Break/fix IT support sounds cheaper until you count the downtime. Research compiled by Atlassian and Pingdom puts the cost of downtime for small businesses at $137 to $427 per minute — roughly $8,000 to $25,000 for a single lost hour, before you factor in the customers who gave up and called someone else.
The Traditional Break/Fix Model
The conventional approach involves calling someone when problems occur, paying an hourly rate, and waiting for repairs. (For reference, our own non-subscriber rate is $160/hr — break/fix billing is real money.) This model has hidden costs:
- You pay for problems rather than prevention
- Downtime expenses aren't invoiced but devastate operations
- Business incentives become misaligned — more problems mean higher technician revenue
Real Downtime Costs
Both Atlassian's incident-management research and Pingdom's industry analysis land on the same range: small businesses lose $137–$427 per minute when systems are down. Even a two-hour outage on a busy morning sits somewhere between an annoyance and a four-figure loss — and neither number appears on any invoice.
What Managed IT Includes
Modern managed services feature:
- Continuous monitoring detecting issues before users notice them
- Automated patching and security updates — most successful attacks exploit known flaws that already had a fix available; patching just makes sure the fix is actually installed
- Managed security tools including endpoint protection and DNS filtering
- Help desk support without hourly meter concerns
- Vendor management eliminating client wait times
Break/Fix vs. Managed IT: A Comparison
Break/Fix Model:
- Pay-per-hour when problems occur
- No monitoring between visits
- Problems discovered during downtime
- Updates happen sporadically
- Security responsibility falls entirely on the business
Managed IT Model:
- Predictable monthly per-user costs
- Round-the-clock monitoring
- Problems fixed before you notice
- Automatic updates and patching
- Integrated security tools and management
Why This Matters Now
The threat side of the equation isn't standing still. Statistics Canada found that about 1 in 6 (16%) Canadian businesses were impacted by cyber security incidents in 2023 — and, in the wrong direction entirely, the share of businesses spending anything on prevention and detection fell from 61% in 2021 to 56% in 2023. More incidents, less prevention. Break/fix support can't close that gap, because it only shows up after something has already gone wrong.
Addressing Size Concerns
Modern managed services scale by user count rather than enterprise contracts — there's no minimum company size where this starts making sense. That matters in Canada, where ISED's Key Small Business Statistics show more than three out of four employer businesses (77.3%) have fewer than 10 employees.
If you're in that 1–9 employee range, we've written a dedicated breakdown of what a micro business actually needs — and what it can skip.
The Bottom Line
Break/fix IT served businesses adequately when computing was simpler and threats were fewer. Today's technology-dependent operations require proactive management. Managed IT isn't about spending more — it's about predictable costs, problem prevention, and having dedicated support focused on keeping operations running rather than simply responding to crises.
Sources:
- Atlassian, "Calculating the cost of downtime"
- Pingdom, "Average Cost of Downtime per Industry"
- Statistics Canada, "Impact of cybercrime on Canadian businesses, 2023," The Daily, October 2024
- Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, "Key Small Business Statistics 2025"
CinnTech
Managed IT · Eastern Ontario
CinnTech has been serving small and micro businesses in Eastern Ontario since 2010. Our team writes these guides to help business owners make sense of IT and cybersecurity without the jargon.
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