Key Takeaways
- Below about 75 employees, managed IT usually costs far less than one full-time IT hire.
- An in-house person knows your business best but cannot cover every skill or every day.
- Co-managed IT combines both: your own person plus an outside team.
- Compare the full cost, including benefits, tools, training and the cost of gaps.
At some point every growing Denver company asks the same question: hire an IT person, or hand IT to an outside team through managed IT services? Both can work. The right answer depends on your size, your systems and how much risk you can live with.
This guide compares the two honestly, with typical Denver numbers, and shows when outsourced IT services, an in-house hire or a mix of both makes the most sense. It also gives you a calculator, so you can test the math against your own headcount.
A Year of Each Option
Here is a typical first-year comparison for a 25-person Denver office.
| Cost item | In-house IT hire | Managed IT (25 users) |
|---|---|---|
| Salary | $75,000 to $95,000 | Included |
| Benefits & payroll taxes | $18,000 to $28,000 | Included |
| Tools & software | $5,000 to $12,000 | Included |
| Training & certifications | $2,000 to $5,000 | Included |
| Recruiting | $10,000 to $18,000 | None |
| Service fees | None | $37,500 to $52,500 |
| First-year total | $110,000 to $158,000 | $37,500 to $52,500 |
The figures are typical estimates for an experienced IT support or systems administrator role in Denver and a fully managed plan at $125 to $175 per user per month. Salary varies the most, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data for the Denver metro area is a useful reference when you budget a hire. The Denver pricing guide explains what moves the per-user rate.
The Costs Behind the Salary
Benefits and payroll taxes typically add a quarter or more on top of pay. Your IT person also needs monitoring software, a ticketing system, backup tools and ongoing training, which a provider spreads across many clients. Recruiting is the cost most people forget: an agency fee or weeks of a manager’s time, plus the months before a new hire knows your systems.
What the Monthly Fee Leaves Out
A fair comparison also counts what sits outside any plan. Microsoft 365 licenses, new laptops, network hardware and one-off projects such as an office move are billed separately whether you hire or outsource. They belong in both budgets, so they rarely change which option wins, but they keep the comparison honest.
Run Your Own Numbers
Enter your headcount, the salary you would need to offer and a per-user rate to compare one year of each option.
First year, in-house vs. managed$115,950 vs. $45,000In-house includes about 27% for benefits and taxes plus $8,000 for tools and training, before recruiting.
The break-even point usually lands somewhere between 60 and 90 employees, depending on the salary you need to pay and the plan level you choose. Above that, a hire starts to add up financially, although coverage and skills still argue for outside help.
Benefits, tools, training and recruiting add a large share on top of an IT salary, while a managed fee already includes them.
When Each Option Wins
A Hire Pays Off When IT Work Never Stops
A full-time employee makes sense when there is enough hands-on work to fill every week and that work depends on knowing your business in depth.
- You have 100+ staff in one location
- You run custom or in-house software
- Technology is part of what you sell
- Someone needs to be on site all day
Managed IT Fits Most Denver Offices
For companies without IT staff, an outside team covers more skills for less than one salary, and nobody has to recruit, train or replace anyone.
- You have fewer than about 75 staff
- Nobody owns IT today
- You need security, cloud & network skills
- You want one predictable monthly cost
A Mix Works When Your IT Person Is Stretched
If you already employ one or two IT people, adding an outside team is often smarter than another hire, because you gain coverage and specialist skills rather than another generalist.
- Your IT staff are overloaded
- Nobody covers nights or vacations
- Security monitoring is missing
- Big projects keep slipping
Teams under 25 people should look at small business IT support, which is priced and sized for that stage.
In-House vs. Managed, Side by Side
| Factor | In-house IT | Managed IT |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge of your business | Deep, built over years | Learned at onboarding, then documented |
| Availability | Office hours, minus time off | Every business day plus 24/7 monitoring |
| Range of skills | One person’s strengths | Help desk, security, cloud and network |
| Cost | Salary, benefits, tools, training | One predictable monthly fee |
| Security coverage | Depends on the person’s time | Monitoring and patching on a schedule |
| Growing the team | Another hire, months away | Add users to the plan |
An in-house person wins on familiarity and quick walk-up questions. An outside team wins on coverage, breadth and predictability. Which matters more depends on how your office works day to day.
The break-even point usually sits between 60 and 90 employees, depending on salary and plan level.
Risks People Overlook
Everything Lives in One Head
If your only IT person leaves, passwords, setups and vendor contacts often leave with them. Vacations and sick days create smaller versions of the same gap. Whatever you choose, insist on written documentation that someone else could pick up tomorrow.
Security After Hours
Phishing, invoice fraud and ransomware hit businesses of every size, and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center records billions of dollars in reported losses each year. One generalist rarely has time to watch alerts at 2 a.m. on a Sunday, which is why security monitoring is often the first thing handed to an outside team, even when a company keeps an internal IT person.
