Honest comparison

What we include that £30 IT providers don't.

We're not the cheapest. We're not pretending to be. This page is a no-spin comparison of what's actually in the price: Fresh Tech Standard versus a typical national IT provider at £30/user, versus doing it yourself in-house.

Tick = fully included. Half-tick = partially / sometimes / extra-cost. Cross = not included or has to be done another way.

Feature

Fresh Tech

Standard · £40/user

National IT provider

Typical · £30/user

DIY in-house

You / your team

Huntress managed EDR + identity threat detection

Included on every tier, Standard included

Usually £6–10/user/month extra

You'd need to buy + manage it yourself

Microsoft 365 backup (mail, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams)

Independent third-party backup, included

Often £4–8/user/month extra

Most assume Microsoft "has it covered", but they don't

DMARC policy management

Configured and monitored

Typically a project, often not done at all

Specialist skill, rarely done in-house

Cloudflare DNS management

We hold DNS so third parties can't break your email

Often pointed at a registrar nobody owns

Usually whoever set up the website years ago

Cyber Essentials maintenance + evidence pack

Year-round; ready for annual assessment

Often a paid project, redone yearly

Multi-week internal project + assessor cost

Basic shared webhosting

Included if you need a simple business site

Separate hosting bill, usually £15–30/month

GoDaddy / 123-reg retail rates

Domain renewal absorbed (standard TLDs)

.co.uk, .com, .uk, .org, .net etc, at our cost

You pay registrar retail (~£25–40/year)

Retail rates from your registrar

Onsite support

Standard at project rates · Plus & Premium included in catchment

Often "billable on top" once you're past 20 miles

You're the onsite

Named engineer who knows your business

Two engineers, you talk to one of us, directly

A ticket queue, rotating helpdesk

One person, and if they're ill, no cover

Response time on critical issues

P1 within 30 minutes on every tier

Best-efforts, often 1–4 hours

Whenever they get to it / are in the office

Holiday & sickness cover

Two of us means continuous cover

Helpdesk model handles cover by design

If your IT person is off, nothing happens

Indicative monthly cost (20-user business)

Standard £800/mo · Plus £1,200/mo · Premium £1,800/mo

£600/mo headline + ~£300/mo of "extras" usually billed on top

£3,500–4,000/mo (salary loaded for 1 FTE)

"Typical national IT provider" figures are based on published price lists and procurement quotes we've seen from clients switching to us in 2025–2026. Your mileage may vary, every provider differs. The point is that £10/month/user buys a lot more than people think once you account for the line items above.

Why we're not the cheapest

£10 buys you peace of mind, not paperwork.

Most clients who quote-shop discover the £30 headline becomes £45–55 after the add-ons that should have been included. Worse, the bits they didn't think to ask about, such as DMARC, M365 backup, identity threat detection, usually aren't there at all. They find out when the breach happens.

Fresh Tech's pricing is indicative: we'll quote you exactly during a 20-minute discovery call once we know your user count, sites, and devices. Book one →

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Last reviewed May 2026 · Sam James