Managed IT
How to compare an outsourced MSP against hiring internally, where co-managed IT fits, and the coverage questions that decide the answer.
Reviewed 2026-08-01 by the Machina IT engineering team.
The decision is about coverage, not headcount. One internal generalist cannot be expert in help desk, servers, networking, security and strategy simultaneously, and cannot cover nights, vacations or a second site. An MSP provides breadth and continuity; internal staff provide business context. Many mid-sized companies get the best result by combining both.
Above roughly 75 to 100 employees, internal knowledge of the business becomes valuable enough to keep in-house. The internal person keeps line-of-business systems and user relationships; the outside team takes infrastructure, security, after-hours and projects.
The split needs to be written down before the first incident.
Common questions
Compare total coverage, not salary versus invoice. A single hire has no redundancy and a narrower skill range than a team.
A good one will. Co-managed arrangements are routine, and they work when responsibilities are documented.
We review your network, security posture, cloud tenant and recovery plan, then hand you a plain-language report of what we found and what it means for the business.
