Help Desk Outsourcing Pricing Help:

How Much Does an Outsourced Help Desk Cost?

Businesses everywhere are increasingly considering help desk outsourcing. And it’s easy to see why. In a tight labor market, outsourcing is a smart way to get reliable IT help desk support without having to deal with the frustration of hiring.

But the decision has to make good business sense, too. How can you accurately determine not only the cost of help desk outsourcing, but also its cost-effectiveness for your business?

This guide will cover:

• The different help desk outsourcing pricing models you’ll encounter, and how they work.
• How to assess your existing IT help desk costs much more accurately (and what gets missed!) so you have the complete picture of how much you might save.
• How outsourced IT help desks determine how much they’ll charge you.
• How to justify your investment by demonstrating an accurate ROI that looks beyond financial statements.
• And lastly, we’ve got some help desk pricing tools that will help you determine the cost of your own help desk cost per ticket — and your costs per ticket for other levels of your IT support.

Ready? Let's get started!

The Five Outsourced Help Desk Pricing Models

If you’re looking for a quick answer to, “What does IT help desk outsourcing cost?” you might be surprised to discover that we don’t have a single answer for you.

We have five answers.

That’s because outsourced help desk vendors charge for their services in one of five ways:

1. Per Ticket. You pay for each ticket your users generate, with pricing based on a monthly commitment and baseline. Multiple calls concerning the same ticket count as one ticket. This is the most common pricing model.
2. Per Call. You pay for each call that the IT help desk handles on your behalf. If a ticket takes six calls to resolve, each call is billed.
3. Per Minute. You pay for talk time or work time, typically calculated per minute or per agent hour. This is typically charged by firms with a customer service focus, rather than a help desk focus.
4. Per Agent. You pay a flat rate per help desk agent. You’ll typically see this type of structure with staffing agencies who provide temp agents instead of dedicated outsourced services.
5. Per User. You pay for all IT users. Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are more likely to use this pricing model.

Learn More: IT Help Desk Outsourcing Pricing Models Comparison

First, Understand Your Existing Help Desk Costs

Before you can tell if outsourcing will save you money, you have to know how much you’re spending on help desks now. Here’s how to break down your operating costs:

Consider your operating expenses, including:

1. Salaries and Benefits: Costs for agents and support staff.
2. Technology and Telecom: Includes computers, software licenses, and headsets.
3. Facilities: Covers leases, utilities, and insurance.
4. Other Costs: Training, travel, and supplies.
   

You might not have all this information at your fingertips. For example, IT managers might not have access to full salary data, payroll taxes, overhead costs, and other expenses to give them a full picture of their help desk costs. And there may be hidden costs, like shadow IT.

Once you have a better idea of your numbers, you can start categorizing them and pulling everything together. 

So, let’s take a look at a sample budget. (These numbers are just examples. They aren’t meant to represent your true costs.)

• Salaries and Benefits: $18,000
• Technology and Telecom: $3,000
• Facilities: $2,500
• Other Costs: $1,500
  

Total Monthly Cost: $25,000

With a ticket volume of 1,000 per month, your cost per ticket would be $25. 

Now let’s see how that might compare against your costs for an outsourced IT help desk. 

Factors That Go Into Outsourced Help Desk Pricing

You have a general idea of how much you’re spending on help desk services. Now you can compare it with quotes from IT help desk providers. Here are some factors that will likely influence their costs. 

Average Talk Time

How long will agents be on the phone with your users?

Generally speaking, if your average talk time is low, expect to pay less for outsourced help desk support than if your average talk time is high.

Help desks that field multiple short calls throughout the day have more resources to help you resolve your technical issues. This lowers your operating costs because it lets the help desk supplier leverage their resources on your behalf.

Inbound Versus Outbound Calls (Sort of…)

Outsourced help desks focus on resolving incoming calls. But that doesn’t mean all help calls are inbound. Agents sometimes need to make outbound calls for follow-ups or contact requests. 

Some help desks prioritize a high inbound call rate and view outbound calls as tying up agents. But while it’s true that you don’t want your agents to make too many outbound calls, a high inbound call rate doesn’t give you the full picture, unless it’s paired with the next metric on our list.

New Tickets Versus Follow-Ups

Some users call the IT help desk to report a new issue. Other users call (sometimes more than once) to follow up on the status of an open ticket.

These follow-up calls add to the workload of your help desk — and too many of them can be a big red flag. If 20% or more of your calls are requests for follow-up, it probably means tickets that have been escalated up the line to Tier 2 or Tier 3 aren’t being handled in a timely fashion. This results in backlog at the help desk — and more resources will be required to handle the volume. 

When establishing your help desk outsourcing budget, it’s important to have a realistic assessment of the current picture — not only will it help you gauge your help desk’s level of maturity and what resources will be needed, but it will also help your outsourcing partner best plan how to optimize their resources and relieve your burden.

