MSP·SIGNAL

Headline finding · measured 2026-08-14

The median MSP scores 44.5. Three quarters of the market is independent.

What an ordinary provider actually looks like, before anyone tells you what good means.

44.5

median MSP Signal score out of 100

Distribution figures from signal.national_medians(); composition measured against 21,162 in-scope firms. as of 2026-08-14.

Median vs the top decile, by metric
The median MSP
50th percentile
MSP score
44.5
Web maturity
43 / 100
Services listed
2
Employees
9
Domain age
15.2 yrs
Google reviews
9
Organic keywords
35
The top 10%
90th percentile
MSP score
61.2
Web maturity
70 / 100
Services listed
4
Employees
87
Domain age
27.5 yrs
Google reviews
66
Organic keywords
426
Share of the market with each attribute
Independent75% of 21,162 firms
Under 10 staff45% of 21,162 firms
Certified20% of 21,162 firms
24/7 support11% of 21,162 firms
National2% of 21,162 firms
Publishes price1% of 21,162 firms

What we found

The median provider scores 44.5 out of 100, lists two services, employs nine people, has been on the same domain for fifteen years and carries nine Google reviews. The 90th percentile is 61.2 — so the distance between ordinary and top-decile is about seventeen points, not a different universe.

On composition: 15,878 firms (75.0%) are independent, neither private-equity held nor a franchise. 4,200 (19.8%) hold any certification, 2,228 (10.5%) advertise 24/7 support, 471 (2.2%) operate nationally and 300 (1.4%) publish a price.

Why it matters

Almost every published MSP benchmark is drawn from peer groups, conference attendees or platform customers — all of which select for the top decile. Measured across the whole market, the bar is far lower than the industry talks as if it is.

It also means small, cheap improvements move a firm a long way. Adding two services to a site and getting to four listed certifications is the difference between the median and the top quartile on those components.

How to read the numbers

Two of these distributions are traps. Google rating has a median of 5.0 and a 90th percentile of 5.0, so a percentile on raw stars is meaningless — rank on review count or overall score instead.

Headcount is heavily skewed: the 90th percentile is 87 employees while the largest firm on file has 90,297. Any chart of it has to be log-scaled or it collapses into one bar.

What this number can't tell you

  • ·Each metric has its own denominator — headcount is on file for 18,934 firms, domain age for 15,206, organic keywords for 6,700. Firms without a value are excluded from that metric rather than counted as zero.
  • ·Composition shares are quoted against all 21,162 in-scope firms, so an unknown value counts against the share rather than for it.

What to do about it

  • ▸Compare yourself to the 90th percentile, not the median. The median is not a target; it is the description of a market that mostly is not trying.
  • ▸Pick the components where the gap between median and top decile is smallest — services listed and web maturity — because those are the ones you can close this quarter.

Where does your firm sit on this?

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More findings

◂ All twelve findings