What actually drives the price of managed IT in Switzerland

It is the first question anyone asks, and almost the only one nobody answers plainly. One provider quotes a monthly amount per workstation, another refuses to give a figure before visiting, a third offers a flat fee that looks half of what it should be. All three may be honest. What none of them says is that they are not describing the same thing.

A price per workstation tells you almost nothing

The per-workstation price is convenient because it compares. That is precisely its flaw: it creates the illusion of comparing two offers when you are comparing two scopes. The workstation is the cheapest and most predictable part of an estate. The cost sits behind it: the servers, the line-of-business applications, remote access, backups, and the time needed to put all of it back in order when nobody has looked after it for three years.

So two companies of twenty people can genuinely require three times the work. A law firm with twenty laptops, an email service and a file server has nothing in common with a twenty-person workshop running a CNC machine, a twelve-year-old management application and remote access for two sales staff.

The six things that really move the invoice

1. The condition of what already exists

This is the largest factor by far. Taking over a well-kept estate costs what its upkeep costs. Taking over a neglected one means first putting it right, and that remediation is a project, not a subscription. A serious provider separates it from the monthly fee. A provider who absorbs it into the flat rate will recover it elsewhere, usually by cutting what you cannot see.

2. The number of sites and remote working

A single site is straightforward to monitor and to fix. Two linked sites, staff working from home and access from abroad multiply the routes in, and with them the points of failure and the entry points to watch.

3. Servers and line-of-business applications

An ageing business application that its vendor no longer supports, or that demands one specific version of the operating system, weighs on the entire installation. It blocks certain updates, forces workarounds and makes every migration delicate. It is often the real subject of an estate, and rarely the one discussed in a sales meeting.

4. The availability you actually need

There is a difference in kind, not in degree, between « someone calls back during the day » and « someone intervenes within the hour, Saturdays included ». The second requires an on-call rota, meaning people paid to be available. That is legitimate, it is billed, and you should know whether you need it before you pay for it.

5. Compliance

A company established in Switzerland falls under the FADP. If it processes data about people established in the European Union, or operates there, the GDPR applies as well, and depending on its sector and size, NIS2 too. This does not change the nature of the technical work, but it adds an obligation to document: you must be able to show what was done, not merely to have done it. See what the FADP expects in terms of security.

6. Reversibility

An offer where the administrator accounts, the domain names and the backups belong to the provider is cheaper in the short term, because it is simpler for them to run. You pay for it the day you want to leave. It is the easiest point to check before signing and the most expensive to correct afterwards. See the seven clauses of a reversible contract.

What every offer should state

Whatever the amount, an offer that does not answer these questions cannot be compared with another.

1. What is included and what is not, item by item, not by category.
2. The response time promised, and what happens when it is missed.
3. Who holds the administrator accounts, the domains and the backups.
4. Where the data and backups are hosted, and under which law.
5. What is billed on top, and at what hourly rate.
6. What happens at the end of the contract: notice, format of the handover, assistance.

What we do

We do not publish a price per workstation, because we could not write one honestly without having looked at what sits behind the workstations. We look first, then we write down what we take on and what we do not, and the scope is settled before anything begins. The review exists for exactly that: thirty minutes, a dated document, your gaps ranked by severity, with no obligation to continue.