Proactive IT support or break-fix: which costs a small business less?

For most businesses with more than a handful of people, proactive IT support costs less over a year than break-fix, even though break-fix looks cheaper on paper. Break-fix only charges when something goes wrong, so the invoices are small and occasional. What doesn't appear on those invoices is the time your team spends waiting for someone to pick up the problem, the faults that could have been prevented and the security gaps nobody is paid to look for. Proactive support charges a monthly fee to stop those things happening and to start on the ones that do within a set time. Which costs you less depends on how many people rely on their IT every day and how often things go wrong.

What's the difference between proactive and break-fix IT support?

Break-fix, sometimes called reactive or pay-as-you-go support, means you call someone when something stops working and pay for the time it takes to fix. Between calls, nobody is looking after your systems. That someone might be an independent technician, a local computer shop or a friend of the business who's good with computers.

Proactive support is a monthly arrangement where a provider looks after your setup whether or not anything is broken. They keep devices and software up to date, watch for warning signs such as a backup that has stopped running or a disk filling up, track renewals, set up new starters and remove leavers, and commit to a response time when something does go wrong. The monthly fee covers both the prevention and the fixing, up to whatever limit the agreement sets.

Why does break-fix usually cost more than it looks?

The invoice is the smallest part of most IT problems. When email or shared files go down, the bigger cost is paid time that produces nothing while people wait. In our guide to what an hour of IT downtime costs, an illustrative 20-person team at £30 an hour each loses £1,800 in paid time from a three-hour outage, before counting a missed deadline. Under break-fix, much of those three hours is often the wait for someone to become available, because nobody has promised to start on your problem within a set time.

Break-fix also gives nobody a reason to prevent anything. A technician paid by the job isn't paid to notice that a backup stopped running a month ago, that a laptop hasn't had a security update since the spring or that the domain name is due to expire next week. Those problems surface as emergencies, which is the most expensive time to fix them.

Then there's security. The government's Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025 found that 43% of UK businesses had a breach or attack in the previous 12 months, and that phishing was involved in 85% of those. Multi-factor authentication, email filtering and up-to-date devices cut much of that risk, but only if someone switches them on and checks they stay on. Under break-fix, that person usually doesn't exist.

When does break-fix still make sense?

Break-fix isn't always the wrong choice. A business of two or three people working mostly in the browser, with little shared data and few systems, can go months without needing help, and paying by the job may well be cheaper. The same goes for a business with capable in-house IT that only needs specialist help now and then.

It stops making sense once people can't do their jobs without email, shared files and phones working every day, once you handle client data or money, or once nobody in the business has the time or knowledge to keep on top of updates, backups and access. At that point the occasional invoice is no longer the main cost, because the waiting and the risk are.

What does proactive IT support do each month?

Most of what good proactive support does is invisible while it's working. Devices and software are updated on a schedule rather than when someone remembers. Warnings, such as a backup that has stopped running or a disk that's nearly full, are picked up before they turn into failures. Backups are checked by restoring from them, which is the only way to know they work, and the NCSC's small organisations guide makes the same point about knowing how to restore your data and checking the backup holds everything important. Renewals for domains, certificates and licences are tracked in one place. New starters are set up on their first day and leavers lose access on their last.

When something does break, the difference is speed. Someone who already knows your setup starts on the problem within an agreed time, and most fixes can be done remotely. We respond to urgent issues within 1 to 2 hours, wherever your team is working, which is what turns a lost afternoon into a short interruption.

How do the costs compare?

Break-fix providers usually charge by the hour or by the call-out, so a quiet month costs nothing and a bad one can cost a lot, with no limit either way. Proactive support is a monthly fee, which makes the cost predictable but means you pay in quiet months too.

Our own support starts at £160 a month, which includes 2 hours of support, with any time beyond that at £80 an hour and no contract. A quiet month is covered by the monthly fee, and a busy month costs more in a way you can see coming. Whoever you use, compare the monthly fee with what an average outage costs you in people's time, as well as with what you paid your last technician.

Is your IT being looked after, or only fixed?

These questions are a quick way to tell which kind of support you have, whatever your arrangement is called.

• Does anyone check your backups by restoring a file, or are they assumed to work?

• Who would notice if a laptop stopped getting security updates?

• When someone leaves, how quickly do they lose access to email and files?

• If something broke at 9am tomorrow, who would start on it, and when?

• Do you know what IT problems cost you over the last 12 months, including the time people spent waiting?

If most of the answers are "nobody" or "I'm not sure", you're paying for break-fix, even if you have a monthly agreement.

The short version

Break-fix looks cheaper because it only charges when something goes wrong, but for a team that relies on its IT every day, the waiting, the preventable faults and the security gaps usually cost more than a monthly fee. If your business is small, simple and rarely has problems, break-fix can still be the right call. If it isn't, the useful comparison is the monthly fee against what your last few outages cost in people's time.

Our managed IT support page sets out what our monthly support covers, how quickly we respond and what moving across from your current setup involves.