What is a reasonable IT budget per employee per month for an SMB?
A practical rule of thumb is to budget per employee, not as a percentage of revenue. For office work, we typically see a range covering licenses, hardware depreciation, management and connectivity combined.
Try this first
- 1Count per employee: M365 or Google Workspace license, security layer (EDR plus MFA), backup, MDM, and a share of connectivity and firewall.
- 2Add hardware depreciation over 3 or 4 years, so laptop plus dock plus monitor divided by lifetime in months.
- 3Add a management layer, whether that is a retainer with an external partner or an internal IT person divided by headcount.
- 4Plan a buffer for incidents, projects and upgrades, in our experience 10 to 20 percent on top of the run-rate.
When to bring us in
If you are unsure your per-employee budget fits your sector and risk profile, we are happy to take a quick look.
See also
- What does Managed IT actually cost for a 10-person SMBNo fixed number, but an honest breakdown. A full package for ten people is not 50 euros a month and not 5000 either.
- Microsoft 365 Business Standard versus Premium, what is extraThe price jump is real but Premium does not add Word features. It adds security and device management.
- Microsoft announces another price hike, what do I doSince NCE Microsoft adjusts pricing structurally. Without action you renew at the new price for a full year.
None of the above fits?
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Or skip the DIY entirely
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