A 25-person Texas company pays roughly $45,000 to $52,500 a year for fully managed IT. A 50-person company pays $66,000 to $75,000. A 100-person company pays $122,000 to $131,000 before compliance work. Those gaps are not proportional, and the reason is worth 5 minutes of your time.
Fully managed IT services in Texas run $150 to $175 per user per month at 25 people, $145 to $165 at 50, and $130 to $140 at 100. The rate falls as you grow. Then Texas SB 2610 pushes companies past 100 employees into a stricter control tier, and the per-user number climbs back above where it started. Budget the curve, not the quote.
What managed IT costs at 25, 50, and 100 users in Texas
Managed IT cost per user is the recurring monthly fee an MSP charges for each supported employee, covering help desk, monitoring, patching, backup and a baseline security stack. In Texas it is the dominant billing unit, and it moves with headcount, security depth and industry.
Here is what the three most common planning sizes actually price out to. The per-user rates come from our Texas MSP Pricing Index, which tracks live quotes across Houston, San Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth rather than a national average someone rounded off.
| Company size | Typical Texas rate per user | Monthly managed fee | Annual managed fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 people | $150 to $175 | $3,750 to $4,375 | $45,000 to $52,500 |
| 50 people | $145 to $165 | $5,510 to $6,270 | $66,120 to $75,240 |
| 100 people | $130 to $140 | $10,140 to $10,920 | $121,680 to $131,040 |
Two things in that table surprise most buyers. The first is that the 50-person and 100-person rows are billed on 38 and 78 users, not 50 and 100. The second is that the per-user rate drops about 20% between the top row and the bottom one, which sounds like good news until you get to what Texas law does at exactly 100 employees.
Both of those deserve their own section. Start with the user count, because getting it wrong is the single most expensive mistake in this whole exercise.
Your headcount is not your user count
Per-user pricing bills for supported people, not for everyone on payroll. A field crew that shares 3 jobsite tablets is not 22 users. A warehouse floor running 4 wall-mounted terminals and a rack of scan guns is not 12 users. Most MSPs will price it correctly if you make them count, and most will quietly price on headcount if you do not.
These are the three profiles the rest of this article uses. They are composites drawn from the kinds of Texas companies we quote most often, and the user ratios are the realistic part.
| Profile | Headcount | Billable users | Why the gap | SB 2610 tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Professional services firm, Houston | 25 | 25 | Everyone sits at a desk with their own laptop | 20 to 99 |
| Distributor with a warehouse, Fort Worth | 50 | 38 | 12 floor staff share 4 terminals and scan guns | 20 to 99 |
| Engineering and construction firm, San Antonio | 100 | 78 | 22 field staff share jobsite tablets | 100 to 249 |
The money line. That Fort Worth distributor priced on 50 seats instead of 38, at $155 per user, pays $93,000 a year instead of $70,680. The gap is $22,320 annually for a difference nobody would notice on a proposal cover page. Ask every provider to show you their seat count before you compare their rates.
One honest caveat on our own advice. Shared-terminal users still generate tickets, still need patching and still sit inside your security perimeter, so a provider who agrees to bill 38 seats is usually pricing those seats slightly higher to cover the work. That is fair. What is not fair is charging a full seat rate for a scan gun.
The 25-person company, where you pay the small-team premium
At 25 people you are past every plan minimum in this market and you have almost no leverage on rate. The MSP still needs the same monitoring platform, the same security stack, the same on-call rotation and the same documentation effort it needs for a company 4 times your size. That fixed cost gets spread across 25 seats instead of 100, so your per-user number sits at the top of the Texas band.
Our own published rate for Fully Managed IT is $138 per user per month, which puts a 25-person firm at $3,450 monthly and $41,400 a year. The wider Texas market at $150 to $175 puts the same company between $45,000 and $52,500. That spread of roughly $11,000 a year is scope, not generosity, and the way to tell the difference is to read what each proposal excludes.
What you generally cannot buy yet at this size is a dedicated engineer who knows your environment by heart. You get a pooled team and a documented environment, which is honestly the better trade at 25 people. What you should not accept is a plan that excludes endpoint detection and response or security awareness training, because your cyber insurance underwriter is going to ask about both. Our breakdown of what managed IT actually includes is the line-item version of that conversation.
The 50-person company, the best per-user economics you will get
The 50-person band is where the math gets genuinely friendly. You are large enough that the provider is spreading fixed cost across a real seat count, and small enough that you have not triggered the compliance step change waiting at 100. Rates in the $145 to $165 range are normal, and a provider who quotes you $180 at this size is either carrying compliance scope or hoping you will not check.
For our Fort Worth distributor at 38 billable users, that works out to $5,510 to $6,270 a month, or $66,120 to $75,240 a year. On our published $138 rate the same environment lands at $5,244 monthly and $62,928 annually. DFW skews to the top of the Texas range because the labor market there is tighter, which our Dallas managed IT cost breakdown covers in more detail. A comparable San Antonio company usually prices 5% to 10% lower, and Houston sits between the two.
This is also the size where owners start asking whether they should just hire someone. It is a reasonable question at 50 people and a worse idea than most guides admit. The numbers are further down.
