Uprite is a Texas managed IT alternative to Ighty Support for Dallas companies that need compliance evidence, vCIO planning, and support across three metros, not only structured cabling and physical security inside Dallas-Fort Worth. Ighty Support is a Carrollton-based MSP founded in 2011 that self-performs cabling, cameras, and access control, publishes $49 and $79 per-user tiers, and works month to month. Uprite has run Dallas managed IT since 1999 across Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. The right answer depends on whether your next 24 months are dominated by construction or by audits.
TL;DR. Ighty Support wins on physical build-out work and month-to-month flexibility. Its published $49 and $79 tiers sit below Uprite’s $91 to $138, but the two price lists are not measuring the same scope. Uprite carries compliance attestations, vCIO planning, and coverage in Houston and San Antonio. Pick by project, not by sticker.
Uprite vs Ighty Support at a glance
Both firms publish real numbers, which already puts them ahead of most of the 100-plus MSPs working Dallas-Fort Worth. The table lines up what a buying committee actually argues about. Read the last row first.
| Factor | Uprite | Ighty Support |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | Serving Texas since 1999 | Founded 2011 |
| Headquarters | Houston, with Dallas and San Antonio teams | Carrollton, plus a downtown Dallas office |
| Coverage | Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio | Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex |
| Client base | Texas SMB and mid-market across three metros | 500-plus DFW businesses since 2011 |
| Published pricing | Yes, $91 to $138 per user by tier | Yes, $49 and $79 per user, compliance tier by quote |
| Contract term | Term agreement with a first-year rate lock | Month to month, no lock-in |
| How you exit | 120-day satisfaction promise, out with no penalty | Cancel any month, money-back satisfaction guarantee |
| Response standard | Issues triaged in under 10 minutes | Under 5 minutes emergency, under 15 standard, with automatic SLA credits |
| After-hours cover | 24/7 on Fully Managed and IT Pro tiers | 24/7 NOC and help desk from the Managed+ tier up |
| Security | MDR and SOC monitoring, MSSP tier from $40 per user | MDR, SOC, and EDR added across 2025 |
| Compliance posture | SOC 2 Type 1 attested, HIPAA Seal of Compliance, CMMC and NIST 800-171 programs | HIPAA and PCI policy packs, compliance tier with evidence packs |
| Cabling, cameras, access control | Not a current Uprite service line | Self-performed in house, Texas license B19875 |
| Strategy layer | vCIO planning included on Fully Managed | Not published as a named service line |
| Vendor partners | Microsoft and Azure ecosystem | Microsoft, Cisco, Google Workspace, Ubiquiti |
| Third-party recognition | MSP 501 winner seven years running | 120-plus Google reviews at a 5.0 rating |
| Best fit | Regulated or multi-metro Texas companies that need evidence, strategy, and reach past DFW | DFW companies whose next big project is physical, with IT on the same invoice |
What Ighty Support does that most Dallas MSPs will not
Start with the thing they are genuinely good at, because it is unusual. Ighty Support runs structured cabling, security cameras, and access control with its own crews under a Texas alarm license, number B19875. Almost every other MSP in this market subcontracts that work. When your suite build-out needs Cat6 pulled, badge readers hung, and a server rack landed in the same six-week window, one vendor owning all of it is worth real money and real calendar time.
I have watched enough office moves go sideways to respect that. The usual failure is not technical. It is a cabling contractor blaming the network vendor while your staff works out of a conference room for a week. A single accountable party removes that fight entirely. Ighty has been doing it since 2011 out of Carrollton, with a second office downtown, and reports more than 500 DFW clients and 120-plus Google reviews at a 5.0 average. Those are good numbers and we are not going to pretend otherwise. You can read their scope on the Ighty Support about page.
One correction while we are here. Our own Dallas IT support roundup lists Ighty as founded in 2009. Their about page and their Clutch profile both say 2011, so 2011 is the number used here, and the roundup gets corrected. If you are evaluating Ighty for a Carrollton office, our Carrollton managed IT page covers what that submarket needs.
Read the tier, not the headline price
Here is where most comparisons of these two go wrong. Ighty publishes $49 per user for Essentials and $79 per user for Managed+. Uprite publishes $91, $110, and $138. Put those six numbers on a slide and Ighty wins by 40 percent. Put the scope next to them and the gap mostly disappears, because the tiers are not describing the same service. The only fix is a shared unit, which is why our Dallas IT support cost guide prices everything per resolved ticket.
