Project work is listed almost twice as often as managed work: 53.0% of US IT firms name a project service, 28.6% name a managed one.

The short answer

Managed services are ongoing: the provider takes responsibility for keeping something running and bills a recurring fee, usually monthly per user or per device. Professional services are projects: a migration, an assessment, a build, a piece of custom software. They have a scope, a price and an end.

The practical difference is what happens when the work is done. A project ends and the invoice stops. A managed contract does not end, which is why it is the model buyers are usually looking for when they search for an IT provider.

Most firms in this market sell both, and the balance tilts toward projects. 20,758 of the 39,188 firms — 53.0% — name at least one project-shaped service. 11,210, or 28.6%, name at least one managed-shaped service.

The pure managed services firm is rare

Only 3,578 firms, 9.1% of the market, name managed work and no project work at all. Against that, 13,126 firms — 33.5% — name project work and no managed work.

7,632 firms, 19.5%, name both. That is the honest description of a large part of this market: a project practice and a managed book under one roof.

The remaining 14,852 firms, 37.9%, name nothing from either list. Some of those publish no services at all — 3,973 firms list none — and the rest use vocabulary too specific to place, which is a real finding in itself rather than a gap to be explained away.

The category labels line up, mostly

Firms we classify as IT consultancies behave like project firms: 9,210 of the 18,779 — 49.0% — name project work and no managed work, and only 477, or 2.5%, are the reverse.

Firms classified as MSPs are more mixed than the label suggests. 2,674 of the 16,455 — 16.3% — name managed work only; 3,045, or 18.5%, name project work only; and 4,715, or 28.7%, name both. So an MSP is roughly as likely to look project-led as managed-led in what it publishes.

That is the useful warning for a buyer. The word on the website tracks the business model loosely at best, and a firm calling itself an MSP is not thereby selling you a managed contract.

How this was counted, and why it matters

A firm is counted as managed if it lists any of: managed IT, managed services, co-managed IT, network management, helpdesk, remote management, server management, antivirus management, vCIO, managed security services, monitoring, desktop support or IT support.

A firm is counted as project if it lists any of: IT consulting, cloud migration, software development, custom software development, custom programming, web development, application development, project management, digital transformation, data analytics, penetration testing, IT assessment or implementation.

Anything else is excluded from both sides, deliberately. Cybersecurity, compliance, backup and disaster recovery, VoIP, Microsoft 365 and cloud services are all sold both ways — as a monthly service and as a project — so counting them either way would manufacture the answer.

The exclusion is large and needs stating: the service vocabulary in this market runs to 15,612 distinct tags, of which 10,143 appear on exactly one firm and only 36 appear on 500 firms or more. Any classification of it covers a minority of the tags by count, which is why 37.9% of firms land in neither bucket.

What to do with it

Ask how the engagement ends. If the answer is a deliverable, it is professional services, whatever the contract is titled. If there is no end date, it is managed.

Ask what the monthly fee buys when nothing breaks. A managed fee pays for monitoring, patching and availability between incidents; a project rate pays for work performed.

Expect to be sold both. 19.5% of this market names both and many more do both without saying so, so the question is not whether a firm does projects but whether the managed side is a real practice or an afterthought.

What to do about it

• ▸Buying: decide which one you actually want before you shortlist. 33.5% of this market names only project work, so a third of the firms you find while searching for ongoing IT support are not primarily selling it.
• ▸Buying: test the label. Ask how the engagement ends and what the monthly fee covers when nothing breaks — two questions that separate the models faster than any category page.
• ▸Selling: if your business really is a recurring managed book, say so plainly. Only 9.1% of this market names managed work without project work, so an unambiguous managed positioning is genuinely uncommon.

Questions this finding answers

What is the difference between managed services and professional services?

Managed services are ongoing and priced per month. Professional services are projects with an end. Most providers in this market sell both, and more lean project than managed.

How was this measured?

n = 39,188 published US firms in the IT services market. A firm counts as naming managed or project work only if it lists one of the named service tags below; services are on file for 35,215 of the 39,188, and 14,852 firms name nothing from either list, which counts against both shares. Measured 2026-09-08 in one snapshot.

What can't this number tell you?

The managed and project classifications are built from an explicit list of named service tags, printed in full above. Tags outside those two lists are excluded from both sides, so both shares are floors.

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