The 100-person company, where the rate drops and the bill goes up anyway
At 78 billable users the per-user rate falls to $130 to $140 for standard fully managed support. That is $10,140 to $10,920 a month, or $121,680 to $131,040 a year. Compared to the 25-person firm you are getting the same service for about 20% less per head. Volume finally worked.
Then the other force shows up. Once a Texas business crosses 100 employees it moves into a higher tier under the state cybersecurity safe harbor law, and the controls that tier expects are the ones that live in an MSP premium plan rather than a standard one. Compliance management, formal framework documentation, vCIO governance and evidence retention stop being add-ons and become the product.
Premium tier pricing in Texas runs $175 to $225 per user. At 78 users and $200, that is $15,600 a month and $187,200 a year, against $126,360 at the standard mid rate. The step costs roughly $60,000 annually, and it arrives in the same year your per-user rate finally got cheap.
The curve is a J, not a slope. From 25 to 100 employees the per-user rate falls about 20%. Then the framework tier adds 40% to 60% back on top. A 100-person Texas company on a compliance-grade plan often pays more per user than the 25-person firm it was benchmarking against. Plan the budget around the step, not the discount.
What Texas law adds when you cross 100 employees
Texas Senate Bill 2610 took effect on September 1, 2025. It shields businesses with fewer than 250 employees from punitive damages in breach litigation, but only if a qualifying cybersecurity program was already in place when the breach happened. According to the Spencer Fane analysis of the statute, what qualifies is scaled to headcount in 3 bands.
| Employees | What the safe harbor expects | What that means for your IT budget |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer than 20 | Basic documented measures such as password policy and employee training | Baseline managed IT covers it |
| 20 to 99 | CIS Controls Implementation Group 1, 56 foundational safeguards | Standard tier with EDR, MFA and tested backup |
| 100 to 249 | A recognized framework such as NIST CSF or ISO/IEC 27001 | Premium tier with compliance management and formal documentation |
That third row is the whole story of this article. A 99-person company and a 101-person company are quoting the same help desk and buying different products. IG1 is a control checklist your MSP can implement and largely operate for you. NIST CSF and ISO 27001 are governance programs with risk registers, policy sets, review cycles and evidence you have to be able to produce on demand. Somebody has to own that, and at 100 people it is rarely somebody already on your payroll.
Where we would push back on our own framing. Safe harbor only blocks punitive damages. Compensatory damages, regulatory enforcement and the actual cost of the incident all survive it, so nobody should adopt a framework purely as a litigation shield. The better reason is that the same controls are what cyber underwriters now verify. Insurers in 2026 expect MFA, EDR across endpoints, immutable tested backups, a written incident response plan and security awareness training as minimums, with evidence rather than a checkbox. You are buying that anyway. SB 2610 just tells you when. Our Texas SB 2610 compliance guide walks the qualifying criteria in full.
Should you hire someone instead
Nearly every guide on the internet says the crossover happens somewhere around 50 employees. Run the actual Texas numbers and it does not.
The average systems administrator salary in Texas is $84,532, based on 486 job postings and updated in August 2026. Fully loaded with payroll taxes, benefits, tooling and paid time off, budget 1.25 to 1.4 times that figure, so $106,000 to $118,000 before that person has monitored a single endpoint.
| Company size | Fully managed IT, annual | 1 internal hire, fully loaded | Internal hire plus co-managed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 people, 25 users | $48,000 | $106,000 to $118,000 | $136,000 to $148,000 |
| 50 people, 38 users | $70,680 | $106,000 to $118,000 | $151,600 to $163,600 |
| 100 people, 78 users | $126,360 | $106,000 to $118,000 | $199,600 to $211,600 |
Read the middle column carefully, because it is not an alternative. One person does not cover nights, weekends, vacations or a ransomware event at 2am, and no single hire carries network, cloud, security and help desk depth at once. That column is a floor, not a replacement, which is why the honest comparison is the right-hand one.
And the right-hand column loses at all 3 sizes. Even at 100 people, hiring an administrator and layering co-managed support on top runs about $75,000 more than fully managed. So the rule that actually holds is simpler than the usual advice.
The decision rule. Co-managed IT makes sense when the internal salary is already on your books. It almost never makes sense to create the role in order to save money at 25, 50 or 100 people. If you already employ that person, co-managed at $100 per user beats fully managed by roughly $35,000 a year at 78 seats. If you do not, hiring one to cut costs moves the number the wrong way.
The reasons companies at 100 people genuinely do go co-managed are control, response speed and having somebody physically present who owns the relationship with the business. Those are good reasons. Cost is not one of them, and we would rather say so than sell you the more expensive structure. Our guide to co-managed IT in Texas covers how the split is normally drawn.
What the per-user rate never includes
Every number above is the recurring managed fee. Three more line items land on top of it, and the first-year total is where budgets break.
- Software licensing. Microsoft lists Microsoft 365 Business Basic at $7 per user per month and Business Premium with Copilot at $32 on an annual subscription. Add cloud backup, email security and a password manager and most Texas SMBs land at $30 to $50 per user per month all in.
