Operating picture · measured 2026-09-03
12% of MSPs with a known founding year were founded in the last six years.
The post-2020 founding wave, quantified, against the firms whose founding year we actually know.
12% Founded in the last six years (2,038)Founded more than six years ago (14,463)
2,038 of the 16,501 in-scope firms that have a founding year on file. The denominator is firms with a KNOWN founding year, not the 39,351-firm directory. as of 2026-09-03.
Limitations
- THE DENOMINATOR ON THIS CARD IS NOT THE DIRECTORY. A founding year is on file for 16,501 of the 39,351 in-scope firms. Every percentage here is of that 16,501, and it must never be restated as a share of all US MSPs. This card breaks the file's usual whole-directory denominator rule deliberately, because a missing founding year is genuinely unknown rather than evidence of a recent founding.
- Firms with no founding year on file are excluded, not counted against the share, and they are unlikely to be a random sample.
- A founding year taken from a company's own site can reflect a rebrand or a re-incorporation rather than the start of the business.
What to do with this
- If your firm is older than its domain, say so explicitly, 'serving the region since 2004' is the correction to a signal buyers read automatically.
- New entrants should over-invest in the trust signals that do not require tenure: reviews, named certifications, a complete public profile.
Cite this
MSP Signal, "12% of MSPs with a known founding year were founded in the last six years.", measured 2026-09-03. https://mspsignal.com/msp-trends/new-msp-cohort
More findings
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