Being Tied to the Wrong Provider
The biggest risk of outsourcing is choosing badly: vague scope, slow response or a contract that is hard to leave. Keep admin access in your own hands and read the exit terms before signing. Our guide on how to choose a managed IT provider in Denver shows what to check.
Three Denver Scenarios
The right model depends less on industry than on size, systems and how much hands-on work there is. These three examples show how the decision usually plays out.
A 14-Person Architecture Studio in RiNo
Big model files, demanding workstations and a large-format plotter, but nobody on staff who owns IT. A hire would cost more than the rest of the technology budget. A managed plan covers the help desk, project backups and security for a fraction of that, with visits when a workstation or the plotter needs attention.
A 70-Person Manufacturer in Lakewood
One long-serving IT manager knows the plant systems better than anyone but spends the day on password resets and rarely takes a real vacation. The company keeps its manager and adds co-managed support for the help desk, after-hours monitoring and patching, so the long-delayed ERP upgrade finally gets done.
A 200-Person Company Near the Tech Center
At this size a small internal team of two or three makes financial sense. Even so, security monitoring around the clock is outsourced, because staffing a 24/7 security function in-house would cost far more than the service.
The pattern is clear: the smaller the company, the more it gains from managed IT. The larger it grows, the more it keeps in-house, but almost nobody covers every skill alone.
Smaller companies gain the most from managed IT, while larger ones keep more in-house but still buy specialist help.
The Middle Path: Co-Managed IT
Plenty of Denver companies land in between. They keep one or two internal IT people for daily decisions and projects and add an outside team for the help desk, after-hours coverage and security monitoring. That model is called co-managed IT, and it usually costs less than a full plan because your team keeps part of the work.
It works best when roles are written down from the start: which tickets go where, who handles which alerts and who has admin access to what. A good setup also shares one ticketing system and one set of documentation, so night and weekend handovers happen without a phone call.
Switching Without Downtime
- Secure the admin accounts. Make sure the company, not one person, owns Microsoft 365, the domain, the firewall and backups.
- Document before anyone leaves. Capture passwords, vendors, licenses and network details while your current person is still around.
- Move support in stages. Start with monitoring and backups, then hand over the help desk once staff know how to reach it.
- Review after 30 days. Check the first monthly report and adjust the scope while the switch is fresh.
If your IT person is leaving on short notice, start with step one the same day. Losing access to a domain registrar or a firewall login is the one mistake that turns a simple switch into weeks of recovery work.
Securing the admin accounts first prevents most of the problems that happen during a switch.
The Verdict
Answer five questions honestly before you decide. They settle most cases faster than any spreadsheet.
- How much hands-on work is there? If someone would be busy on site all day, every day, a hire starts to make sense.
- Which skills do you need? Count help desk, security, cloud and networking. One person rarely covers all four well.
- What happens during a vacation? If the answer is “nothing gets fixed,” you need coverage beyond one person.
- How fast are you growing? Adding users to a plan takes days. Adding IT staff takes months.
- Who holds the passwords today? If it is one person, fix that first, whichever option you choose.
The verdict for most Denver offices: under about 75 people with no IT staff, managed IT wins. With one or two IT people already, co-managed IT wins. With constant on-site work and custom systems, a hire can make sense. Need help only now and then? IT support may be all you need for now, and you can move to a monthly plan as you grow.
FAQs
Is managed IT less secure than having our own IT person?
Usually not. A good provider brings security tools and specialists that most single IT hires do not have. Ask how threats are monitored and who can access your systems.
Can we switch from in-house to managed IT later?
Yes. Many companies switch after their IT person leaves. The move goes much smoother if systems and passwords are documented before that happens.
What happens to our IT employee if we bring in a provider?
Many companies keep them and move to co-managed IT, so they focus on projects while the outside team handles daily support and monitoring.
What does an IT employee cost in Denver?
Expect roughly $75,000 to $95,000 in salary for an experienced support or systems administrator, plus benefits, tools and training.
Is managed IT only for small companies?
No. Companies of every size use managed IT for some or all of their technology. Larger ones more often use co-managed IT alongside an internal team.
Logan Pierce
Editorial Director, Signal Denver
Logan runs the Signal Denver editorial desk and turns what our technicians see every week, from hail-damaged server closets to office moves along I-25, into plain answers for Denver business owners. He grew up in Colorado and has worked in IT services for more than 15 years, starting on a help desk in Boulder and later leading network and support projects for law firms, clinics, engineering companies and software startups across the Front Range. He holds Microsoft 365 and CompTIA Security+ certifications. Today he focuses on how AI tools like Microsoft Copilot can save small teams real time without exposing client data, and every guide he writes is reviewed by a working technician before it is published.