One in-house IT hire costs what managed IT costs for about 98 users.

The break-even is about 98 users

The BLS median annual wage for a computer user support specialist is $61,860 (May 2025). Benefits run 30.1% of total compensation for private-industry workers (BLS, March 2026), so wages are 69.9% of what an employer actually pays. That puts one loaded support hire at about $88,500 a year, before a desk, a laptop or a single tool license.

The median published entry rate across 367 US providers is $75 per user per month, which is $900 a user a year. $88,500 divided by $900 is 98. One in-house support person costs about what managed IT costs for 98 users at the middle of the published market.

Price the same comparison at the median of all 714 published tiers, $99 a seat, and the break-even falls to 75 users. Hire a network and computer systems administrator instead — BLS median $99,130, about $141,800 loaded — and it rises to 158 users at $75 a seat, or 119 at $99.

One person is not coverage

A full-time employee works about 2,080 hours a year. There are 8,760 hours in a year. One hire covers 24% of them, and none of the weeks that person is on vacation, out sick or interviewing elsewhere.

That is the argument for the outside option, and it is weaker than it looks. Only 5,316 of 39,372 US providers state 24/7 coverage anywhere on their site — 13.5%. Hours are checked on 19,917 firms and an unchecked firm counts as showing nothing, so read that as a floor on what the market shows rather than a claim about what it staffs.

The median US provider employs 9 people, across the 29,744 firms with a headcount on file; the middle half runs from 3 to 28. Buying a bench does not automatically buy a deep one, and "we have a team" is a claim worth putting a number to.

What each side is actually buying

An employee is a fixed cost that scales in steps. The second hire is another $88,500 whether the work needed a whole person or a third of one, and the cost does not fall when the workload does.

A managed contract is a variable cost that scales per seat, plus one-time fees. 131 US providers publish a setup or onboarding fee, median $1,500, and 145 publish an hourly rate for work outside the agreement, median $150 an hour. Those two numbers are where a per-seat contract stops being purely per-seat.

The honest framing is not either-or. Below roughly 75 to 98 users the arithmetic favors the contract; above it an internal hire starts to look like the cheaper unit — and most companies at that size end up running both, with the provider covering the hours and the specialties one hire cannot.

Three questions that settle it

What hours do you actually need covered? If the answer is more than forty a week, one hire does not deliver it, and the comparison is not one salary against a contract.

What is the contract's rate in per-user, per-month terms, what is the seat minimum, and what is the one-time fee? Only 889 of 39,372 US providers publish any price at all, so you will usually have to ask.

What happens on the day your one person leaves? That risk carries no line item on either side, and it is the reason the decision is not purely arithmetic.

What to do about it

• ▸Buying: work out your own break-even before the first call. Loaded salary divided by twelve times the per-user rate is the whole calculation, and at the published medians it lands between 75 and 98 users.
• ▸Selling: the comparison your prospect is running is against about $88,500 a year of salary, not against another provider. Price the coverage gap — 2,080 hours against 8,760 — rather than the seat rate.

More findings

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