Per-user or per-device pricing: which is right for your office

There are four common ways to pay for IT support, and the one you choose changes how your provider behaves.

By the hour

You pay for time. This is fine for a one-off project and terrible for support, because the provider earns more when things break and less when they stay fixed. Nobody sets out to be slow, but the incentive is there.

By the ticket

You pay per problem. Same incentive, plus an argument every month about what counts as one ticket.

By the device

You pay a monthly fee for each laptop, server and phone. Predictable, and the provider is paid to keep things working. The catch is that people have more devices than they used to. A person with a laptop, a phone and a tablet is three lines on the bill, and the count drifts upwards.

By the user

You pay a monthly fee for each person, and every device that person uses is covered. It is the simplest to check: count the people on the payroll, that is the bill. It rewards the provider for keeping things working, and it does not punish you for someone wanting a second screen.

This is how we price, and the reason is that it is the only model where the invoice needs no explanation. A new starter adds one line. A leaver removes it. Servers, the network and shared equipment are covered by the office as a whole.

The question to ask any provider

Whichever model, ask what would make next month’s invoice higher than this month’s. If the answer is anything other than “more people”, the price is not really fixed.