Every owner asks the same first question, and most providers refuse to answer it on the website. So here is the answer for the Tracy and Mountain House market, with the arithmetic shown.
The three ways providers charge
Per user per month. One flat number for each person in the office, covering their devices, their accounts and support. This is the model most managed IT providers use, and it is the one that aligns the provider’s incentive with yours: the fewer problems you have, the better the margin for them.
Per device per month. A smaller number for each laptop, desktop, server and sometimes each phone or printer. It looks cheaper at first glance. It rarely is once the devices are counted, and it makes a provider reluctant to add the monitoring tools that actually prevent problems.
Hourly, after something breaks. No monthly fee; you pay for time when you call. Hourly rates in this area typically run from about $125 to $200 an hour, with a one-hour minimum. For a very small office with nothing critical, it can be the cheapest option. For everyone else it is the most expensive, because the provider is paid for problems rather than for preventing them, and because owners stop calling to save money until the problem is the kind that costs a week.
What the local market publishes
Providers serving Tracy, Stockton, Manteca and Modesto who publish prices put per-user managed IT between about $125 and $200 per user per month. Some add a monthly minimum for very small offices, commonly $1,000 to $2,000. Some quote servers separately, at roughly $150 to $250 per server per month. The lower end usually covers helpdesk, monitoring and patching; the higher end adds the security tools insurers now ask about, a response-time commitment, and on-site visits included rather than billed.
Those are the public numbers. Where a specific provider lands depends on four things, and that is what the rest of this guide is about.
A worked example: ten people, one server, a normal office
Take a ten-person professional office in Tracy: ten laptops, a small server or a NAS holding shared files, Microsoft 365 for email, a firewall, one printer that everyone hates.
| Line | Typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Managed IT, 10 users | $1,250 to $2,000 per month | Helpdesk, monitoring, patching, backups, endpoint protection, email filtering, on-site support |
| Server or NAS | $150 to $250 per month | Monitoring, patching, backup and restore testing |
| Microsoft 365 licenses | $60 to $220 per month | About $6 to $22 per user depending on the plan; billed at Microsoft’s price, not marked up |
| Backup storage | $30 to $80 per month | Cloud copy of the server and of Microsoft 365 |
| Monthly total | $1,500 to $2,550 |
That is the honest range for a ten-person office in this area in 2026, before any project work. An office with no server and everything in the cloud sits at the bottom of it. An office with a compliance requirement, old equipment or a warehouse to cover sits toward the top.
What moves the number
How many people and devices. Per user is the base. Servers, specialty equipment such as scanners, cameras and point-of-sale systems, and people with three devices each add to it.
How much on-site time you want. A professional office needs a visit now and then. A distribution office on the I-205 corridor with a scanner fleet, dock printers and a camera network needs more, and the number should say so rather than surprise you with visit charges.
Compliance. HIPAA for a dental or medical practice, NIST SP 800-171 for a defense supplier, a cyber-insurance questionnaire every renewal, a customer audit once a year. Each one adds documentation work. A good provider prices it in; a poor one bills it by the hour afterward.
What you already have. Modern laptops and a tidy Microsoft 365 setup cost less to run than a ten-year-old server and five email systems. If your equipment is old, expect the first year to include a replacement plan, and expect a provider who does not mention it to be planning to bill you hourly for the fallout.
What should be included at that price
If a quote in the range above does not include all of these, it is not a managed IT quote. It is a helpdesk quote with extras.
- Monitoring of every workstation and server, with someone acting on the alerts
- Patching of operating systems and common applications on a schedule
- Backups of servers, workstations and Microsoft 365, with restores tested and logged
- Endpoint protection on every device, managed from one console
- Email filtering and multi-factor sign-in on email and remote access
- A helpdesk by email during business hours, with a response-time commitment in writing
- On-site visits when a fix needs hands
- Onboarding and offboarding of staff and devices
- A monthly report and a quarterly review
- The evidence files your cyber insurer and auditor ask for
What is a legitimate extra
Projects: a server replacement, an office move, a new Wi-Fi network, a migration to Microsoft 365. Each should come with a fixed quote before work starts. Hardware: laptops, switches, firewalls, at the authorized price with the manufacturer’s warranty. New software licenses. After-hours work that you request and that is not an emergency. Anything outside that list, especially “per-ticket” fees or charges for routine patching, is a sign the monthly number was set too low to be real.
Ten questions to ask before you sign
- What exactly is included in the monthly number, as a written list?
- What is the response-time commitment, and is it acknowledgment or resolution?
- Are on-site visits included, and how many a month before they cost extra?
- Are backups tested, how often, and will you show me the log?
- Which security tools are included: endpoint protection, email filtering, multi-factor sign-in?
- What happens when a new employee starts or leaves, and does it cost extra?
- How are projects quoted, and can routine work ever become a project?
- What is the onboarding fee and what does it buy?
- What is the term, the notice period, and who owns the passwords and documentation if we leave?
- Who exactly answers when we call, and are they in this area?
How Next Plus prices it
One number per user per month, in writing, covering the included list above. Servers and specialty equipment priced on top and shown separately. Projects and hardware quoted before any work starts. Month to month after onboarding, with a notice period. We do not publish a single figure on the website because the honest answer depends on the four factors above, and a number that is wrong in either direction wastes your time. We do publish the method, and the free check-up produces the figure for your office in writing.