Pricing
Our prices are on our website.
Which should not be remarkable, and in this industry is. You can work out roughly what this costs before speaking to anyone — and compare it against what hiring would.
| Service | Price | What that covers |
|---|---|---|
| Network assessment | Free | Site walk, inventory, written findings. Yours to keep either way. |
| Network retainer | $650/mo | Monitoring, firmware, documentation kept current, priority scheduling, quarterly review. Hours billed on top. |
| Scheduled on-site | $185/hr | Evenings and weekends. The standard rate — not an out-of-hours premium. |
| Remote support | $145/hr | Often available during the day. Fastest route for anything software-shaped. |
| Short notice / emergency | $245/hr | When it cannot wait for the next scheduled window. |
| Projects — cutovers, rebuilds, migrations | Fixed price | Quoted after a site walk. Fixed rather than hourly, deliberately. |
| Cat6 network drop | $225 each | Terminated both ends, tested, labelled. Plenum and union requirements checked first. |
| Bench diagnostic | $89 | Credited against the repair if you go ahead. |
| Flat-rate bench repairs | from $149 | Drive replacement, SSD upgrade, clean reinstall, virus removal. |
Prices exclude hardware, software licensing and parts, which are billed at cost with no markup on IT work. Custom-built systems, such as private AI servers, are a separate service, sold as a complete solution at one fixed price. Everything is quoted before work starts — nothing on an invoice should ever be a surprise.
The comparison that matters
Against hiring, not against another invoice.
The useful question is rarely whether this is cheaper than another provider. It is whether retaining the expertise beats employing it.
| Hiring a senior network engineer | Retaining us | A generalist MSP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per year | $160,000$125,000 salary + 28% burden | $30,000$650/mo retainer + 10 hrs/mo | Per seat, every monthScales with your headcount, not with what you actually need |
| Seniority you actually get | Senior — if you can land oneAt this salary you are competing with banks and trading firms | A senior engineer, every visitThere is no first line to get past | Whoever is on the rotaFirst line is usually the least experienced person |
| When the work happens | Business hoursSo cutovers cost you downtime, or overtime | Evenings and weekendsWhen freight lifts are free and nobody is working | Business hoursChange windows negotiated, often at a premium |
| Utilisation | You pay for 40 hoursMost small businesses need a handful | You pay for the hours used | Flat fee whether or not you call |
| If one person is away | You are downHoliday, illness, or they resign | The other one coversTwo engineers, shared documentation | Covered |
| Who knows your network | One person — who may leaveAnd takes the documentation in their head | Both engineers, and it is written down | A rotating queueYou re-explain your setup most visits |
| Depth on networking specifically | Depends entirely on the hire | It is the specialismPlus specialists brought in for anything outside it | Broad, and usually shallow here |
| Recruiting, reviews, turnover | Yours to handleAnd to repeat in two years | Not your problem | Not your problem |
| Commitment | Employment | 30 days’ noticeNo multi-year term | Typically one to three years |
Salary figure is deliberately conservative. Published Chicago averages for a senior network engineer in 2026: $128,579 on Indeed, $127,517 on ZipRecruiter, $117,690 on Salary.com, $167,360 on Glassdoor. The 28% burden covers payroll tax, health insurance, workers’ comp, paid time off and equipment. Your own numbers will differ — the calculator uses whatever you type in.
Deliberately small
Two engineers, both senior, with specialists brought in for work that sits outside networking. That is the whole firm, and it is the point: there is no first line to get past, nobody junior learning on your network, and no account manager between you and the person doing the work. Two also means neither of us is a single point of failure — the documentation is shared and either one can pick up your site.
Being small also means being selective. We work best with reasonable clients who want things done properly, and we are not the right fit for everyone — the first conversation is where we both find that out. In return, everything we commit to is put in writing, work runs to a schedule agreed up front, and every message gets a reply by the next business day, if not sooner. What it is not is a first-line helpdesk your whole staff ring all day about passwords and printers — that is a different service, and a generalist does it better and cheaper. And past roughly 69 hours a month — about two days a week of genuine network work — employing somebody starts to make more sense than retaining us. You will hear that on the first call rather than eighteen months in.
Why publish these at all
The standard practice is to withhold pricing until a discovery call, on the theory that value should be established before price. In practice it costs you an hour to learn a number that was never going to be a secret, and it selects for providers who are good at the meeting rather than the work.
You are trying to answer a budget question. If these rates are wrong for your business you should find that out in thirty seconds on a website rather than a fortnight into a sales process.
Why evening rates are not higher
Because evenings and weekends are the normal working pattern here, not an exception granted reluctantly. Downtown network work belongs out of hours anyway — freight windows, no downtime, room to roll back. Charging a premium for the time when the work is supposed to happen would be charging you for our own convenience.
Short-notice and emergency work does cost more, and that is about the disruption of unplanning a day rather than the hour of the clock.
No hardware markup
Equipment and licences for IT work are billed at cost. It removes any incentive to recommend replacing something that could be repaired, which means you can believe the recommendation when it does come.
Custom-built solutions are the exception, and a separate service. Systems we design, build and configure ourselves — such as private AI servers — are sold as a complete solution at one fixed price, not as parts plus labour.
FAQ
Pricing questions
What does the retainer include?
Monitoring on network equipment, firmware and patch review, documentation kept current, priority scheduling for evening and weekend work, and a quarterly review. Hours worked are billed on top at the published rates — the retainer buys continuity and prevention, not a block of labour.
Do we need a retainer to use you?
No. Projects are quoted fixed and ad-hoc work is $185/hr scheduled or $145/hr remote. The retainer mostly earns its keep once you are calling regularly, or when you want people who already know the network before something goes wrong.
Why isn't evening work charged at a premium?
Because it is the normal working pattern here rather than a favour. Downtown network work belongs out of hours anyway. Short-notice and emergency call-outs do cost more, and that reflects the disruption of unplanning a day rather than the time on the clock.
Is there a setup or onboarding fee?
No. The assessment is free and the written findings are yours whether or not you go ahead. If an environment has been neglected badly enough to need remediation first, that is quoted as a project up front rather than absorbed quietly.
Do you mark up hardware?
Not on IT work. Equipment and licences are billed at cost, which removes any incentive to recommend replacing something repairable. Custom-built solutions, such as private AI servers, are a separate service, sold as a complete system at one fixed price.
Will the price go up?
Not without thirty days’ notice, which is the same notice you have to leave.
Get a number for your actual building.
Tell us roughly what you need and you will get a realistic figure on the phone, without a discovery meeting.