Public research · no account required
Twelve findings, each one a query run against every managed service provider we track — not a survey, not a vendor panel. Where the numbers are uncomfortable we publish them anyway, including the one that failed to show what we expected.
All company percentages use 21,555 active US MSP-family firms (MSP, MSSP, IT consulting, VAR/telecom), excluding test fixtures and firms with evidence of being non-US. Two families of stats use a different base and say so on every card:
Measured 2026-08-11 · re-run quarterly · sample size printed on every figure
Large samples, clean methodology, and genuinely surprising results.
of cybersecurity-selling MSPs list zero certifications
The whole industry sells security. Two-thirds of it shows no third-party proof.
10,226 in-scope firms advertise cybersecurity services; 7,077 of them list zero certifications of any kind. n = 10,226 · as of 2026-08-11.
Read the analysis ▸of healthcare-targeting MSPs list no HIPAA credential
Sharper than the general security gap, because the buyer is specific.
8,445 firms name healthcare as a target vertical; 6,056 list no HIPAA credential. 4,002 firms target government; 2,965 list neither CMMC nor NIST. as of 2026-08-11.
Read the analysis ▸US places with no MSP inside 25 miles
A quarter of populated America has no managed service provider in driving distance.
Computed across all 32,487 US places against rooftop and city-precision firm locations. as of 2026-08-11.
Read the analysis ▸the entire quality gap between monopoly and competitive markets
We expected a monopoly penalty. There barely is one — and the honest finding is more useful.
One-provider markets n = 78; markets with five or more providers, full in-scope sample. as of 2026-08-11.
Read the analysis ▸of rated MSPs are at 4.8★ or above
When almost everyone is excellent, the star rating stops carrying information.
Of 9,380 in-scope firms with a Google rating on file: median review count 10, p25 = 3, p75 = 27, p95 = 119. The top 5% average 521 reviews. as of 2026-08-11.
Read the analysis ▸Pricing, publishing, lead capture, headcount, tenure and stack — the operating picture underneath the headlines.
of scored MSP websites show any price
53 of 4,803 firms scored on the current web-maturity rubric show pricing of any kind. as of 2026-08-11.
Read ▸of scored MSP sites have no active blog
3,945 of 4,803 firms scored on the current web-maturity rubric show no active blog. as of 2026-08-11.
Read ▸of crawled MSPs offer online booking
2,070 of 21,325 crawled firms show a booking link (Calendly, HubSpot, Chili Piper); 246 show a chat widget. as of 2026-08-11.
Read ▸employees at the median US MSP
17,792 in-scope firms with a headcount on file. as of 2026-08-11.
Read ▸of MSPs registered their domain since 2020
2,453 of 14,952 in-scope firms with a domain age on file. as of 2026-08-11.
Read ▸of all in-scope MSPs list zero certifications
All 21,555 in-scope active US MSP-family firms. as of 2026-08-11.
Read ▸MSP sites that name Microsoft 365
Vendor detection covers roughly 36% of in-scope firms and is keyword-based. Read every figure as a floor on visible mentions. as of 2026-08-11.
Read ▸What we measure. Every figure comes from a query against our live record of US managed service providers — company records, locations, published services, certifications, Google ratings and review counts, website structure and domain history. No respondents, no self-reported survey panel.
"Listed publicly" is the unit. Certification and compliance stats count what a firm publishes where a buyer can find it, not what it holds. A firm with SOC 2 and no mention of it counts as uncertified here. That is a real limitation and also a real finding: buyers see the same thing we do.
Partial coverage means floors, not rates. Where detection is pattern-based — booking links, chat widgets, vendor mentions — a feature delivered purely by JavaScript can be missed. Those figures are published as "at least", and vendor counts are never presented as market share.
Cadence. Measured 2026-08-11 and re-run quarterly. The deltas become the next edition's headlines.
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