Managed IT services pricing and contract template
Arke Technologies prices managed IT per user per month, set after an assessment and fixed in a service-level agreement before you sign. For IT directors, finance teams and procurement officers in South Africa, here are the market rates, the cost drivers, our proposal structure and a managed IT services contract template for testing any bid.
How we price managed IT support
Managed IT support pricing at Arke follows one rule: you see a price per user (seat) per month, set after we have assessed your estate. The assessment documents your devices, servers, licences, networks and applications, maps the dependencies between them and identifies vulnerabilities, and you receive a written report of findings, so the seat price reflects the estate you actually run.
The price goes into the service-level agreement (SLA) with the scope, response and resolution targets, exclusions, on-site policy and term, in writing before you commit. Project work outside the SLA, such as a migration or a new office, is quoted per project before it starts.
We publish no seat price, hourly rate or project rate, because a 150-person head office on one site is a different job from 150 people across three sites with their own servers. The service itself is described on our managed IT services page.
What drives the price of a managed IT contract
Users and devices: the people, and the computers, phones and servers they rely on; see device and IT asset management.- Scope: the service desk alone, or servers, network, security and cloud as well.
- Sites and on-site work: how many offices or campuses you run, and how often someone must attend in person.
- Hours of cover: our hours are Monday to Friday 08:00–17:00 and Saturday 09:00–13:00 (SAST); cover outside those hours is available by agreement and written into the SLA.
- Security tooling and licences: endpoint protection, email security, backup, and Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace licences.
- Legacy equipment: out-of-support servers take more work to keep safe; see Windows Server upgrades.
- Reporting and compliance: board, audit, PFMA or MFMA reporting is work, and a good contract prices it openly.
A managed IT services contract template: the clauses to check
Whether you draft your own or review ours, a managed IT services contract template should carry these headings. Use them to test any contract you are offered.
- Parties, term and notice: who signs, the start date, the initial term and the notice period.
- Scope: the users, devices, sites and systems covered, and the service model.
- Service levels: priorities P1 to P4, the response and resolution targets for each, the hours they apply and how they are measured.
- Exclusions: everything outside the fee, and how out-of-scope work is quoted and approved.
- Price and billing: the seat price, how seats are counted and changed, the billing method, and when and on what basis the price may be reviewed.
- Change control: how changes are requested, approved and recorded against documented runbooks.
- Security and POPIA: remote sessions approved and logged, confidentiality for everyone with access to your systems, and the written operator contract that section 21 of POPIA requires.
- Ownership: a statement that you own your data, credentials and documentation.
- Reporting: the monthly service review, the written report and the escalation path.
- Exit and handover: what is returned, in what form and by when, including the asset register and ticket history.
Governance and compliance the contract must support
King IV Principle 12 makes the governing body responsible for technology and information governance, and outsourcing IT does not move that duty. The contract must therefore give a board, council or school governing body evidence every month: SLA performance by priority, security and patching status, backup results and change records. See King IV and technology governance.
Departments, public entities and municipalities also buy and report under the PFMA or MFMA. We work to those disciplines and keep documentation ready for audit, including asset registers, change records, access logs and SLA reports, with controls aligned with ISO/IEC 27001, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and CIS Controls.
Buying managed IT from us: documents and routes
Procurement officers need evidence before they sign. These are the documents we provide and the routes to buy.
- Level 1 B-BBEE contributor, giving buyers 135% procurement recognition (sworn affidavit available on request).
- Registered in 2017 (registration number 2017/386810/07; VAT number 4750287957): the same company that traded as Fibre Boyz before taking the Arke Technologies name.
- Central Supplier Database (CSD) number and SARS tax compliance status, available on request.
- Company documents and a bank confirmation letter, available on request, with standard bidding documents (SBD forms) completed where a bid requires them.
- Three ways to buy: our proposal and SLA against your purchase order, a response to your request for quotation, or a response to your RFP or tender.
Procuring from Arke and our company facts page hold the details procurement teams ask for.
Pricing risks, and how we prevent them
Many disputes over managed IT trace back to a contract that was vague when it was signed.
- The low bid that excludes the work. Our exclusions are in the SLA, and anything outside it is quoted before work starts.
- Seat counts that drift. Seat changes go through the SLA's change process, so growth or a reduction is documented rather than disputed.
- Growth outpacing the provider. Delivery is remote-first from Johannesburg, and we hire technicians for experience, education and certifications in step with the contracts we sign, so a new site is a change to the SLA, not a new supplier.
- Lock-in and messy handovers. We take over on an agreed date with credentials and runbooks recorded, and at exit your data, credentials, documentation, asset register and ticket history come back to you.