Posted by: Aubrey Felix on September 2, 2026 at 11:45 am

A Complete Guide for Businesses with 15–250 Employees

Short answer: if you’ve already got internal IT staff but need more expertise, cybersecurity support, after-hours coverage, or help keeping up with increasingly complex technology, Co-Managed IT is probably worth it for you. It’s built for businesses with 15 to 250 employees, and it doesn’t replace your IT team. It backs them up, so burnout goes down, security holds up, and the business can actually keep growing.

Key takeaways:

• Best fit for businesses with 15–250 employees that already have internal IT, but need more expertise, cybersecurity support, or after-hours coverage.
• The clearest sign you need it: your IT person is buried in tickets and can’t get to bigger projects, or lacks the certifications for cybersecurity and compliance work.
• Costs significantly less than hiring an in-house System Administrator once salary, benefits, and tools are factored in.
• Skip it if you’re under 15 users or only need occasional help — a break-fix arrangement fits better there.
• TAZ Networks has provided co-managed IT to businesses throughout Southeast Michigan for over 23 years, including help desk, backups, and cybersecurity.

What Is Co-Managed IT?

Co-Managed IT is for businesses that already have an IT manager but need some extra help. Maybe that’s a small IT team that isn’t well-versed in cybersecurity. Maybe it’s a company that needs more hands for the routine stuff, or for compliance, or for the more intricate aspects of IT that don’t come up every day.

You’re still managing your IT. You just don’t need to hire an entire team to get enterprise-grade coverage as you grow.

And the engagement flexes around what you’ve already got. Say you’ve got someone on the shop floor who knows your manufacturing equipment better than anyone we’d bring in. We’re not going to duplicate that. We build our side around the gaps, which is usually cybersecurity tools and expertise your team hasn’t had time to build up. You keep the people who already know your business. We just fill in what they don’t have time to be experts in.

Who Benefits Most from Co-Managed IT?

These are usually businesses that are growing, whether that means adding headcount or taking on new compliance requirements as the business expands. That covers a lot of ground, from manufacturing to healthcare.

A few patterns show up again and again:

• One-person IT departments. This is where a single employee is responsible for support, security, backups, and purchasing, and something eventually gets pushed to the back burner.
• Growing manufacturers. Where more employees, locations, and shop-floor equipment make the environment more complicated than a small team can keep up with.
• Companies that are running into compliance requirements their team just doesn’t have the time or certifications to handle.
• Organizations with real after-hours needs, where a live help desk with an on-call option actually matters.
• Teams that have moved to Microsoft 365 or other cloud platforms. Migrating over is one project, but keeping up with permissions, licensing, and security settings afterward never really stops.
• And then there’s leadership without an IT background. If nobody at the top knows IT, it’s hard to know what you’re even looking for when hiring, and one bad IT hire can mean months of cleanup and a lot of wasted budget.

When Is It Worth the Investment?

This is the real question, isn’t it? That’s probably why you’re reading this article.

So think about your current IT manager. Are they overloaded? Do they have big projects that keep getting pushed aside because they’re busy with password resets and printer issues? Or maybe it’s the opposite. Your IT person is great at the day-to-day, but doesn’t have the training or certifications for the bigger cybersecurity projects or the compliance regulations that keep changing. Are there projects that never quite get finished? Do they have anyone to cover them when they’re on vacation? Sometimes companies grow faster than their IT resources can keep up. And sometimes you’d rather put your budget elsewhere in the company than hire another full-time IT employee.

Yes, Co-Managed IT is still an expense. But usually it’s a lot less than a professional salary at market rates — and you still get to manage your IT without needing to build an entire department to do it well.

When Is It Not Worth It?

If you have a fully staffed IT team with no real gaps or complaints, Co-Managed IT probably isn’t necessary. That’s a rare spot to be in below the enterprise level, but it happens. If all you need is help with compliance specifically, something like our Compliance Care service would be a better fit than a full co-managed arrangement.

But if you went looking for an article like this one, chances are you’ve got a gap somewhere.

There are a couple situations where it isn’t the right call, though. Under 15 users, and you likely don’t have the need or the budget for managed services — a break-fix arrangement fits better. Or if you only need help once in a great while, that’s occasional break-fix territory too, not an ongoing partnership.