First Call Resolution Rate (FCR)

The amount of money you should budget for outsourced help desk services also depends on the percentage of tickets your help desk can typically resolve on the first call. The more calls that can be resolved quickly, the less your cost per ticket.

But this may be more complex than you think. 

If your help desk is resolving issues that are complicated and require more time to resolve, you may need more staff to handle the overall call volume, which increases cost.

This is why it’s so important to ask about FCR with potential partners:  

• In some cases, low first-call resolution rates are a sign a vendor has inexperienced agents, not enough agents, a poor internal knowledge base, poor training, poor processes, or any combination of the above.
• Or it could mean they handle a lot of particularly complex issues that simply can’t be effectively resolved on that first call, driving down their FCR rate.
  

Either way, you won’t know unless you ask. Make a point of asking about the complexity of the issues they deal with and what types of issues get handed off to higher-tier support or slated for follow-up. You want to make sure you’re not going to be financially penalized for choosing a vendor who simply can’t handle basic tech issues.

Learn More: 6 Benefits of Getting Better First Call Resolution Metrics

Other Hidden Costs to Consider

Finally, when it comes to monthly IT support contract pricing, you should consider the other things that affect your budget:

• Staff models: Ratio of Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 staff (the higher up in the Tier, the more they cost). Also consider the ratio of agents to supervisors and managers.
• Coverage: The more hours per day and the more days per year you need coverage, the more you pay.
• Business needs: The amount you pay for outsourced help desk support depends on where you are in your business. Startups require a different level of support than established brands. Companies that are launching new technology products or implementing new internal technology have greater IT support needs than businesses that are conducting business as usual.
• Complexity of support: How complicated — or simple — are your IT support needs? Companies that use Microsoft 365 and not much else pay less for outsourced IT help desk support than complex manufacturers that have ERP software, IoT devices, proprietary applications, APIs and multiple sites.
• Ancillary support staff: Some IT help desk vendors have ancillary support staff beyond their front-line help desk agents. If you use these staff, you must factor this added cost to your budget.
• Licensing: Does your outsourced IT help desk have a software tool that your internal IT folks must also use? Factor monthly licensing fees into your budget.
• Training: Are you required to train your outsourced help desk on your proprietary software, unique IT infrastructure or any other area of your business? Add this line item to your budget.

Showing ROI for an Outsourced Help Desk

Regardless of your position, it’s likely you’ll have to sell someone on the decision to outsource your help desk. But there’s a lot more to consider than dollars and cents. To get a full picture of your return on investment, consider these factors:

Finances

How does outsourcing impact the bottom line?

Customer Satisfaction

Will it enhance user experience?

Time

Will it reduce downtime and increase efficiency?

Effort

Does it align with business goals?

And there are other hidden returns on your outsourcing investment to consider. Outsourcing could result in faster first-call resolution, which could reduce frustration from unreliable or slow IT support, leading to increased productivity and happier employees.

Take this example: Our client, a medical center, found that when they outsourced, they suddenly freed up internal resources for other projects. So, if your team is too busy handling support tickets to tackle projects that could grow your business, it’s important to factor that in when considering ROI.

“The savings for me include the fact that it allows me to spend more time making sure that our knowledge articles are up to date and making sure that our field support team has the resources they need to do their jobs to the best of their abilities.” 
Manager of IT support services

Read more: Improving Efficiency in Health Care Help Desk Operation

ROI Formula

So, how do you calculate ROI? It’s a simple formula. 

ROI = (Total Savings + Efficiency Gains) ÷ Outsourcing Costs

For example, if outsourcing reduces downtime by 20% and saves $5,000 monthly in operational costs, while costing $3,000 monthly, the ROI would be:

ROI = ($5,000 + $3,000) ÷ $3,000 = 2.67 (or 267%)

Help Desk Cost Calculators

We have put together a few tools to help you calculate your own help desk costs and other IT support costs more quickly.

Help Desk Cost Calculator

This calculator allows you to quickly input your actual staffing and other related costs discussed in the sample budget section and produce your own Cost Per Ticket for your current help desk.

IT Support Cost Calculator

Are you looking for a more in-depth help desk cost analysis? Then this calculator is for you. The IT Support Cost Calculator is a comprehensive tool that lets you input IT costs and other direct and indirect expenses. For example, you can input costs associated with each tier of your IT support. It will then calculate the Cost Per Ticket for each tier of support, allowing you to see the significant difference between tickets resolved at the help desk versus escalating to a higher-cost tier.

Lower Your IT Support Costs … and Get More Value

The key thing to remember about help desk outsourcing pricing isn’t how much you pay. It’s how much you receive.

Remember, outsourcing is an investment. And all good investments deliver a measurable return. Your outsourced help desk should help you easily address the top 10 challenges of operating a successful help desk. And do so cost effectively.

Want to learn more about outsourcing your help desk? We’re happy to answer your questions. Get in touch.