Key Takeaways
- Below about 75 employees, managed IT usually costs far less than one full-time IT hire.
- An in-house person knows your business best but cannot cover every skill or every day.
- Co-managed IT combines both: your own person plus an outside team.
- Compare the full cost, including benefits, tools, training and the cost of gaps.
At some point every growing Dallas company asks the same question: hire an IT person or hand IT to an outside team through managed IT services? Both can work. The right choice depends on your size, your systems and how much risk you can live with.
This guide compares the two honestly, using typical Dallas numbers, and shows when outsourced IT services, a hire or a mix of both makes the most sense. A calculator lets you test the math against your own headcount.
A Year of Each Option
Here is a typical first-year comparison for a 25-person office in Dallas.
| Cost item | In-house IT hire | Managed IT (25 users) |
|---|---|---|
| Salary | $75,000 to $95,000 | Included |
| Benefits & payroll taxes | $18,000 to $28,000 | Included |
| Tools & software | $5,000 to $12,000 | Included |
| Training & certifications | $2,000 to $5,000 | Included |
| Recruiting | $10,000 to $18,000 | None |
| Service fees | None | $37,500 to $52,500 |
| First-year total | $110,000 to $158,000 | $37,500 to $52,500 |
The figures are typical estimates for an experienced IT support or systems administrator role in Dallas and a fully managed plan at $125 to $175 per user per month. Salary varies the most, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data for the Dallas–Fort Worth metro area is a useful reference when you budget a hire. The Dallas pricing guide explains what moves the per-user rate.
The Costs Behind the Salary
Benefits and payroll taxes typically add a quarter or more on top of pay. Your IT person also needs monitoring software, a ticketing system, backup tools and ongoing training, which a provider spreads across many clients. Recruiting is the cost most people forget: an agency fee or weeks of a manager’s time, plus the months before a new hire knows your systems.
What the Monthly Fee Leaves Out
A fair comparison also counts what sits outside any plan. Microsoft 365 licenses, new laptops, network hardware and one-off projects such as an office move are billed separately whether you hire or outsource. They belong in both budgets, so they rarely change which option wins, but they keep the comparison honest.
Run Your Own Numbers
Enter your headcount, the salary you would need to offer and a per-user rate to compare one year of each option.
First year, in-house vs. managed$115,950 vs. $45,000In-house includes about 27% for benefits and taxes plus $8,000 for tools and training, before recruiting.
The break-even point usually lands somewhere between 60 and 90 employees, depending on the salary you need to pay and the plan level you choose. Above that, a hire starts to add up financially, although coverage and skills still argue for outside help.
Benefits, tools, training and recruiting add a large share on top of an IT salary, while a managed fee already includes them.
When Each Option Wins
A Hire Pays Off When IT Work Never Stops
A full-time employee makes sense when there is enough hands-on work to fill every week and that work depends on knowing your business in depth.
- You have 100+ staff in one location
- You run custom or in-house software
- Technology is part of what you sell
- Someone needs to be on site all day
Managed IT Fits Most Dallas Offices
For companies without IT staff, an outside team covers more skills for less than one salary, and nobody has to recruit, train or replace anyone.
- You have fewer than about 75 staff
- Nobody owns IT today
- You need security, cloud & network skills
- You want one predictable monthly cost
A Mix Works When Your IT Person Is Stretched
If you already employ one or two IT people, adding an outside team is often smarter than another hire, because you gain coverage and specialist skills rather than another generalist.
- Your IT staff are overloaded
- Nobody covers nights or vacations
- Security monitoring is missing
- Big projects keep slipping
Teams under 25 people should look at small business IT support, which is priced and sized for that stage.
In-House vs. Managed, Side by Side
| Factor | In-house IT | Managed IT |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge of your business | Deep, built over time | Learned during onboarding, then documented |
| Availability | Office hours, minus time off | Every business day plus 24/7 monitoring |
| Range of skills | One person’s strengths | Help desk, security, cloud and network |
| Cost | Salary, benefits, tools, training | One predictable monthly fee |
| Security coverage | Depends on the person’s time | Monitoring and patching on a schedule |
| Growing the team | Another hire, months away | Add users to the plan |
An in-house person wins on familiarity and quick walk-up questions. An outside team wins on coverage, breadth and predictability. Which matters more depends on how your office works from day to day.
The break-even point usually falls between 60 and 90 employees, depending on salary and plan level.
Risks People Overlook
One Person Holds Everything
If your only IT person leaves, passwords, setups and vendor contacts often leave too. Vacations and sick days create smaller versions of the same gap. Whatever you choose, insist on written documentation that someone else could pick up tomorrow.
The Security Skills Gap
Phishing, invoice fraud and ransomware hit businesses of every size, and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center records billions of dollars in reported losses each year. One generalist rarely has time to watch alerts around the clock, which is why security monitoring is often the first thing companies hand to an outside team, even when they keep an internal IT person. Ask yourself who is watching your systems at 2 a.m. on a Sunday. If the honest answer is nobody, that gap exists whether you hire or not.