Ighty says so themselves, which is the useful part. Their own Dallas IT support cost guide puts basic monitoring at $50 to $75 per user, standard managed IT at $100 to $150, and full managed IT at $150 to $175, and it lists on-site visits, after-hours emergency work, compliance consulting, and advanced disaster recovery as items usually billed on top. Their $49 tier is a monitoring tier by their own definition of the market. That is not a criticism. It is a scope boundary, and it is published, which is more than most Dallas MSPs manage.
The same honesty applies in our direction. Uprite’s $91 IT Essentials tier is capped at 8 support hours per user per month, ships the Microsoft Defender stack rather than a layered security bundle, and does alerting without after-hours response. Anyone who tells you their entry tier is a full program is selling. Here is what the two published ladders look like once you line them up by scope instead of by price.
| What you are actually buying | Ighty Support tier | Uprite tier |
|---|---|---|
| Business-hours remote help desk, patching, endpoint protection, alert-only monitoring | Essentials, $49 per user | IT Essentials, $91 per user, adding cloud infrastructure management, backup monitoring, and quarterly planning |
| 24/7 help desk and NOC, email security, MFA, vulnerability scanning, vendor and ISP coordination | Managed+, $79 per user | Remote IT Pro, $110 per user, adding monitored backup with restore testing and a written annual roadmap |
| All of the above plus on-site infrastructure work, vCIO planning, quarterly restore testing | Not published as a standard tier | Fully Managed IT, $138 per user |
| Risk and gap assessments, tabletop exercises, audit evidence packs | Compliance tier, custom quote | Included in Fully Managed, with an MSSP layer from $40 per user |
| Security-only stack with SIEM, SOC monitoring, threat intelligence, incident response | Sold inside the managed tiers | MSSP, $40 per user |
| Structured cabling, security cameras, access control | Self-performed, quoted per project | Not a current Uprite service line |
Run your own numbers before you accept either ladder. Our Dallas managed IT cost breakdown shows what the local market charges by scope, and the Uprite pricing page lists every tier with a first-year rate lock, meaning your rate cannot climb during year one. If you already have IT staff and only need the layers above them, co-managed IT starts at $100 per user and changes this math again.
Two different promises, a service credit or the door
Ighty publishes a sharper response standard than we do. Under 5 minutes for emergencies, under 15 for standard requests, with an automatic credit if they miss and no dispute process to sit through. Uprite triages in under 10 minutes and routes critical tickets straight to a senior engineer. On the raw published number, they win, and pretending otherwise would insult anyone who can read two web pages.
What differs is the remedy. A service credit refunds a slice of one month. Our 120-day satisfaction promise lets you leave the agreement entirely, with no early-termination fee and no slow-walking your credentials on the way out. Those protect against different failures. A credit covers a bad Tuesday. An exit clause covers a bad partner. Ask both providers which one they will put in writing, and ask what “response” means in their contract, because in this industry it usually means a human acknowledged your ticket, not that anyone started fixing it. Our Dallas response time benchmarks break down the difference between acknowledgement, triage, and resolution.
On contract structure, Ighty runs month to month with no lock-in. That is a real advantage if you have been burned before, and it is the honest answer for a company that wants to test a provider without a term. Our agreements carry a term with a rate lock, which trades some of that freedom for budget certainty and a guaranteed price in year one. Neither model is universally right. One protects your optionality. The other protects your forecast.
The question that actually settles this, cable or evidence
Strip away the marketing and the decision comes down to what dominates your next two years.
If it is physical, meaning a new suite, a warehouse expansion, camera coverage, badge access, a second location to wire, then a provider who self-performs that work is the shorter path. Ighty is built for exactly that job and we do not currently sell cabling or physical security, so we would be a worse fit for it.
If it is evidentiary, the calculus flips. A cyber insurance renewal that now asks for proof of MFA coverage. A hospital system pushing a business associate agreement at your practice. A prime contractor asking where you sit on NIST 800-171 before renewing a purchase order. In those rooms, nobody cares how fast the help desk answers. They want documentation, a named owner, and an assessment that predates the request.
That is where the profiles separate. Ighty publishes HIPAA and PCI policy packs and a compliance tier that includes gap assessments, tabletops, and evidence packs, which is genuinely more than most SMB MSPs offer. We could not find a published SOC 2 attestation, CMMC practice, or NIST 800-171 program on their site. Uprite holds a SOC 2 Type 1 attestation and a HIPAA Seal of Compliance, and runs a dedicated CMMC compliance program for Texas defense suppliers alongside our cybersecurity services. Ask any provider whether they hold the certification or merely support environments that need it. Those are very different sentences, and only one survives an auditor.
