Every managed services proposal is measured against a number somebody wrote months earlier. Three providers try to get under it. One provider wrote it.
A managed IT provider gets a request from a distribution company with about 80 employees. The controller wants proposals for a support contract, a replacement server, the workstations past their useful life, a backup that actually restores, and the security items the cyber insurance renewal asked about. She mentions the owner approved a figure for IT this year.
Four providers respond. Three are trying to get under that figure. One of them wrote it, because they ran the network assessment five months earlier, while the budget was still being built.
In short
- The range a managed IT provider gives a controller while the budget is open becomes the IT line every later proposal is measured against.
- Run the assessment, write the range before you leave, tie it to a scope you wrote, and keep per-seat pricing out of it.
- There’s a short window each year when a range can still reach the operating budget before it goes up to the owner. Miss it and you’re bidding against somebody else’s number.
How a range becomes the budget line
Go back a year. The controller was building next year’s operating budget. She knew IT was a problem: the server had gone down twice, the sales team complained about slow laptops, and the insurance questionnaire had a column of “no” answers. What she didn’t have was a number.
A managed IT provider spent half a day on a network assessment and left a two-page summary. Server age and support status. Workstations past their useful life. Backups that run but have never been restore-tested. Multi-factor sign-in switched off for email. A monthly range for support and licensing, and a separate one-time range for hardware.
| How far out | What happens | Where your number is |
|---|---|---|
| Four months out | Controller starts building next year’s operating budget | She knows IT is a problem and has no figure for it |
| Three months out | You run the assessment and leave a two-page summary with a range | Your range is the only number written down anywhere |
| Two months out | The budget goes to the owner | Figures from inside your range are in the spreadsheet |
| One month out | Owner approves. Questions come back. | The controller calls you, because you wrote it |
| Month one of the new year | Money is assigned to specific line items | The IT line exists because you gave it a size |
| Month two | The controller writes the request | The scope is your scope, because it’s the only one in writing |
| Month three | Four managed services proposals come in | Three are pricing your list against your number |
Nobody decided to favor that provider. The number was simply the only one in the room when the spreadsheet was open.
The security items are the easiest part of that summary to justify, because the guidance is public. CISA’s multi-factor authentication guidance is written plainly enough to hand to an owner, and “phishing-resistant MFA is the standard all industry leaders should strive for” is a line a controller can put in a budget request without needing you in the room.
Why every other managed services proposal is measured against yours
By the time the request goes out, three things are already true.
The scope is yours. The request describes the work the way you described it. Nineteen workstations, not twelve and not thirty. A tested restore is on the list because you put it there. Multi-factor on email is on it because you flagged it. Everyone else is pricing your list.
The number is yours. The budget figure came out of your range. Anyone well above it looks expensive. Anyone well below it looks like they left something out, and the controller will ask you whether they did.
The relationship is yours. When the owner asked whether the server could go one more year, the controller called you. Nobody else got that call.
The window is short
Abstrakt sets appointments with the owners, controllers, and operations managers planning next year’s IT spend. Your engineers run the assessment. We do the calling that fills the calendar.
How to give a range without giving away the managed services proposal
Account managers worry about this, and they’re right to. If you hand over a number while the budget is still open, are you not telling every competitor where to aim? Not if the range is built properly.
A price
Belongs in the managed services proposal, once there’s an approved budget to sign against.
- Per-seat rates and license markup
- Project hourly and terms
- Something to be signed
A range
Belongs while the budget is open, in a two-page summary.
- A monthly band and a hardware band
- Tied to a scope you wrote
- Something to be budgeted
01
Give a range, not a price
Wide enough to cover what you find in the server room, narrow enough that the controller can put it in a cell.
02
Tie it to a scope you wrote
When a competitor comes in low, the first thing the controller checks is whether they included the restore testing and the security items.
03
Keep per-seat pricing out of it
A monthly band, a hardware band, and a scope. Your rate card lives in the proposal itself, not in the budget summary.