- Onboarding. Budget $50 to $250 per user as a one-time charge. Clean environments sit near the bottom of that range and neglected ones near the top, which means the fee is partly a verdict on your current setup.
- Project work. Migrations, office moves and hardware refreshes are quoted separately at every provider. First-year project spend runs roughly $5,000 to $15,000 at 25 people, $10,000 to $25,000 at 50, and $20,000 to $50,000 at 100.
Stack those on the mid-band managed fee and the first-year all-in looks like this.
| Company size | Managed fee | Licensing | Onboarding | Projects | Year 1 all-in | True cost per user |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 people | $48,000 | $12,000 | $3,750 | $5,000 to $15,000 | $68,750 to $78,750 | $229 to $263 |
| 50 people | $70,680 | $18,240 | $5,700 | $10,000 to $25,000 | $104,620 to $119,620 | $229 to $262 |
| 100 people | $126,360 | $37,440 | $11,700 | $20,000 to $50,000 | $195,500 to $225,500 | $209 to $241 |
The pattern holds across all 3 sizes. Whatever per-user rate you are quoted, the number your CFO eventually reports is roughly 1.4 to 1.6 times higher, drifting toward 1.8 at 100 people because project work scales faster than headcount does. Our San Antonio IT buyers guide first worked out that multiple, and it has held up everywhere we have tested it since. Steady-state years drop the onboarding line and usually the project line, so year 2 typically lands 15% to 20% below year 1.
How to pressure test a quote at your headcount
Run these 6 checks against every proposal on your desk. They take about 20 minutes and they surface almost every gap that turns into an invoice later.
- Get the seat count in writing. Ask how many billable users the quote assumes and how shared terminals, kiosks, contractors and service accounts are treated. Compare that number to your payroll before you compare rates.
- Ask which SB 2610 tier they scoped you into. If you are near 100 employees and the proposal does not mention a framework, either the scope is missing or you are about to buy it twice.
- Separate licensing from the managed fee. A rate that quietly bundles Microsoft 365 looks competitive until you try to compare it against one that does not.
- Get the exclusion list, not just the inclusion list. The gap between the 2 lists is where surprise invoices live, and a provider who will not write the exclusions down has told you something.
- Price the growth case. Ask what happens to the per-user rate at plus 20% headcount and at minus 20%. A quote that only works at today’s exact seat count is not a 36-month agreement.
- Convert everything to annual all-in. Managed fee plus licensing plus onboarding plus a realistic project allowance. Only then are you comparing the same thing. Our breakdown of MSP pricing models shows how to normalize quotes built on different billing units.
Want the number for your actual headcount?
Send us your employee count and how many of them need a full seat. We will show you the per-user math line by line, tell you which SB 2610 tier you fall into, and say so when the cheaper plan is the right one. Every Uprite rate is published, locked for 12 months from signing, and backed by a 120-day satisfaction guarantee.
Cost questions Texas buyers actually ask
How much does managed IT cost for a 50-person company in Texas?
Budget $66,000 to $75,000 a year for fully managed IT at 50 employees, assuming roughly 38 billable users. That works out to $145 to $165 per user per month. Add licensing at $30 to $50 per user and the first-year all-in lands near $105,000 to $120,000.
Why does my 100-person quote cost more per user than a smaller company was quoted?
Because you crossed a compliance line, not a volume line. Texas SB 2610 expects businesses with 100 to 249 employees to run a recognized framework such as NIST CSF or ISO 27001, and that work sits in an MSP premium tier at $175 to $225 per user rather than the $130 to $140 standard tier your seat count would otherwise earn.
Should a 50-person company hire an IT person or use an MSP?
Use the MSP, on cost alone. Fully managed support for 38 users runs about $70,680 a year in Texas, while one systems administrator costs $106,000 to $118,000 fully loaded and still cannot cover nights, weekends or specialist work. Hire when you need someone physically present and accountable, not to save money.
Does an MSP charge per employee or per user?
Per user, and the difference matters. Shared terminals, kiosks, scan guns and jobsite tablets should not each carry a full seat rate. A 50-person distributor with 12 warehouse staff on shared devices is usually 38 billable seats, and pricing it as 50 costs about $22,000 more a year.
What is a realistic first-year IT budget for 25 employees?
Between $68,750 and $78,750 all in. That is roughly $48,000 in managed fees, $12,000 in Microsoft and security licensing, $3,750 in one-time onboarding, and $5,000 to $15,000 in project work. Year 2 normally drops 15% to 20% once onboarding falls away.
Is $125 per user too cheap for a Texas MSP?
It can be legitimate at 100-plus seats, and it is a warning sign at 25. At the small end that rate usually means endpoint detection, security awareness training or after-hours coverage sits outside the plan, and after-hours work near $250 an hour erases the saving fast. Ask for the exclusion list before you decide.
How much does managed IT cost per user in Houston compared with Dallas?
Houston runs $125 to $175 per user per month with most companies near $138, while Dallas-Fort Worth runs $135 to $200 with most landing at $150 to $175. San Antonio prices lowest of the 3 metros at the standard tier. The gap tracks local IT labor costs more than anything else.
