How Much Does Managed IT Cost in Markham, Ontario?

ACT360 prices managed IT in Markham per user per month under one agreement. The fee covers help desk support, monitoring, patching, security tools, backup management and planning. Microsoft licences, hardware and projects are billed separately.

The 2024 York Region Employment Survey, published by Markham Economic Development, counted 9,899 businesses in the city. Professional, scientific and technical services employed 31,290 people across 1,179 businesses, more than any other sector outside retail. Finance and insurance added another 483 firms and 18,493 employees.

Those are firms whose work lives in documents, email and client portals, and most staff carry both a laptop and a phone. Pricing per user rather than per device keeps that from doubling the bill. For what ACT360 includes everywhere we work, see our Managed IT Services overview.

Less than most firms expect, as long as the controls are already in the monthly fee. Multi-factor authentication, endpoint protection, email filtering, tested backups and written documentation are what most questionnaires ask about, and full-service Managed IT should include them.

The cost shows up in the catch-up. A firm that has never enforced multi-factor authentication, or never written down who holds admin access, has setup work to do before it can answer “yes” honestly. The assessment scopes that work, so you see it before you sign. Microsoft reports that MFA plus blocking legacy sign-ins stops more than 99.9% of common identity attacks, which is why it sits at the top of our list.

If a large customer is reviewing you as a supplier, our page on cybersecurity in Markham walks through how we prepare firms for that process.

Team size sets the base. Security documentation, hybrid staff, extra offices, on-site systems and uptime expectations decide where in the range a Markham firm lands.

• Security documentation. Producing evidence of controls for clients, carriers or insurers is real work, and it belongs in scope rather than on a surprise invoice.
• Hybrid staff and personal devices. Every phone and home laptop that touches client data needs to be enrolled and secured.
• More than one office. A Markham head office plus a second location elsewhere in the GTA means more network equipment to manage.
• Servers and practice systems on site. They take more care than an office already in the cloud. Our page on cloud migration in Markham covers when moving them pays off.
• How long you can afford to be down. Firms that can’t lose a day of client work need tighter backup and recovery planning, covered on our business continuity in Markham page.

The monthly fee should cover the routine work that keeps systems running and secure, plus someone planning ahead with you. If a quote sits well below the ranges above, check which of these it leaves out.

• Help desk support from a named contact who knows your setup.
• Monitoring and patching for laptops, servers and Microsoft 365, scheduled outside client-facing hours.
• Endpoint protection, email filtering and multi-factor authentication.
• Backups that get test-restored, not only a report saying the job ran.
• Vendor and licence management.
• Quarterly reviews that tie technology spending to where the firm is going.

Our breakdown of what managed IT actually includes goes line by line. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security also publishes baseline controls for small and medium organizations, a useful yardstick that doesn’t come from a vendor.

Microsoft 365 licences, hardware, larger projects and cyber insurance usually sit outside the managed IT fee. Budget for them separately so the monthly number stays easy to compare.

• Microsoft 365 licences, billed per user.
• Laptops, firewalls and Wi-Fi equipment as they reach end of life.
• Projects such as an office move, a new practice system or a server migration.
• Cyber insurance, which increasingly asks about controls your IT provider manages.

Plan licence changes before you commit. Under Microsoft’s New Commerce Experience policy, most subscriptions can only be cancelled for a prorated refund within 7 days of purchase.

Compare scope first and price second. Two quotes at the same per-user rate can cover very different work, so hold both against the same short list.

1. What’s excluded? Get it in writing.
2. Who completes security questionnaires? And is that time in the fee?
3. Are site visits included? If not, what does one cost?
4. Who picks up when you call? A named person or a queue.
5. How are backups proven? A scheduled test restore, or a green checkmark.
6. What does leaving cost? Notice periods, early-termination fees and handover terms.

Some providers discount longer terms. ACT360’s published rate doesn’t change with term length, and every Managed IT agreement includes a 90-day exit clause. Our guide to what it costs to switch IT providers walks through the full calculation, and our page on managed IT with no long-term contract explains how the exit clause works.