Being Tied to the Wrong Provider
The biggest risk of outsourcing is picking the wrong provider: unclear scope, slow response or a contract that is hard to leave. Keep admin access in your own hands and read the exit terms before signing. Our guide on how to choose a managed IT provider in Dallas shows what to check.
Three Dallas Scenarios
The right model depends less on industry than on size, systems and how much hands-on work there is. These three examples show how the decision usually plays out.
A 15-Person Marketing Agency in Deep Ellum
Big video files, demanding Wi-Fi and a few powerful workstations, but nobody on staff who owns IT. A full-time hire would cost more than the rest of the technology budget combined. A managed plan covers the help desk, backups of client projects and security for a fraction of that, with visits when a workstation or the network needs hands-on work.
A 70-Person Manufacturer in Garland
One long-serving IT manager knows the plant systems better than anyone but spends the day on password resets and has not had a proper vacation in years. Replacing that knowledge would be risky, so the company keeps its manager and adds co-managed support for the help desk, after-hours monitoring and patching. The manager finally has time for the ERP upgrade that kept slipping.
A 180-Person Distributor in Grand Prairie
At this size a small internal team of two or three makes financial sense, especially with warehouse systems that need someone on site every day. Even here, security monitoring around the clock is handed to an outside team, because staffing a 24/7 security function in-house would cost far more.
The pattern is clear: the smaller the company, the more it gains from managed IT. The larger it grows, the more it keeps in-house, but almost nobody covers every skill alone.
Smaller companies gain the most from a managed plan, while larger ones keep more in-house but still buy specialist help.
The Middle Path: Co-Managed IT
Plenty of Dallas companies land in between. They keep one or two internal IT people for daily decisions and projects and add an outside team for the help desk, after-hours coverage and security monitoring. That model is called co-managed IT, and it usually costs less than a full plan because your team keeps part of the work.
It works best when roles are written down from the start: which tickets go where, who handles which alerts and who holds admin access to what. A good setup also shares one ticketing system and one set of documentation, so nobody has to ask what the other side did and night or weekend handovers happen without a phone call.
Switching Without Downtime
- Secure the admin accounts. Make sure the company, not one person, owns Microsoft 365, the domain, the firewall and the backups.
- Document before anyone leaves. Capture passwords, vendors, licenses and network details while your current person is still there.
- Move support in stages. Start with monitoring and backups, then hand over the help desk once staff know how to reach it.
- Review after 30 days. Check the first monthly report and adjust the scope while the switch is fresh.
If your IT person is leaving on short notice, start with step one the same day. Losing access to a domain registrar or a firewall login is the one mistake that turns a simple switch into weeks of recovery work.
Securing the admin accounts first prevents most of the problems that happen during a switch.
The Verdict
Answer five questions honestly before you decide. They settle most cases faster than a spreadsheet.
- How much hands-on work is there? If someone would be busy on site all day, every day, a hire starts to make sense.
- Which skills do you need? Count help desk, security, cloud and networking. One person rarely covers all four well.
- What happens during a vacation? If the answer is “nothing gets fixed,” you need more than one person.
- How fast are you growing? Adding users to a plan takes days. Adding IT staff takes months.
- Who holds the passwords today? If it is one person, fix that first, whichever option you choose.
The verdict for most Dallas offices: under about 75 people with no IT staff, managed IT wins. With one or two IT people already, co-managed IT wins. With constant on-site work and custom systems, a hire can make sense. Need help only now and then? IT support services may be enough for now, and you can move to a monthly plan as you grow.
FAQs
Is managed IT less secure than having our own IT person?
Usually not. A good provider brings security tools and specialists that most single IT hires do not have. Ask how threats are monitored and who can access your systems.
Can we switch from in-house to managed IT later?
Yes. Many companies switch after their IT person leaves. The move is much smoother if systems and passwords are documented before that happens.
What happens to our IT employee if we bring in a provider?
Many companies keep them and move to co-managed IT, so they focus on projects while the outside team handles daily support and monitoring.
What does an IT employee cost in Dallas?
Expect roughly $75,000 to $95,000 in salary for an experienced support or systems administrator, plus benefits, tools and training.
Is managed IT only for small companies?
No. Companies of every size use managed IT for some or all of their technology. Larger ones more often use co-managed IT alongside an internal team.
Caleb Whitaker
Editorial Director, Byte Dallas
Caleb runs the Byte Dallas editorial desk and turns what our technicians see every week, from hail-season outages to office moves along the Tollway, into straight answers for Dallas business owners. A Dallas native, he has worked in IT services for more than 15 years, first answering help desk calls and later leading network and support projects for accounting firms, clinics and distributors across North Texas. He holds Microsoft 365 and CompTIA Security+ certifications. These days he spends much of his time on practical AI, such as Microsoft Copilot, and on how small teams can use it without exposing client data. Every guide he publishes is reviewed by a working technician first.