Per-⁠User vs Per-⁠Device IT Pricing: The Math for Your Office

A managed IT provider (an outside company that runs your IT for a monthly fee) has to turn “your office” into a number. Quotes usually count people, devices or a mix of both. Which unit a quote uses goes a long way to deciding whether it is cheap or expensive for your office, and you can’t tell that from the unit price alone.

1. What each model counts

• Per user (also called per seat or per person): one monthly price for each person the provider supports. What that price includes varies by provider, so the first question is always which devices and accounts come with the person.
• Per device (also called per endpoint, meaning any computer, phone or other machine connected to your network): one monthly price for each machine. People who use two computers count twice, and a computer shared by three people counts once.

Neither unit is honest or dishonest on its own. They reward different office shapes, and a mixed quote can combine the expensive half of each. The way to see through all of them is the same: turn every quote into one monthly total for the office you actually have.

2. Microsoft already counts people

Your Microsoft 365 bill already uses the per-⁠person unit. In Microsoft’s words, after you buy a Microsoft 365 business subscription you “assign a license to each person.” For subscriptions that include the desktop apps, “each person can install Microsoft 365 on up to five PCs or Macs, five tablets, and five phones.” One license follows the person across their devices.

Shared computers do not change that count. Microsoft’s documentation for shared computer activation (a setting that lets several people use the Microsoft 365 desktop apps on one machine, each signed in with their own account) gives the example of “Three workers at a factory” sharing one computer across their shifts, and tells administrators to “assign each user a license” for Microsoft 365 Apps. It also says Microsoft 365 Business Premium “is the only business plan that includes support for shared computer activation” (enterprise plans that include Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise support it too). So a per-⁠device support quote does not shrink your Microsoft 365 license count: on a business plan, twelve people who each sign in to Microsoft 365 on four shared computers still need twelve licenses.

Some costs really are per machine. Microsoft priced Extended Security Updates for Windows 10 (paid security fixes after support ends) for businesses “at $61 USD per device for Year One,” a year that began in November 2025, and “The price doubles every consecutive year, for a maximum of three years.” Because the updates are cumulative, a business that joins late pays for the earlier years too. Hardware is per machine as well. Every real IT budget mixes the two units; the question this article answers is which unit the support price uses. Microsoft’s terms are Microsoft’s, so read them at the source and check your own agreement.

Read Microsoft’s shared computer activation overview →

3. The one division that settles it

A per-⁠user quote costs the per-⁠user rate times your headcount. A per-⁠device quote costs the per-⁠device rate times your device count. To find the per-⁠device price at which the two cost the same, divide the per-⁠user monthly total by the number of devices:

Break-⁠even per-⁠device price = (per-⁠user rate × people) ÷ devices.

A per-⁠device quote below that number costs less each month; above it, more. Here it is for three office shapes, using our published Core IT rate of $125 and Secure IT rate of $250 per user per month. Secure IT adds a 24/7 Security Operations Center (SOC, a team that watches for attacks around the clock).

Office A is the classic office: one person, one computer. The break-⁠even per-⁠device price is the per-⁠user rate itself, so the comparison comes down to what each price includes.

Office B is where per-⁠device pricing can genuinely cost less, and we say so on our own pricing page. Twelve people who each have their own sign-⁠in cost twelve plan rates on a per-⁠person plan, even though they share four machines. (On ours, a machine everyone uses with one shared login counts as one user plus the device.) A per-⁠device quote only has to come in under three times our per-⁠user rate to be cheaper. Shift work, a shared front desk and a shop floor all look like this. Remember that Microsoft 365 still needs a license for each person.

Office C turns the other way. Forty computers on a per-⁠device quote cost forty device rates, so it has to come in under half the per-⁠user rate just to match the plan rate. On our plan the second computer is not free: it is a separate line, priced lower than the plan rate and published on our pricing page, so the true break-⁠even sits well above the figure in the table. Phones and tablets work the same way: on a per-⁠device quote each one is another device, and on ours each is a separate, lower line.

4. Before you compare two quotes

The unit price is not the monthly total. Count your office first:

1. People, including part-⁠time staff who sign in.
2. Computers, including second laptops, home desktops and machines nobody signs in to, such as a display or an equipment controller.
3. Phones and tablets that reach company email or files.
4. Servers and network equipment: firewalls, switches, Wi-⁠Fi access points, battery backups, storage and printers.

Then ask every provider the same questions:

• Which of those counts is a separate line: each computer, each mailbox, each server, each firewall and switch?
• Is the security stack (endpoint detection and response, or EDR, which watches each computer for attack behavior; email security; backup) included, or priced on top “as needed”?
• Is there a monthly minimum? A minimum raises the real per-⁠person cost for a small office.
• What do on-⁠site visits and after-⁠hours work cost?

Put both answers on one page of arithmetic for your actual counts. If a quote cannot be turned into a monthly total without a meeting, that tells you something too.

Where we fit

We price per person because, when each person works at their own computer all day, one number per person is the simplest bill to check. Core IT is $125 per user per month and Secure IT is $250. Each covers a person, the computer they work on, their mailbox and everyday peripherals, plus management of one firewall, internet circuit, network switch, Wi-⁠Fi access point and battery backup at every location. A server at your premises carries the same rate as a person, because it takes comparable work to manage. Every other device and service line has its own published rate. There is no minimum, and ten people on Core IT is $1,250 a month.

If your office looks like Office B, tell us on the first call. If a per-⁠device provider is the better fit for you, we will tell you so. The calculator on our pricing page prices your exact counts without asking for an email address, and our Orange County managed IT cost guide shows the lines that make two quotes at the same unit price come out different.

Sources: Microsoft Learn, Understand subscriptions and licenses in Microsoft 365 for business · Microsoft Learn, Overview of shared computer activation for Microsoft 365 Apps · Microsoft Learn, Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for Windows 10 · CRC Cloud figures from our published rate card. Checked November 11, 2026.