month, and the firm has five pooled support hours each month for day-to-day issues during business hours. The pool belongs to the firm, not to individuals, so it does not matter whether one person uses all five hours or five people use one each, and it resets at the start of each billing month. Getting the five machines and accounts under management is a one-time $150 per user, $750 total, and that fee is waived if the firm chooses an annual term.
What makes the bill bigger than $625 in a given month: remote time beyond the five pooled hours, on-site visits, after-hours work, and projects such as an office move or a migration, all billed at $125 per hour. Projects are quoted up front so you approve the number before the work starts, and I will always tell you before anything moves into billable territory.
How to compare quotes from other providers
If you take nothing else from this page, take the questions. Any managed IT quote should be able to answer these in writing:
- What is covered by the monthly fee, and what is billed on top? The gap between those two lists is where surprise invoices live.
- Is there a seat minimum or a multi-year commitment? Many providers are built for offices of twenty seats and up, and a five-person firm ends up paying for a helpdesk sized for someone else.
- Who actually answers when we call? A named person, a queue, or an offshore desk are three very different products at the same price.
- Will you put the price on your website? If the answer is no, ask why the number changes depending on who is asking.
FAQ
Why is the price per user instead of a flat fee for the firm?
Each user adds a set of accounts and devices to manage and one pooled support hour, so the price scales with the size of the firm. A three-person firm pays $375 per month; a ten-person firm pays $1,250. There is no seat minimum, so the smallest firm pays the smallest bill.
Is there a seat minimum or a long contract?
No. There is no seat minimum and no multi-year lock-in. The annual term is optional, and choosing it waives the one-time onboarding fee of $150 per user.
What happens if we use more than our pooled support hours?
Time beyond your monthly pool is billed at $125 per hour, and I will always tell you before work moves into billable territory. The pool resets at the start of each billing month.
Does the monthly price include on-site visits?
No. The plan covers remote support and the management layer: monitoring, patching, antivirus and ransomware protection, backup, and account and device management. On-site visits, after-hours work, and larger projects are billed at $125 per hour.
Want the number for your firm without a sales call? The pricing page has the full breakdown, and the law firm page explains how an engagement starts, beginning with a free Security Check you can read in five minutes.