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Q: How Do You Usually Bill Your Users for Backup?<\/h2>\n
The best way to bill for managed backup is to bundle it into your \u201cAll You Can Eat\u201d (AYCE) offering. AYCE means signing a contract with your client to provide a range of services, all for a fixed price. By bundling managed backup pricing into your other services, you avoid having to bill for backup separately, which is a hassle for both you and your customer.<\/p>\n
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You\u2019ll want to set some limits, of course. For example, you might say that managed backup is included as part of the standard contract for up to 1000 gigabytes of data and set an extra fee beyond that point.<\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/div>\nQ: How Much Should You Charge for Data Restore?<\/h2>\n
Restoring data to some types of devices is more difficult than to others. For restores of local files and desktop file systems, which typically are simple to complete, we recommend offering restores as a standard service at no additional cost. For the cloud, you can offer data restore at a per-gigabyte rate.<\/p>\n
For server restores, it is often wise to set pricing on a case-by-case basis (and note this in your contract), since the time and effort to restore data to a server can vary widely depending on the type of server and workload involved, and whether you will also need to reconfigure the service, restore networking and so on.<\/p>\n
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<\/div>\n<\/div>\nQ: Do You Include DR in Your Offering or Provide It Separately?<\/h2>\n
The answer to this question depends on which kind of DR services your client needs.<\/p>\n
If your client can tolerate some downtime and it is relatively easy to restore data to the client\u2019s devices, consider offering DR as part of your general service package, at no additional charge.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, if your client has strict RTO and RPO needs and can tolerate very little downtime, you\u2019ll need to spend a lot more effort ensuring that you can meet those requirements. You will need to live \u201cmirror\u201d data infrastructure that you can use to perform a DR quickly, and you will need the right staff on hand to perform the DR whenever it is necessary. In this case, it\u2019s worth charging extra for the high-value DR you are providing.<\/p>\n
Further reading<\/span> Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) Overview for MSPs<\/a><\/p>\n Further reading<\/span>\u00a0Add DRaaS to Your MSP Offering<\/a><\/p>\n In this case, managed backup pricing depends on your situation. In general, billing per storage unit (e.g., per gigabyte) of data that you back up is the simplest approach. It is also handy because you can price your service based on bundles (e.g., you can charge a set rate for the first 500 gigabytes of backed-up data, then another rate for the next 500-gigabyte bundle, and so on).<\/p>\n Per-user, per-machine and other pricing models can make sense in certain situations. For more on this topic, check out our guide on pricing models:<\/p>\n Further reading<\/span> MSP Pricing Guide<\/a><\/p>\n The main advantage of per-user pricing is that it can be hard to locate all of the devices in your client\u2019s infrastructure, so charging per-user is more accurate.<\/p>\n On the other hand, per-device pricing has the advantage of corresponding more directly to the actual work and effort required. The second situation, where per-device is preferable is when there are significantly fewer users than devices.<\/p>\nQ: Do You Bill Per-Storage Unit, Per-Machine, Per-Employee, Per-User or Something Else?<\/h2>\n
Q: What Are the Pros and Cons of Per-User and Per-Device Pricing?<\/h2>\n