What Does Co-Managed IT Look Like in Practice?

One healthcare company we work with has around 150 users, plus even more staff who don’t have their own workstations. Their internal team is just two people: an IT Director who handles the big-picture planning and their HIPAA compliance, and a Level 1 support person who handles the everyday stuff — password resets, printer issues, and so on.

But even with both those roles covered, there’s still a gap. Nobody on their team has time to own the ongoing cybersecurity monitoring, backups, and infrastructure work full-time. That’s where we come in. We work alongside the IT Director on the bigger initiatives and handle the technical layer underneath, so nothing falls through the cracks.

It lets this company run at an enterprise level, IT-wise, without the enterprise-level price tag or the growing pains.

How Much Does Co-Managed IT Cost?

It depends. Every client’s needs are different, so we build the service around what your company actually needs. But here’s one way to think about it.

Hiring an IT System Administrator to work under your IT Director or CIO runs $80,000–$102,000 a year here in the Ann Arbor area (Salary.com), and higher for more senior candidates. And that salary doesn’t even cover benefits, payroll taxes, or the tools you’d still need, like RMM (remote monitoring and management) software, penetration testing, or round-the-clock network monitoring. If you wanted all of that in-house, you’re not looking at one hire, you’re looking at a small team. A co-managed arrangement gives you that whole layer without adding headcount, and more consistent coverage too. As a company we don’t take sick days, and we handle our own team’s benefits and training, so that’s not on you either.

There’s another risk in that math. What happens if your IT person leaves? Their documentation, passwords, and institutional knowledge start walking out the door with them. That’s not a hypothetical, industry surveys found that 88% of IT workers said they’d take sensitive company data with them if they were let go, and most departing employees can still access company systems well after their last day. Then there’s replacing them. Research from Gallup and SHRM puts that at 50% to 200% of the person’s annual salary, more for specialized roles like IT. For a $90,000 System Administrator, that’s $45,000 to $180,000. And that’s before you’ve even backfilled the role.

The monthly bill is only part of it, really. What happens without this kind of coverage is where the real cost shows up, even though it never makes it onto an invoice. It’s also why keeping this relationship going pays off even if you don’t think you’ll need it right away. We keep documentation current as part of the regular relationship, so if your IT person ever does leave, nobody’s scrambling to figure out how anything works. We can help smooth the transition, or step in and run things fully managed while you take your time hiring the right person.

You may still have some upfront costs for hardware upgrades. But that’s an expense you’d face either way. Electronics need upgrades whether or not you’re working with an MSP. Same goes for any other specialized consulting your team might need.

Before you sign anything, though, it’s worth asking a provider some direct questions — here’s where we’d start.

5 Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Co-Managed IT Partner

1. How are responsibilities divided? That depends on you. We’ll meet with you, run an assessment, and talk through which parts of IT your team wants to keep and which you’d like us to take on. Most of our co-managed clients have us handle the help desk along with backups, recovery, and cybersecurity.

2. Can we scale services over time? Yes. Our account managers meet with you quarterly to reassess your needs and see if there’s anything else we should be offering.

3. What cybersecurity expertise do you provide? Tavis Patterson started the business over 23 years ago and is an expert in the field, and our whole team continually trains to keep up with an ever-changing cybersecurity landscape.

4. How does your help desk integrate with ours? Seamlessly. Most of our co-managed clients actually have us run the help desk entirely, which frees up their time so they don’t have to handle the small stuff. Your employees get our phone number or a weblink to open a ticket — and we’re also rolling out TAZ Networks Support chat for clients.

5. What happens during emergencies? We have someone on call after hours, so truly critical issues get the attention they need right away.

Is Co-Managed IT Worth It for Your Business?

If your internal IT team is capable but stretched thin — buried in routine requests, missing coverage for vacations, or watching cybersecurity and compliance work get pushed aside — Co-Managed IT is worth a serious look.

The person who already knows your business doesn’t need to be replaced. They need backup, someone covering the stuff they don’t have time to be an expert in.

TAZ Networks works alongside internal IT teams throughout Southeast Michigan. If you’re not sure whether you need a full co-managed setup or just help with one piece of the puzzle, we can help you figure out where the gaps actually are.