Coverage, one metroplex or three Texas metros
Ighty concentrates entirely on Dallas-Fort Worth, with engineers spread from Fort Worth to McKinney and drive times that keep on-site response tight. For a single-site DFW company, that concentration is a feature, not a limitation. Local density beats national reach every time somebody needs hands on a keyboard.
The question is what happens when you open a second office. Texas companies expand along I-45 and I-35 more often than they expand out of state, and a DFW-only provider means a new vendor search, a second contract, and two sets of documentation the day you sign a lease in Houston or San Antonio. Uprite staffs all three metros, so the same team, ticket queue, and security baseline follow you. If your footprint is DFW today and DFW in 2029, that advantage is worth nothing to you. Be honest with yourself about which one you are.
Which one should a Dallas business pick?
The honest split, by situation.
- Pick Ighty Support if your next 18 months include a build-out, a move, camera or badge-access work, or you want cabling and IT on one invoice. Also pick them if month-to-month terms are non-negotiable for you, or if your whole footprint sits inside Dallas-Fort Worth and will stay there.
- Pick Uprite if you face an audit, a cyber insurance questionnaire, a HIPAA or CMMC requirement, or a prime contractor asking for a NIST posture. Also pick us if you want vCIO planning in the base agreement, a 120-day no-penalty exit, or offices in more than one Texas metro.
- Get both proposals if you are still torn. Hand each provider the same scope sheet, ask for the response definition and the exit clause in writing, and compare tier to tier rather than price to price. That exercise takes an afternoon and it settles most of these decisions on its own.
One more filter that costs nothing. Ask who answers at 2 a.m. and how many people sit between that person and someone authorized to change your firewall. The answer tells you more about the next two years than any comparison table, including this one. For a wider field, see our roundup of the best managed IT services in Dallas.
Comparing Uprite and Ighty Support for your Dallas business?
Send us your headcount, your compliance requirements, and any proposal already on your desk. We will map it tier by tier against published Uprite pricing and tell you plainly if the other provider fits better. Call (866) 570-3065 or request your quote.
Questions Dallas buyers ask before they switch MSPs
Is Uprite a good alternative to Ighty Support in Dallas?
Yes, particularly for regulated or multi-site companies. Uprite carries a SOC 2 Type 1 attestation, a HIPAA Seal of Compliance, CMMC and NIST 800-171 programs, vCIO planning in the base agreement, and teams in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio rather than Dallas-Fort Worth alone.
How much does Ighty Support cost per user?
Ighty Support publishes two per-user tiers, Essentials at $49 per user per month and Managed+ at $79, with a third compliance tier priced by quote. Essentials covers business-hours remote help desk, patching, and alert-based monitoring. Managed+ adds a 24/7 NOC, email security, MFA, and vulnerability scanning.
Is Ighty Support cheaper than Uprite?
On the published headline numbers, yes. On scope, the comparison narrows considerably. Ighty’s own Dallas cost guide places full managed IT at $150 to $175 per user and lists on-site visits, after-hours work, and compliance consulting as extras, which puts its $49 and $79 tiers below a full program by its own market definition.
Does Ighty Support install structured cabling and security cameras?
Yes, and it does the work in house rather than subcontracting. Ighty holds Texas alarm license B19875 and self-performs structured cabling, commercial camera systems, and access control. Uprite does not currently sell those services, so a project centered on physical build-out is a better fit for Ighty.
Which provider is stronger for HIPAA or CMMC compliance?
Uprite, based on what each company publishes. Ighty offers HIPAA and PCI policy packs plus a compliance tier with gap assessments and evidence packs. Uprite holds a SOC 2 Type 1 attestation and a HIPAA Seal of Compliance and runs a dedicated CMMC and NIST 800-171 practice for Texas defense suppliers.
Does Ighty Support require a long-term contract?
No. Ighty runs month-to-month agreements with no lock-in and no exit penalty, which is a genuine advantage if you want to test a provider first. Uprite uses a term agreement with a first-year rate lock, trading some flexibility for a price that cannot rise during year one.
What happens if I switch to Uprite and it does not work out?
You leave inside 120 days with no penalty. The satisfaction promise covers no early-termination fee, no retention runaround, and no delay returning your data, documentation, and credentials. The risk of the switch sits with us for the first four months, which is roughly how long an honest evaluation takes.