04
Say what you didn’t price
“This range doesn’t include the warehouse software upgrade.” Now the controller knows what to expect if a cheaper proposal skipped it.
What to do this week
Pull your twenty-account list. Get the assessment on the calendar with the controller or the owner inside four weeks. A range only reaches a budget while the budget is still being written.
Write the range before you leave the building. Not after an engineer has had it for three days. The range in their hands the same afternoon is the one that gets typed in.
Ask for the submission date. “When does this go to the owner?” Then call the week after and find out what made the cut.
The line that gets you the assessment
“If you’re putting next year’s budget together, I can run an assessment and leave you a range for the IT line. No proposal, no obligation, just a number you can defend to the owner.”
Controllers say yes to this because the number is the part they can’t produce themselves.
When you lose anyway
Sometimes the controller takes your range, puts it in the budget, and signs with somebody who came in under it. That happens, and it will keep happening.
The provider who wrote the scope, gave the number, and took the call when the owner pushed back is in a different conversation from the three who first heard of the company when the request landed. Be that one. Losing on price occasionally beats losing on absence every time.
Before the budget closes
Operating budgets go up to the owner well before the money is real. Abstrakt books the assessments while the budget is still open, so your team spends its week in server rooms instead of finding names. The assessment, the number, and the contract are yours.
Frequently Asked Questions
When do small companies set the IT budget for next year?
The sequence is more useful than the dates. A controller starts building the operating budget roughly four months before the fiscal year turns over, sends it upward about two months out, and gets approval shortly before the year starts. Money is assigned in the first month and requests go out in the second and third. Plenty of companies run a July to June or October to September year, so the same sequence sits somewhere different on the calendar for each one. Ask which they’re on.
Should an MSP give a price before the managed services proposal?
Give a range, not a price. A range is a budget tool and a price is a proposal. Tie the range to a scope you wrote yourself, state plainly what it doesn’t include, and keep per-seat rates and license markup for the proposal itself. A range costs you nothing and puts your scope in the request.
What goes in a managed IT network assessment summary?
Two pages. What you found: server age and vendor support status, how many workstations are past their useful life, whether backups have ever been restore-tested, and whether multi-factor sign-in is switched on for email. Then a monthly range for support and licensing, a one-time range for hardware, and a line saying what the range doesn’t cover.
How do you write a managed services proposal that wins?
Most of the work happens months before you write it. The proposal that wins usually describes a scope its author defined during an assessment months earlier, priced against a budget figure derived from that author’s own range. If you’re writing a proposal cold against someone else’s scope and someone else’s number, the document itself has limited room to save you.
Does giving a range early help competitors undercut you?
Only if the range is a bare number. Attached to a written scope, a low competing bid becomes a question the controller asks that competitor instead of a problem for you: did you include the restore testing and the security items? A range with a scope behind it’s defensible. A number floating on its own isn’t.
Does this apply outside managed IT?
Yes. Roofing, HVAC, paving, cleaning and electrical contractors all face the same sequence: a range given while the budget is open becomes the figure every later proposal is measured against. Only the assessment and the equipment change.
Keep going
- Comparing MSP lead generation agencies
- Outsourced SDR services
- Cold calling services
- When to send a commercial cleaning bid
- What to say when you cold call a facility manager
About this article
Jeff Winters is Chief Executive Officer at Abstrakt. Reviewed by Neil Erker, Chief Marketing Officer. Abstrakt sets appointments for managed IT providers and commercial contractors across the trades, and the patterns here come from that calling.
Jeff Winters is the CEO of Abstrakt Marketing Group, a U.S.-based B2B lead generation and appointment-setting company that books qualified sales meetings for clients across the commercial trades, IT and managed services, manufacturing, and B2B services. He has spent his career building and running outbound sales programs at scale, and he breaks down what actually works in sales and lead generation on Abstrakt's podcast, The Grow Show.
