MSP Pricing Calculator

Build a per-user price from your own cost base, see the margin on what you charge today, and test a price increase. Results appear as you type. No email gate.

Formulas shown, nothing stored, no signup.

Whole number, 1 to 100,000.

Delivery staff only. 0.5 to 500.

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Example only, use your payroll. Salary plus benefits, payroll tax and training.

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Your own stack cost per managed seat. We assume no vendor prices.

Add up line items
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Admin, sales, rent, insurance, business software and an owner market salary if not on payroll.

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Shows your current margins.

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Shows how many seats you can lose after a price increase.

Your result appears here.

Fill in seats, technicians, loaded cost, tool cost and overhead.

How to use this calculator

Enter seats, delivery FTE, loaded cost per technician, tool cost per seat and monthly overhead. Optionally add your current price to see today's margins, and a proposed price to see how many seats you can lose after an increase. Inputs are kept in the page address so you can bookmark or share a scenario.

What fully loaded means

A technician costs more than their salary: add benefits, payroll tax, training and certification, and any equipment you provide. Overhead covers everything that is not delivery, including a market-rate salary for the owner if the owner is not on payroll.

How this is calculated

laborPerUser      = (techs * techLoadedAnnual / 12) / users
deliveryCost (v)  = laborPerUser + toolCostPerUser
overheadPerUser   = overheadMonthly / users
fullCost          = v + overheadPerUser
floorPrice        = fullCost                         // breakeven
priceAtNet        = fullCost / (1 - targetNetMargin)
priceAtServiceGM  = v / (1 - targetServiceGM)
recommended       = max(priceAtNet, priceAtServiceGM)
seatsPerTech      = users / techs
if current: currentNetMargin = (current - fullCost) / current
            currentServiceGM = (current - v) / current
            monthlyGap       = (recommended - current) * users
if proposed: breakevenRetention r = (current - v) / (proposed - v)
             clientsYouCanLose%   = 1 - r          // seats lost before gross profit falls below today

All percentages are used as fractions (15% is 0.15). Margins are on price, not on cost, so a 50% gross margin is a price of twice the delivery cost.

How MSPs actually bill

In the 2023 Kaseya survey, 21% of MSPs billed mainly per user. Reported billing models:

  • Combination of models26%
  • Per user21%
  • Value-based14%
  • Per device13%
  • A la carte12%
  • Tiered10%

Limitations

  • This is not market pricing advice. A cost-based price can sit above or below what your local market pays.
  • Regional salary and tool-cost variance is large; use your own invoices, not examples.
  • Scope differences between MSPs (what is included in a seat) change comparability.
  • The survey distribution is from 2023, from a vendor customer base.

FAQ

What should an MSP charge per user?

Enough to cover your fully loaded cost per user and still hit your margin targets. There is no universal figure: price follows your labour cost, tool stack, overhead and the seats each technician can support. The calculator builds the number from your own costs. The 2023 Kaseya vendor survey shows how other MSPs priced at the time.

How do I calculate my cost per user?

Add labour per user (technicians times loaded annual cost, divided by 12 and by seats), tool cost per seat and overhead per user. The sum is your full cost per user per month, which is also your breakeven price.

What margin should an MSP target?

That is your decision, so the calculator takes two targets: a net margin and a service gross margin. Published survey distributions of net profit are on the KPI benchmark checker, with the publisher and sample size shown.

How much can I raise prices without losing money?

Enter your current and proposed price. The break-even retention formula, (current minus delivery cost) divided by (proposed minus delivery cost), shows the share of seats you can lose before gross profit falls below today.

Per-user or per-device?

Both are used. Per-user pricing ties revenue to people, per-device ties it to hardware. The survey table below shows the split of billing models MSPs reported in 2023. Pick the unit that your costs actually scale with.